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LCD crew drops by Too Much Love

Of all the people psyched to see members of LCD Soundystem and Hot Chip show up and spin records for the Too Much Love dance party at First Avenue following their Roy Wilkins concert last Saturday, the most excited person might have been resident DJ Sovietpanda. The real-life Peter Lansky credits LCD frontman James Murphy and his record label DFA for turning him into a dance-music nut. That nuttiness played a role in landing Murphy & Co. as guest DJs previously in 2007. "I actually started the first DFA fan message board," Lansky claimed. "I was a total nerd, but I think they appreciated that and were repaying it." Lansky said Too Much Love was even based on a conversation he had with Murphy about starting his own party.

This time around, Murphy showed up a little after 12:30 a.m. along with LCD's Gavin Rossum, Hot Chip's Felix Martin and both bands' Al Doyle. Murphy rolled up his sleeves around 1 a.m. and got down to business, spinning a set of mostly laid-back, New Wavey and/or soulful grooves. Celebrity guest DJ appearances can be awkward and distracting, as people often just stand around and stare at the star. That was partially true in this case, but Murphy seemed to be having a lot of fun.

"I pride myself on keeping up with everything, but James always plays stuff that blows me away," Lansky gushed. Once a nut, always.

  • Chris Riemenschneider

Bar closing? Rumours are true

Downtown St. Paul gay bar Rumours & Innuendo's last night of business will be Saturday. The reason? Its owners cite an uphill battle with light-rail construction, which has been taking place right outside its front door. It's sad news for a bar that has been a strong advocate for the Lowertown nightlife scene. The Innuendo half of the operation opened in 2007, taking its name from a late-'80s/early-'90s gay club in St. Paul. The second half of the venue, a nightclub called Rumours, opened in 2008.

In a statement, owners Sean and Jim Fetterman said "we have decided that we cannot continue to engage in this uphill battle to provide a clear path to our business and limit interruption to our guest experience."

For the past four years, Rumours & Innuendo has been a home to many GLBT groups and nonprofits. In its quest to make downtown St. Paul a nightlife destination, the bar helped to create the Lowertown Entertainment District. One of the district's projects has been the annual Lowertown Boo's Crawl. The bar will participate in the pub crawl on Saturday night before closing down. (5 p.m.-2 a.m. Sat. 213 E. 4th St., St. Paul, www.rumours-innuendo.com.)

  • Tom Horgen

Owl City guy blows chance with Taylor Swift

Everyone knows that Taylor Swift writes songs about guys who burned her -- even if, it turns out, they didn't know it. Case in point: Owatonna's own Adam Young, aka Owl City, who plays his first-ever hometown concert in Owatonna on Sunday.

Background: Swift and Young had e-mailed, then met at a New York club, and apparently she was kind of interested (how did she communicate this?) and he apparently didn't follow through (we think he's still with his longtime girlfriend).

How do we know? Because "Haunted" on her new album, "Speak Now," is apparently about her unrequited crush on Adam. The song is vague, but Swift has been known to drop hints. And music critic Chris Willman has gone to great lengths at Yahoo Music to decipher the clues that appear in the liner notes to "Speak Now."

Here's the short version: In her printed song lyrics, she capitalizes random letters. But put them together and they spell a message. For instance, Willman found "CMT AWARDS" spelled out in the lyrics to "The Story of Us," which he concludes is about John Mayer because he and Taylor both attended this year's CMT Awards. For "Haunted," Willman decoded the clues to spell A-D-A-M. Between comments Taylor made to Willman in an interview and his own Internet research, he concluded that "Haunted" was inspired by her crush on Mr. Owl City.

  • Jon Bream

Which one's Pink?

The rumored sightings of David Gilmour in town with Roger Waters before Wednesday's staging of "The Wall" at Xcel Energy Center may go down as one of the greatest hallucinations ever affiliated with Pink Floyd, but unlike an acid trip they refused to wear off -- even after a Floyd publicist at Sony Music denied them Tuesday. The rumors were built around Gilmour's heavily publicized promise to make an unannounced appearance at one of the dates on Waters' tour. A guy in town on business from New Jersey called Wednesday to corroborate local scenester Chuck Terhark's then-deflated account of the two dining together with an entourage at Bar La Grassa on Monday. KQRS's morning crew also took a phone call from an anonymous fella who claimed to work at the St. Paul hotel where Waters was staying, and he said he saw Gilmour there, too. Other sightings flew around Twitter, etc. The only facts we confirmed was that Waters did indeed dine at La Grassa on Monday and stayed in town for several nights, flying straight to and from Tuesday's concert in Omaha. We can also say for sure that ticket scalpers cleaned up amid the rumors. And you can bet your inflatable pig that these sightings will be in the air for all future dates on "The Wall" tour until Gilmour does finally show up.

  • Chris Riemenschneider