The Today Show gave Watch Hill and Westerly a boost in this morning’s travel segment — Summer Getaways Off the Beaten Path. In mentioning his connections here Matt Lauer declared Rhode Island to be “a wonderful state”. Thanks, we need all the help we can get.

Good news for Sigur Ros fans, frontman Jon Thor Birgisson — now recording as Jonsi — has launched an international tour in support of his new solo album ‘Go’. Imagine how surprised the Jonsi fans will be to find out he doesn’t have the highest voice in the show. None other than Rhode Island’s own Death Vessel (Sub Pop) is the opening act on the extensive North American leg of the tour, with vocalist Joel Thibodeau hitting the high notes. I heard him for the first time last October at the Avon show and this guy sings in a register somewhere above little girl bats, and it seems a sure thing that Sigur Ros fans will be receptive. This is a huge deal and could mean big things career-wise for Joel, who by all accounts is a super nice person. (photo credit: s fradella)

Click to hear ‘Go’. There’s a lot to like, but really play Animal Arithmetic.

It’s always nice to have some live music mid-week. Surprise Me Mr. Davis are touring in support of their new EP That Man Eats Morning For Breakfast and will hit Firehouse 13, this Thursday, April 15th which is not tax day in Rhode Island. Good timing guys. The core of this band is The Slip which has deep RI roots. Chris Conti wrote ‘em up in The Phoenix.

The Slip have been a fixture on the jam band scene for 15 years. Over the past six years, the Slip’s core members — bassist Marc Friedman, guitarist Brad Barr, and his brother Andrew behind the kit — along with pianist Marco Benevento and singer/songwriter Nathan Moore occasionally whip up a little something on the side they like to call Surprise Me Mr. Davis.

(photo credit: joe mozdzen)

Doors 8pm, show 9pm, $17 advance, $20 day-of, all ages, Thursday, Firehouse 13, 41 Central Street, 270.1801

A highly scientific survey from the Daily Beast has us the third-craziest town in the country:

#3, Providence

Psychiatrists per capita: 6
Stress: 38
Eccentricity: 21
Drinking: 7

Come to Books on the Square for a reading and book signing of Xombies: Apocalypticon, the second in Walter Greatshell’s popular Xombie series. Providence resident Greatshell placed the action of the first book, Xombies: Apocalypse Blues, right here in Rhode Island. It looks like the next installment may play out on a wider stage.

XOMBIES: APOCALYPTICON is the continuing saga of the USS No-Name, an Ohio-Class submarine converted to a refugee vessel during the worldwide plague of “Agent X”–a disease that changes women into raving, homicidal Typhoid Marys.

Leading the fight to survive are Dr. Alice Langhorne, whose research helped spawn the plague; Commander Harvey Coombs, Navy captain minus a navy; Sal DeLuca, BMX champ facing the ultimate Xtreme sport; and troubled teenager Lulu Pangloss, who died and was born again.

Not to mention the ‘yoga-crazed prison convicts’. This is your opportunity to meet Mr. Greatshell, and tell him about that anachronism you discovered in the third paragraph on page 138 where the girl says that thing to that guy . . . he would actually respect something like that.

7pm, Saturday, Books on the Square, 471 Angell Street, 331.9097

Barack Obama has an eye for talent—and it’s pointed at Rhode Island.

This weekend, Obama appointed Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri to the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, which describes its mission as connecting people through various arts and cultural tourism.  Lahiri joins five other PCAH committee appointees, including visual artist Chuck Close, BET co-founder Sheila Johnson, and Ken Solomon, CEO of the Tennis Channel.

Lahiri, whose novels and short story collections include The Namesake, Interpreter of Maladies and Unaccustomed Earth, moved to Rhode Island as a toddler and graduated from South Kingston High.  (Her father Amar has been a librarian at URI since 1970, earning a master’s there in 1973, and his wife Tapati is currently a URI degree candidate.)  Lahiri’s memories of Rhode Island include observing some panic over an impending hurricane.  (What, no mention of bread and milk?)

Although she didn’t attend college in Rhode Island, Jhumpa has spoken at local commencements, given readings at Brown and URI, and received an honorary URI degree.  She also taught creative writing courses at RISD and Brown.

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Area fans watching the Super Bowl are apt to cheer for the Saints, if only to root against Indianapolis and that sissy hand-flapper Peyton Manning (whose own mom calls him Peytie-Pie, by the way). Plus everyone wants something nice to happen for New Orleans to make up for the FEMA trailers. However, we have a local boy in this one, and he plays for the Colts — defensive back, special teamer, and former East Providence Townie, Jamie Silva. Here’s his bio from the Colts website.

…attended East Providence High School…was four-year, two-way starter as RB and DB…ended career with more than 4,500 rushing yards and 49 TDs on offense and 300 tackles and 16 interceptions on defense…had 2,100 yards and 29 TDs as senior…was Rhode Island Player-of-the-Year by Providence Gridiron Club as senior…was all-state choice as junior and senior… team won state title as freshman and senior…team captain was named Super Bowl MVP in senior season…also lettered in basketball, baseball and track…

So he’s a chronic under-achiever. Lately he’s been giving interviews all over the place and he always seems quite charming and grateful to be getting to the Super Bowl in his second season. Plus he has long hair. Jim Donaldson had a nice profile in the ProJo. (So how ’bout that — you’re reading about sports on the Dose!)

