On its early single, "Dead Plane," the local avant-punk group No Age told a foe that "I don't want to fight you." The band unfortunately didn't get that option Tuesday night on tour in Lisbon, where according to the band's blog, a group of bouncers jumped two members and friend after they tried to enter a nightclub.

The band tells it like this -- Singer/drummer Dean Spunt tried to get into a Lisbon nightspot, only to be told at the door that the club didn't want any "English" inside. Spunt tried to talk to the doorman, when bouncers descended and did a number on him, keyboardist William Kai Strangeland Menchaca and sound tech Scott Cornish.

The band has photos of the aftermath. All at Pop & Hiss wish them a speedy recovery and hope they'll use these photos on a flier someday.  

-- August Brown

Photo: Dean Spunt. Credit: No Age

Have you, as a listener, been suffering under the influence of Jazz Nerds International?

Jazz critic and blogger for the Ottawa Citizen Peter Hum wrote a terrific post Thursday on the latest installment in what's become known as "the jazz wars," a long-running culture clash pitting the music's traditionalists -- personified by nearly any member of the gifted Marsalis family -- versus what could be considered jazz's new guard.

A little background: This new guard encompasses some of the most acclaimed, adventurous artists in jazz today -- Christian Scott, the Bad Plus, Vijay Iyer and the Claudia Quintet, just to name a few who have been featured in this space -- as well as anyone who followed in the footsteps of late-period John Coltrane and "Bitches Brew"-era Miles Davis. A hardcore traditionalist would argue that these musicians, though talented, may be playing interesting music but it's certainly not jazz.

Recently examined in the documentary "Icons Among Us," there's a lot of remarkable stuff going on in modern jazz that incorporates influences from across the musical spectrum, stretching into odd time signatures and generally treating jazz as the boundlessly creative, free-thinking genre it is. While on the opposite side, the traditionalists argue that truest form of jazz involves all-acoustic instruments, a swinging rhythm section and, if possible, some really sharp suits.

In the video posted on Hum's blog (and after the jump), drummer Jason Marsalis offers an amusing warning against "Jazz Nerds International," his term for young musicians who have a "selfish" view of jazz, eschewing the standards of the genre in favor of "abstract solos" and odd-metered straight rhythms. The end result, in Marsalis' view, is music that alienates its audience and exists only for the appreciation of fellow musicians.

Never one to put her poison pen down for long, the agit-pop rapper M.I.A. has turned her ire toward Lady Gaga in a recent NME interview (unfortunately, unavailable in original form online). In it, she tosses off probably the best one-line takedown of Gaga yet put to print.

How important are image and visuals to your music?

Very. But it’s not like “Haus of Gaga” (laughs). Me blindfolded with naked men feeding me apples and ....

It comes as part of a longer, must-read ethering centered around  a popular criticism of Gaga’s music: that her fashion sense seems to far exceed her songs in terms of future-thinking ambition. 

“None of her music’s reflective of how weird she wants to be or thinks she is. She models herself on Grace Jones and Madonna, but the music sounds like 20-year-old Ibiza music, you know? She’s not progressive, but she’s a good mimic…. That’s a talent and she’s got a great team behind her, but she’s the industry's last stab at making itself important - saying, ‘You need our money behind you, the endorsements, the stadiums.’ Respect to her, she’s keeping a hundred thousand people in work, but my belief is: Do It Yourself.”

In New York magazine’s earlier, fantastic profile of Gaga, one of the more intriguing subplots is how much shape-shifting Gaga went through to become a star known for morphing – from grungy rocker to drum-machine-driven hope of Def Jam to the kind of arena-trance pop that finally clicked. The story suggests that the whole point of Gaga is that others project ideas onto her charisma and taste, but that her charisma and taste are as flexible as her desire for fame and influence requires.