July 15, 2003 – By: Jon CaramanicaIt’s Nelly vs. Spin in an NBA Street Vol. 2showdown! Insert your favorite heat-related metaphor here Though he may have been a top baseball prospect before he finished high school, Nelly didn't look like someone who could dribble circles around us on the basketball court. So we thought we'd have a chance against the St. Louis dirty in a best-of-three competition in NBA Street Vol. 2, EA Sports BIG's sequel to its back-alley b-baller, which features Nelly and his St. Lunatics crew as playable characters. The rapper, however, proved a formidable opponent, playing aggressive defense and elegant offense. So we cheated, forcing Nelly to play as the St. Lunatics team while Spin summoned a triumvirate of NBA legends: Michael Jordan (circa 1985), Darryl "Chocolate Thunder" Dawkins, and Julius "Dr. J" Erving.

July 15, 2003 – By: Chuck KlostermanIn 1993, Liz Phair released Exile in Guyville--one of themost artistically brilliant, sexually confrontational rock albumsof all time. Today, she's fighting for her career and trying tofigure out what the hell to do next Ten years ago, no one embodied postfeminism better than Liz Phair. 1993's Exile in Guyville--arguably the most important record by a female singer/songwriter since Patti Smith's Horses--reinvented the landscape of rock sexuality; Phair's songs were indie-rock letter bombs, full of relationship trash talk, messy vulnerability, and foul-mouthed come-ons. For a moment, it looked like Phair was going to change the way rock fans thought about everything--especially what it means to be a female singer/songwriter. Unfortunately, this did not happen. Phair's next two records met with mixed response from audiences and critics.

July 15, 2003 – By: Andrew BeaujonOklahoma rockers the All-American Rejects have gone from playingall-ages punk shows to hitting it big on MTV and hanging out withmodels. Here’s what happens when emo goes on spring break There will be a "sexy fashion show" tonight. All raging alcoholics are ordered to report to the bar, where the "love bucket-64 ounces of pure alcohol" is on sale. If you do not have a drink in your hand, you are not on spring break. Such is the kind of announcement blasting through the relative noontime quiet of Panama City Beach, Florida. The skinny Oklahomans in the All-American Rejects look very out of place in that they're wearing clothes and are not well ontheir way to getting completely trashed.

July 15, 2003 – By: Jon DolanIf you weren't aware that the tenth anniversary of Pavement'sidyllic indie-rock masterpiece Slanted & Enchanted isupon us, don't worry. There was no VH1 special, no bank holiday, nolegal battle over the master tapes--just a richly appointedreissue. In a way, it's the kind of enthused yet low-key fanfarethat this grad-school Nevermind demands: A decade later,Slanted still feels more like a shared secret than acultural revolution. Its anniversary is a mini Big Chill fora generation that never quite got theirs. If you weren't aware that the tenth anniversary of Pavement's idyllic indie-rock masterpiece Slanted & Enchanted is upon us, don't worry. There was no VH1 special, no bank holiday, no legal battle over the master tapes--just a richly appointed reissue.

July 15, 2003 – By: Greg MilnerFrom punk-rock messiahs to Middle Eastern mystics, EddieVedder's musical heroes are just as intense and difficult as heis "I know I was born, and I know I'll die / the in-between is mine," Eddie Vedder sings on Riot Act, Pearl Jam's recently released seventh album. From his earliest days, Vedder's in-between has been filled with music, from the dynamic voice of the young Michael Jackson to the world-weary growl of the eternally old Tom Waits. Somehow, Vedder's lifelong passion for music has landed him in the position he's in today: sitting on the terrace of a New York City hotel's penthouse suite on a windy fall day, chain-smoking and sketching the arc of his life through the records that have moved him the most. Holding his head in his hands, he looks skeptically at a list he's spent a week preparing, filling the pages of a black compositionbook.

July 11, 2003 – Discerning rock fans seeking (extremely) serious relationship with band of brainy superheroes. Must like long vowels and Aphex Twin; must fear bears, cyborgs, and meeting people. No Republicans, please. Pablo Honey (Capitol, 1993)A paltry debut that barely hints at the band's untapped potential, as Yorke's effervescent tenor is elbowed aside by guitars that mostly chase their own tails. Things perk up a little in act three: "Prove Yourself" and "I Can't" are smarter and thornier than the '90s alt-rock radio fave "Creep." The Bends (Capitol, 1995)An Incredible Hulk-grade growth spurt. Jonny Greenwood leads a three-guitar assault on a world where everybody's melancholy, everything's broken, and even the trees are fake. Overflows with mini-epiphanies (title track, "Just") and concludes with a foreboding dare: "This machine will not communicate these thoughts." It will, children.

July 11, 2003 – By: Matthew WebberThe MachineB.B. King Blues Club & GrillNew YorkJune 28 Pink Floyd released their seminal ode to lunar eclipses and lunatics, Dark Side of the Moon, 30 years ago. That's about a decade before most fans at a recent show by the Machine, an East Coast-based Pink Floyd tribute band, were born. Most attendees didn't appear old enough to have seen The Wall in theatres or to remember when former Floyd frontman Roger Waters and guitarist Dave Gilmour were on speaking terms. Some of the male members of the audience didn't appear old enough to shave. But when the houselights went out and the shrill alarm clocks on Pink Floyd's Dark Side classic "Time" rang out, adults and youngsters alike looked ready to party like it was 1979. The Machine look nothing like Pink Floyd, but that doesn't matter--they sound exactly like Pink Floyd, and that's what counts.

July 10, 2003 – By: Sarah LewitinnMichelle Branch grows up, grows hair She studies the Cabala, obsesses over British men, and curses up a storm. No, we're not talking about Madonna, but Michelle Branch, the talented 19-year-old singer/songwriter who saved Madge's label, Maverick, by shifting two million copies of her 2001 debut, The Spirit Room. That album spawned three hit singles (including the aptly titled "Everywhere"), which led to a high-profile collaboration with mustachioed shaman Carlos Santana and a 2003 Grammy nomination for Best New Artist. Now Branch is busting out the autobiographically rockin' Hotel Paper. We hung out with her at a New York City hotel and giggled over her epic crush on Ewan McGregor and how excited she is to be old enough to buy porn. Didn't you start writing songs at a really young age? I wrote most of The Spirit Room when I was 14; by the time it came out, I was 17.

July 10, 2003 – By: Christopher HandysideThe White StripesScottish Rite Cathedral,Masonic TempleDetroitApril 15, 2003 The White Stripes kicked off a two-night homecoming stand in the heart of Detroit's seedy, storied Cass Corridor. You'd think, with all the mainstream media exposure the band have brought upon Detroit's tiny garage-rock scene, that no self-respecting hipster would've been caught within ten blocks of the place.

July 10, 2003 – By: Caryn GanzMeet the speediest, scariest female shredder of all time Each year, New York's famed Juilliard School churns out dozens of concert violinists. Some of these hardworking musicians go on to play in orchestras. Others become music teachers. But only one grad has mutated into the Great Kat: a camouflage-bikini-wearing, slave-commanding, blood-spitting dominatrix whom Guitar One magazine has named one of the ten fastest guitar shredders of all time--an honor she shares with speed demons such as Buckethead and Yngwie Malmsteen. "I'm No. 10, but I'm faster than those shitheads!" Kat loudly proclaims. "That's why I'm God!" For more than ten years, the Great Kat has been promoting shred/classical--a genre of her own invention--via a blitzkrieg of mostly self-released records that update classical music for a generation accustomed to high-speed-Internet velocity.