In conclusion — Go Jamie!

If you, like me, hate yourself enough to sit through sixteen hours of American Idol “auditions,” watching three mildly annoying industry types (and sometimes Victoria Beckham!) make faces at dozens of bad singers who you will never see again, then you might be excited about the new season that kicked off on Tuesday.  And if you, like me, are an Italian-Cranstonian, then you might be even more excited to see Amadeo DiRocco, the local boy (Cranston East ‘99, woot!) who got the golden ticket to Hollywood after singing a so-so version of Muddy Waters’ Hoochie Coochie Man.

Maybe trying to tap the Jersey Shore market, the producers went to DiRocco’s mom’s house for a big Italian dinner with the whole family, despite the fact that there were no heartbreaking stories about cancer and/or old people like there were with those few other auditioners deemed worthy of a housecall.  MTV Tr3s points out, maybe correctly, that “the way “Idol” portrayed DiRocco and his homemade-wine-and-sausage-and-cheese-consuming family was far more problematic than anything broadcast on MTV’s “Jersey Shore.”“  Which, you know, seems like an odd comment to come directly from an MTV subsidiary, but hey.  (Also, can you blame Idol producers?  Jersey Shore’s gained more of a word-of-mouth buzz of any TV show since, uh, The Sopranos?)

Beth apparently keeps a camera by her television and snapped a few shots of DiRocco, who I remember from high school but only really vaguely and not enough to have any interesting stories about.

Even his yearbook photo is kind of unexciting:

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I agree that drivers here are outta their freaking minds.  (Though the sentiment of the letting-the-first-car-turn-left thing is adorable — especially for a state with such a reputation for crabbiness, and even though it frustrates traffic at least as much as it helps.)

When you aggregate personal experiences or test on the rules of the road, we look like a bunch of screw-ups.  But basically any scientific study of accidents reaches the conclusion that, somehow, we manage to make it all work:

PROVIDENCE — At least someone thinks Rhode Islanders drive safely.

Forbes magazine has declared that the Ocean State’s drivers are the safest in the nation.

Massachusetts drivers came in fourth, according to its calculation.

Yes, you read that right.

I know the show is egregiously horrible and signals the end of modern civilization, if not our entire species, but it’s impossible not to like this guy.

Now that the 00’s are wrapping up, people are writing Best Albums Of The Decade lists like crazy, and I almost added my own top albums list to that lengthy pile.  But then I thought there was no point explaining the greatness of MIA or Radiohead or Antony and the Johnsons or The Knife, when anyone who might even remotely care probably has strong opinions about them all already, anyway.

I decided instead to base my list around a bunch of albums that probably very few of you love.  Maybe because you’ve never heard of them, or because you’ve heard terrible things about them, because they were part of a now-neglected trend, or because they were overshadowed by other things that the artists did either before or after.  The list is a top 30, because I listed all the albums I thought would qualify and came up with 31.  I rounded down.  (Sorry, Handsome Furs!)

I’m presenting this list in three installments, because it’s kind of long. As always, I’d like to make my disclaimer that this list reflects what I myself listen to; I’m sure that someone else could–and should–make lists of neglected metal, gospel, or country records.  But this list is pretty pop-oriented.  That’s just how it is. more »

The cast of the seventh season of Project Runway has just been announced, and Woonsocket native Jonathan Peters will be appearing on the program, which kicks off next month on Lifetime.

You can get a tour of the Providence-based designer’s home (and his mysteriously stocked refrigerator) at the Lifetime website, as long as you don’t mind hearing Miranda Lambert and/or Jazmine Sullivan singing to you about how cotton is the fabric of their lives first.

(Disclaimer: I don’t actually know anything about Project Runway, having only seen part of it once in a bar where the sound was off.  I don’t have cable and my knowledge of fashionable TV shows has been spotty since Roseanne got cancelled.  Speaking of which.)

So you’re telling me this guy is straight?

“You’ll love Jersey Shore.” Marc Malkin gives what’s meant as more than faint praise to the show that’s launched the career of Johnston-based self-identified guido Pauly D, as Beth noted last week. But an important update: Already on pace to pass Meredith Vieira as the foremost RI-bred sex symbol, he reveals to E! his deep yearning to show off his pierced cannoli in Playgirl.

To counterbalance the census data mentioned in Annie’s “Why RI?” post, let’s note the blog, the biggest little, the home of the “Move to Providence” movement, mentioned over here in the NYTimes:

He stays, he said, because he loves the state’s beauty and its quirkiness, both of which keep drawing people like Marjory Garrison, a 30-year-old consultant to nonprofit groups.

Ms. Garrison moved to Providence last summer from Brooklyn and became so captivated that she started her own recruitment campaign, plastering neighborhoods in Atlanta, Boston, Brooklyn and Seattle with posters that shout “Move to Providence!”

“It has so much going for it, and so much of that is still under the surface in a lot of ways,” she said. “I think people here believe that once you crack that open, anything is possible.”