Pretty cool, huh?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

How ’bout a little Nirvana with your happy hour? World Cafe Live is screening the new Nirvana concert DVD Live At Reading for free today from 5-7 p.m. They’re also giving away T-shirts, CDs, and tickets (to what we’re not sure, but it might be worth finding out). The happy hour drinks aren’t free, though. But there’s enough of a chill in the air to don some flannel, head over to WCL, and reminisce about your teenage grunge years while watching Kurt and company trash an English stage. Here’s part of a cool write-up about the DVD on LeedsMusicScene.net:

Along with the ‘Unplugged In New York’ concert of 1993, this headline festival showcase of brilliance is the most career-defining moment of Nirvana’s tragically short existence. With ‘Nevermind’ released one year previously, taking not just the rock world by storm, but really breaking into mainstream consciousness, the Seattle grungers had the universe in the palm of their hand. If this were U2, Bono would have been beamed on to the stage from a multi-billion pound Independence Day style mother ship. Cobain, Novoselic and Grohl, however, are incapable of such pretentiousness. There’s no massive backdrop with ‘Nirvana’ in sixty foot letters, there’s no freshly laundered towels arranged in neat piles with ice cold bottles of Evian on hand, there’s no projection screens, pyrotechnics, fireworks, orchestras or gospel singers. There are just three guys, thrashing the living daylights out of three instruments, and the effect is mind-blowing.

Wu-Tang Clan charter member Raekwon drops by First Unitarian Church behind his new album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… Pt. II, with Philly’s own Reef the Lost Cauze opening [8pm/$15]; roots combo Cornmeal headlines World Cafe Live along with the Bridge [8:30pm/$14-$21]; and the Khyber hosts an evening of local alt-hip-hop with Super Galactic Expansive, Baffle the Cat, the Mighty Paradocs, and Blame the Kid [8pm/$8].

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you’ve been holding out hope that one day Philly rap icons DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince will reunite, well … it probably won’t happen, but not without both parties trying. Jeff tells HipHopWired.com that he and Will Smith have made several attempts to do a proper reunion in recent years, but Smith’s film career continues to get in the way:

“I think that a lot of the movie people hate when I come around because they know that I’m going to try to twist his arm to do some music. It’s hard. He really wants to do it, but being one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, we’ll talk about ‘Oh man, we wanna do this tour and go here’ and then he’ll call me and say ‘Hey, guess what? I was nominated for an Oscar.’ It’s kinda like, ehh so much for the tour.”

Not that it really matters since Aerosmith has been shit for at least two decades now (probably more), but frontman Steven Tyler has apparently quit the band. At least that’s what guitarist Joe Perry says:

“Right now I’m adjusting to how we’re going to go on,” Perry explained. “Aerosmith is such a powerful band, I mean it’s like a steam locomotive. You just can’t disregard 40 years of four guys who play together as well as they do.

“As far as replacing Steve, it’s not just about that, it’s also four guys that play extremely well together, and I’m not going to see that go to waste. I really don’t know what path it’s going to take at this point, but we’ll probably find somebody else that will sing in those spots where we need a singer.”

We certainly live in an age where replacing the iconic frontman (alive or dead) is commonplace, and people will still shell out good money to see these re-tooled dinosaurs play live. So who should replace Steven Tyler? Some options:

Gary Cherone (it worked so well with Van Halen.)

Robert Plant (he doesn’t want to tour with Led Zeppelin, but what about the “American Led Zeppelin”?)

Liam Gallagher (he’s currently out of work; plus, it’d be funny to watch Joe Perry kick his ass instead of Noel.)

Shane MacGowan (makes Steven Tyler’s excesses seem as harmless as a Jonas brother.)

And our pick:

Former MTV VJ and “rocker” Jesse Camp (the has-beens in Aerosmith deserve this has-been/never-was.)

Whether you’re going to the show or just listening on the radio, you should expect a nice long evening of music — in yesterday’s glowing New York Times review of the group’s gig on Friday up in Manhattan, critic Jon Pareles noted that the show lasted three hours. Here’s more of what he had to write:

Monsters of Folk are all roots-rockers, a convenient catchall that encompasses quiet acoustic fingerpicking, country shuffles, tambourine-tapping gospel, quasi-soul ballads and full-tilt, guitar-wringing folk-rock. They hark back to the ’60s of Bob Dylan, the Band and the Rolling Stones, and occasionally to the ’70s of Curtis Mayfield and Neil Young.

Monsters of Folk is a band of philosophers. Its songs don’t tell stories or profess love; they ponder existential questions. Mr. James considered God in songs like Monsters of Folk’s “Dear God (Sincerly M.O.F.)” and My Morning Jacket’s “Smokin’ From Shootin’ ”; Mr. Oberst drew proverbs from gritty details in Monsters of Folk’s “Man Named Truth” and Bright Eyes’ “Hit the Switch.” Mr. Ward hinted at folk wisdom in his “Chinese Translation” and mocked duplicity in Monsters of Folk’s “Good Way.”

They sang together, in solos and duos, and in other permutations, sharing one another’s songs. They harmonized Mr. Ward’s gruffness with Mr. Oberst’s quivery blurt and Mr. James’s keening falsetto. They simulated one another’s bands, recreating the country-rock stomp of Bright Eyes and the billowing guitars of My Morning Jacket. Mr. Ward played intricate solo ragtime guitar or pounded rock ’n’ roll chords on an upright piano; the self-effacing Mr. Mogis infused songs with mandolin, pedal steel guitar and dobro. The long set, interspersing songs from “Monsters of Folk” (Shangri-La Music) with material from the members’ own albums, didn’t begin to exhaust their repertories.