Man, that first album.  The Pixies influence was all over it.  Apparently, on the first tour he'd say "This song's about a superhero named Tony! It's called Tony's Theme!" and then they'd launch into Good Grief.

It's French for "Shia, the beef".

Caveat: If you're going in August, don't do Paris.  That's when the locals vacation, so a lot of smaller shops and restaurants are closed for the month when their proprietors head to the beach with their families.  And so the public transit authorities shut down parts of the metro for maintenance since the locals…

It just occurred to me that Young the Giant would have earned my undying love if they had replaced the "bounce, bounce, bounce" part with "drip, drip, drip".

The Sugarcubes
Belly
Blur 
TV on the Radio (O.K. Calculator was really just a collection of sounds, not meant to be a proper record)
Daft Punk
Dead Can Dance 
Café Tacuba
Massive Attack
Rage Against the Machine

I grew up in southern california and went to grade school and high school made up of 90% latino kids, and just about everyone respected him, even if they weren't big fans. The theory goes that like Morrissey, latin kids are born and raised by immigrant parents in a country where they are culturally a minority.  Matter…