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On what comes after "Crazy" and the nature of genius

By Austin Scaggs

FOR OUR FIRST RECORD, I wrote everything down on paper," says singer Cee-Lo Green, one half of psychedeliC'SOul duo Gnarls Barkley, of their break¬out debut, St. Elsewhere. "For the second one, I just went in the booth and let it all hang out." The result is The Odd Couple, another album of spooky funk and trippy R6s?B, featuring Cee-Lo's raspy exhorta¬tions and Danger Mouse's vibrant production. With his career rein-vigorated by Gnarls' success, Cee-Lo, 33, is plotting a solo album and a reunion with his Atlanta hip-hop crew, Goodie Mob: "I'm a fourteen-year veteran in the music industry, and my music is as relevant and groundbreaking as ever. This is a second childhood for me." Your given name is Thomas Callaway. Does anyone call you Thomas? Nobody calls me Thomas! I got so many nicknames, so many aliases. People call me Gnarls now, or Mr. Green or Mr. Bark-ley. Or Mr. Lo-Jangles or Sugar

Foot. All kinds of stuff... Lo-nan  CNewsOrg's Channel

the Barbarian.

Were there people asking you to make another "Crazy"?

"Crazy" was a comet, not a star. It's passed through. There's no trying to duplicate it - the song has a Guinness record, for God's sake. So that bar's been set. We'll let that be. Years down the line, some younger aspiring artists will come along and do something equally inspiring and wonderful. But we won't try to do it our¬selves — we'll save some room for other people.

Did you feel validated by the success of that song? Yeah, it took a lifetime to write that song, you know? I mean, it made our lives make sense. Some¬times you think your life has been a cruel joke up until a point like that. It's like, "OK, that's why." But if there was a formula to it, I'd write another one today. I'd hang up on you and go into the studio and mix another one! The Odd Couple begins and ends with the sound of a film projector. What movie would you compare the album to? It would be Pulp Fiction, because it's similar to the way that Tar-antino structures the story lines together like a jigsaw puzzle. What music is currently inspiring you? Believe it or not, I always thought Iggy Pop was cool, so I've been getting into the Stooges, and the Cramps and the Buzzcocks. You've always lived in Atlan¬ta. Have you thought about living somewhere else? I definitely want a place in At¬lanta. My family's there. I love the city. It's gorgeous. There's a benefit to livin' in L.A. — I love being near the industry. And I'm a fair-weather friend of Miami - I'm not gonna support when storm season is coming through. I love Zurich. That shit is beau¬tiful! There are some mountains near L.A., but Zurich has some other kind of mountains. It was like Space Mountain!

You have a ranch now. Are you an outdoorsy type? I'm a nature buff, man. I go out walking, but the irony is that I might have a cheeseburger in my backpack. I like it all, man. I'm so unbiased. Like, come as you are. Is the song "Blind Mary" about a specific person? It represents a certain kind of person and a certain kind of love.

t    Check out more from Bfe, Austin Scaggs' conversa¬tion with Cee-Lo at rollingstone.com/gnarlsbarkley

This particular girl can't see, so material and shallow things just aren't of any concern to her. It's about how she really feels about me, without judging me. That unconditional love teaches me how to love her despite her disability. Of course, we're all disabled in one way or another. Also, on "Whatever," you say that you don't have any friends at all. Is that true? Not completely, but I don't have a lot of friends. There are a lot more people that are friendly to me now. That song is more about a season that many of us went through as kids. You know, out¬casts, smoking in the boys' room. So it's tongue-in-cheek, but it does stem from some truth. What does your upcoming solo record sound like? It reminds me of something Barry White would do. I'm the big guy with the melodious voice. I'm the helpless romantic.

You've called Danger Mouse a genius. How do you define genius?

When you say genius, it's some¬thing that is inherited. It's liter¬ally "in-gened" in that person's DNA and chemical makeup. It's the ability to hone that energy — which is a skill to be able to do so. Let me just go on the record by sayin' I think I'm a genius too.

