Smash Your Head on the Hip-Hop? "Hip-Hop" is the new "Punk Rock", "Bisexual" is the new "Gay", and "Midtown Memphis" is the new "Midtown Memphis".

Evening two of the last weekend in January should've been some sort of revelatory experience. After all, things are moving fast in this new year. Well, guess what people? January might have come in like a bum at the Mapco on Jackson, but that motherfucker went out like the party you used to dream about having in high school. So much happened yesterday, it's a little hard to pump out the words to accurately depict the events of the evening -- however, I will certainly give it the old college try since you've been kind enough to actually read this much.

The evening began at Midnight. Yes, I am totally serious, things did not even begin until Midnight last night, mostly because I was exhausted and napping. Rachel, Helen, Jason and myself departed the Vinsims residence headed for what Jason kept referring to as "some old school punk rock yard party". This kinda upset me because just the night before, we had done the punk rock dance party. I love punk rock, I love dance parties, but I don't love them two nights in a row all the time. See, I happen to be an adult now with a life and responsibilites to other people. I can't show up in my life with two teeth missing and a black eye because I decided to go cruster for a night.

The party was actually Midtown's welcome home party for Jeremiah Trotter, someone whom I can't say that I even remember, though after seeing him I knew we had met somewhere along the way at some hardcore show. On the drive to the party, I began feeling this sickening panic, fearful (thanks to DJ Ron Dezvous a.k.a. Jason running his yap at me) I would be slipping and sliding through crusterville once more, twisting to records by Cop Out and Man With Gun Lives Here in a mud pit in the backyard. I hadn't really revisited that era of my life in a while, so I figured tonight was as good of a night as any. Unfortunately, I thought, I just put on my dopest old school Nike's for this party. I'm so screwed.

To make matters more bizarre, Rachel had come to the plate with a 12-pack of Miller High Life Light (yeah, I know...Light?!?!), proving once and for all that hipster beer can taste great and be less filling. I was rolling deep with my crazy double sized energy drink that tasted like a warm Orange that someone poured cough syrup into.

As we are pulling up, I get a knot in my stomach. Suddenly I just don't want to be there at all. I don't want to hear punk rock, I want my mommy.

We get to the party and lo and behold, half of the music community of Midtown is rubbing up in the joint. Lauren, Brooke, and Aurora are right up front dancing, and I see practically every bloody hipster in the tri-street region getting ripped on the free kegs. Aaron is at the turntables, and the second we walk in he was throwing down some totally crazy old school, bumping-assed hip hop track. Immediately, I dropped my guard, shot Dezvous a look that said, "Is this the right party?" and proceeded to get into the mix!

In the many hours of partygoing, the crowd increased by twofold. The otherwise roomy house suddenly became a complex maze of drunken, dancing Jescos and Janes wearing some kick-assed Luchadero masks. The music was obviously put together by people who loved music, because all three DJ's spun a wide mix. I heard everything from Aretha Franklin and Al Green to some ESG, The Sweet singing "Little Willy", and back into a few really cool tracks I'd never heard before. Eventually, that compacted itself into a brief full-blown 1980's extravaganza, complete with The Cure, The Cars, Blondie, Gary Numan, and what appeared to be the climactic moment -- the entire jam-packed house singing along and dancing as Queen & David Bowie's "Under Pressure" skipped on the turntable from all the dancing.

Amongst the singers and partygoers, Greg Faison, my buddy Darren O'Brien (complete with cigarette burn scar on his face, sorry bud), Scotty "Too Hotty", Jeanine, Aaron, Lunchbox, Jordan, Corey Welch, Jeff Hulett and Brad Postlethwaite (of Snowglobe), Tommy Pappas (from The Glass), Nick Ray (from Viva L'American Death Ray and The Limes), so many beautiful girls I couldn't keep track of names (Emily? Sarah? Lindsay? oy..), and John, a known heterosexual who came to the party fully dressed but, within moments of arriving, was being undressed by another man who nearly got all of his clothes off before the joke was ended. We saw your "turtleneck", John. Nothing to be ashamed of, but I want the dollar back that I stuffed down your boxers, k?

Right about that time, Mark Richens rolled up in that piece with Jill from Nashville. Poor Mark had just gotten off work, which meant he would have to play catch-up with all the drunks spinning the bottle and dropping trou. I reminded him that you don't need alcohol to have a good time all the time, after all, I said, I do fine without it. Nevertheless, Miller High Life Light was in full effect mode like some Al B. Sure record that kept skipping whenever people would put down their good foot.

That would have been enough excitement for one evening had the vibe not suddenly turned distinctly more hip hop (or should I say hip-pop) when Aaron decided to bust out the jams. Like some crazy house party in Compton that all the white kids decided to crash, the speakers were cranking out tracks from Snoop Doggy Dogg, Notorious B.I.G., Puff Daddy and Ma$e, Wu-Tang Clan, Eightball and MJG, Shawty, Jay-Z, Ludacris, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Cam'ron, Doctor Dre, and Digital Underground. Dig if you will the picture of an entire house full of punk rockers and hipsters singing along to every song and quoting everything word for word. My mind, folks, has officially and unmistakeably been blown once and for all time.

It was at that time that I decided hip-hop was the new punk rock here in Memphis, and there were none more in the groove than the people I knew all along.

Somewhere in the 3:45 a.m. region, the Al Chemical Rhyme Circus bus (with Helen driving) rolled out of South-South Midtown and headed to XY&Z to check out Buck Wilders and the Hook-up. Any time these guys are spinning, I am there. They are always spinning songs that only people who dig for records would know, and last night was no exception. Some folks had trickled over to XY&Z from Goner Fest, others from the party we had just left. After an hour or so of switching up grooves, waiting for food that never came ("kitchen's closed"), and watching the parade of punk rock prime rib and porterhouse steak trying to pretend they were briskets and ribeyes, it was time to head home.

Be sure and stop by Rachel's blog to see a few pictures from the evening, including one of yours truly pimping the Lucha Libre style.