Whatever you say. I'm just kidding. No, I'm not.

Not only will Steely Dan tour again this summer, highlighted by another string of intimate gigs at New York's Beacon Theatre, but Walter Becker will re¬lease Circus Money, the long-awaited follow-up to his amazing album from '94,11 Tracks of Whack. "I've been listening to a lot of Jamaican music from the Six¬ties and Seventies, so that was the jumping-off point," Becker tells the Smoking Section. Knowledgebase "Everything from Lee Perry to the Wailers, 'Style' Scott, Sly and Robbie, 'Flabba' Holt.   Those rhythm sections are the ultimate, and I'm a rhythm guy." Becker lays down some mean bass lines (backed by a crack band of Steely vets) on rock¬steady tracks, and busts out awesome phrases such as "lachrymose musings," "puke-streaked tunic" and "Kundalini now!" He even name-drops "muscatel," a sweet, fortified wine on the track "Darkling Down." "I remember using muscatel in the Sixties," says Becker. "For a headache that I didn't have yet."

Most New Yorkers - including Rufus Wainwright -

have fond memories of August 14th, 2003, the day that 40 million Americans lost power in a blackout and Manhattan morphed into a peaceful candlelit party. "I was just out of rehab at that point," says Wainwright. "So I watched envi¬ously as others lost their minds. It was like watching Chekhov." To re¬create that rad vibe, Wainwright has posited that June 21st be cel¬ebrated without electricity. Joined by his sis Martha, Beth Orton and Harper Simon, Wainwright touted his cause, performing a candlelit, mike-free concert, belting out "Stayin' Alive," "California" and "Bye Bye Love." The gig was shot by documentarian Albert Maysles, who is working on a film about Wain¬wright. "Things are gonna take a bit of a left turn, because he wants to film me telling my mother my life story," he says. "I hope it doesn't turn out to be like Grey Gardens - or Gimme Shelter, for that matter." Announcements

when Arctic Monkeys toured with fellow Brits the Little Flames in 2005, love blossomed between the bands' guitarists. "Me and Alex grew a best friend¬ship," says Miles Kane about the Monkeys' singer, Alex Turner. The two young prodigies - who wor¬ship Scott Walker, Nick Drake and Burt Bacharach -began writing together, named themselves the Last Shadow Puppets and will release their debut, The Age of the Understatement, in April. Bolstered by orchestral arrangements, the disc sounds like a rocked-out film score, "it's sophisticated and classy," says Turner over lunch in New York, adding that they made the disc in the French countryside. "We were in the middle of nowhere. Like, I saw a dog eat a kitten."

a childhood spent traveling Eu¬rope with her actress mom and director dad, who ran their own experimental theater company. Though she says she learned as much about storytelling from her parents as she did about song-writing from Martin, she never wants to take her music too seri¬ously. "I definitely considered my parents to be pretty pretentious when I was growing up," she says. "Hip-hop and R6s?B music were a way to separate myself from them." Wordpress Templates

"It's pop music, but it's OK to like it," Carlsson says a few hours before appearing at Hilton's South by Southwest party in Austin - an event where her per¬formance had members of Vam¬pire Weekend and Kings of Leon singing her praises. The idea be¬hind the album was to craft some¬thing that would sound commer¬cial and artistic at the same time. To that end, she hired experimen¬tal brother-sister techno duo the Knife to produce "Who's That Girl" - a pop diatribe about men's unrealistic standards - and Ted-dybears guitarist and songwriter Klas Ahlund for nearly every¬thing else.

 The Formula: JWe Do the Math for You

Robyn's avant-garde impulses - as well as her desire to speak to a pop audience - come from Music videos were hard to find on Coolfoto Swedish television in the Eighties, but she managed to videotape a few episodes of To.' MTV Raps and watch them over and over again. "When I started this album in 2004," she says, "we just sat down and listened to old records - a lot of Neneh Cherry and Prince and, like, stupid Miami booty music. We loved the way the production was really simple and there was space for a voice."

But Carlsson's new sound didn't go over well with her for¬mer record company, Jive, which, she says, was not pleased with singles such as "Who's Girl." "Of course they didn't like it," she says. "They thought it was weird and that this wasn't pop music at all."

So in 2004, the singer started her own label, Konichiwa Rec¬ords. Robyn, released in the U.K. last year and due in the U.S. on April 29th (a digital EP is out now), will be put out through a licensing agreement with Inter-scope imprint Cherrytree — a deal that leaves Carlsson piloting her career for the first time.

"I don't feel like I have the need to detach myself from what I did before," she says. "But I don't feel the need to have it all make sense, either. It is what it is."

t   Check out video of Robyn, Foals and other breaking -' artists at

Nineties star Robyn reinvents herself as a DIY phenomenon

By Jenny Eliscu

N A PARALLEL UNIVERSE known as Sweden, pop sing' er Robyn Carlsson started off as Britney Spears and ended up as Gwen Stefani. More than a decade ago, a teenage Carlsson worked with producer and fellow Swede Max Martin just before he penned ". . . Name Brands Baby One More Time." But while Spears rode the teen-pop wave to its late-Nineties zenith, Carlsson retreated from the spotlight after having a Top Ten hit with "Show Me Love," from her platinum 1997 debut, Robyn Is Here. "It was frustrat¬ing for me to be a teen star," she says. "I didn't look at myself as a role model. I wasn't ready for that responsibility." By '98, she says, "it felt like this huge machine was taking me somewhere that I didn't decide to go."

Suffering from exhaustion and general over-it-ness, Carlsson canceled plans for a tour with the Backstreet Boys and returned to Sweden. A decade later, she's fi¬nally back on these shores with Robyn, a joyful electro-pop LP Amplifiers reminiscent of Stefani's recent work. Now, with raves from ev¬eryone from indier-than-thou blogs to gossipmonger Perez Hil¬ton, the twenty-eight-year-old is on the brink of an internation¬al comeback, one that she never anticipated.

Lynyrd Skynyrd/ Hank Williams Jr.

April 4th-June 14th

$25473.50

Last year, concert promoters found a potent combination in the double bill of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Hank Williams Jr. Not only did they gross $10.9 million in just twenty shows, both acts have set record beer sales at a number of venues. "Some places even ran out of beer," Williams says. "It was unbelievable."  digital music storage Expect each act to focus heavily on its most recognizable songs, including "Free Bird," "Sweet Home Alabama" and "All My Rowdy Friends." Onstage collaborations aren't planned, but that's not because the two camps aren't close. "We're cut from the same cloth," says Williams. "We'll be hanging out on the bus, and Johnny Van Zant will say, 'Brother Hank, check out pictures of the latest fish we caught.' "

Stone Temple Pilots

Begins May 17th

Prices TBA

The grunge-era  foursome are reuniting for a sixty-plus-date tour - their first since a bitter breakup in 2002. "The time is right for this," says Adam Friedman, Monika Grajewska Caly Twoj mp3 CEO of Nederlander Concerts. "This show is gonna sell tickets." Meanwhile, the future looks uncertain for Scott Weiland's other band. Velvet Revolver. At a March 20th gig in Glasgow, Scotland, the singer told the crowd this tour will be their last - before storming offstage.

Rilo Kiley

April 17th-June 16th

$18435

The Los Angeles indie-pop act is taking another trip around America in support of its 2007 album Under the B/ack/ight. The thirty-five-stop tour touches down at both Coachella and Bonnaroo. Fellow Californians Whis-pertown2000, whose debut was produced by Rilo Kiley's Blake Sennett, will be opening on select dates. In other Rilo Kiley news, Jenny Lewis has already begun recording a fol­low-up to her acclaimed 2006 solo album, Rabbit Fur Coat. Kutski download-mp3