Howard Kaylan Storms the White House in 'Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles' - Exclusive Book Excerpt

Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles, Flo and Eddie, and Frank Zappa, etc.

The Turtles, a 1960s folk rock band, were only around for five years – but during that time, they landed a ton of hits on the charts, including "Happy Together," "She'd Rather Be With Me" and their Top 10 cover of Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me, Babe." They also partied like maniacs and had enough wild adventures to fill many books.

Howard Kaylan, the group's frontman (and Eddie from Flo and Eddie) has a new memoir coming out in April – Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles, Flo and Eddie, and Frank Zappa. Here's an exclusive excerpt in which he describes their performance at the White House in 1969 at Tricia Nixon's coming-out party.

I was snorting coke on Abraham Lincoln's desk in the White House. Yes, that Abraham Lincoln and that White House. A bunch of hairy peacenik dopers from California though we were, it seems that Tricia Nixon, daughter of Tricky Dick himself, was a fan of the Turtles and had requested our presence. Our first instinct: you've got to be kidding! No way in hell!

Yet here we were, our noses vacuuming lines off the surface of Honest Abe's very own workspace.

We had gone through several managers during the past five years and been on the charts far more often than anyone would ever have guessed, considering that we were the only ones looking out for us, and that White Whale Records wasn't much of a label.

Random Notes: Hottest Rock Pictures

There had been the folk-rock years, and we had been lucky enough to score a few big hits; we were among the earliest children of Bob Dylan, putting our cover version of his tune "It Ain't Me, Babe" into the Top 10.

Then we had become the good-time music boys, influenced by the Lovin' Spoonful and determined not to protest anything. We'd made it to Number One with a song that's still recognized today as one of the classic rock & roll love songs of all time. "Happy Together," indeed.

And, now, finally, we had engineered our own success with "Elenore," our first self-penned Top 10 record, and "You Showed Me," which we had changed from a Beatlesque rocker into a lush ballad.

We were lucky and we knew it.

Of course, now we had the big-time management to prove it.

Gone were the friends of friends—we'd realized that we really weren't in any position to manage ourselves—and hello to the new Superstar Management Team.

We had been courted, successfully, by Ron DeBlasio and Jeff Wald, who were, at the time, top reps for the Campbell-Silver-Cosby Corporation.

That's right—Bill Cosby.

Mister Pudding Pops.

Fat Freaking Albert.

Bill, his own self, was a full partner in the firm that represented him.

And us.

And others.

And his sweaters.

And he was the number one comic in America.

Across the hall was the office of the appropriately named Artie Mogul, who ran the in-house record company, Tetragrammaton, home to Deep Purple and more.

Of course, he had nothing to do with us. Neither did Mr. Cosby, but his name promised to open a lot of doors in Hollywood and that was exactly what we needed.

But what, I asked, could these guys bring to the table for a band that had been around the block and, hypothetically, overstayed their welcome?

We didn't have to wait long.

 ••••

We had heard, through the grapevine, that the Turtles were Tricia's favorite band, and we'd all had a good chuckle over that.

Old Man Nixon was the creepiest Dick of his generation, the least popular president among the under-30 crowd that had ever been, and a killer of our young men and women, as far as we were concerned.

We were deeply anti-war and deeply self-conscious. We weren't Nixonites, that's for sure. We were everything he stood against.

So when the hand-engraved invitations to perform at Tricia's coming out party arrived at the Cosby office, we were none too thrilled. In fact, we flat out refused to play.

They started to freak out.

"What do you mean, you refuse to play?! Who the hell do you think you are?! This isn't a political thing. It's like a goddamned royal proclamation, you idiots! You play the White House because you're an American!"

Blah, blah, blah …

They shamed us into it.

Not only that, but to add insult to injury, management now was requesting that we each go out and buy a classy new suit. Can't play for the president looking like the sewer rats that you really are.

Perfect. There it was, again.

Too bad Johny Barbata wasn't the drummer in the band anymore. He'd have loved the sight of us clumsily trying on the very Brioni suits that he'd been trying to get us to wear for three-and-a-half years.

Now we had each bought one. Talk about fish out of water.

****

Came the big day, May 10, 1969, we flew into Washington, D.C. on the taxpayers' dollar. There, we were met by five separate cars, replete with drivers all flying the American flag, and taken directly to the White House. Once there we discovered that the Secret Service had dossiers on each of us. They kept us in a holding lounge while going through our intimate details individually.

After we had all been cleared, it was time to unload the equipment that we had brought with us all the way from L.A.

But we didn't do the unloading. Instead, the Secret Service guys did. And they didn't know the first thing about large equipment cases. So as they began to unload the trap case from the drum set, the large case that holds the snare drum, percussion goodies and miscellaneous items, they tipped it to one side and, unknowingly, triggered the tiny switch on the electric metronome/tuner that we always carried with us.

"…..tick….tick….tick."

Out came the guns.

"Up against the wall!"

Oh, we went there. Up against that wall it was as they carted off our little black box. We stood there, a rock group inside of enemy territory, the Nixon White House, looking down the crosshairs from the wrong direction. Guys in HAZMAT suits were brought in to deal with our little plastic tuner and their freak-out escalated yet another notch when someone hit the tuning switch and the 440 cycle "A" tone started shrieking from the metronome.

The term "shitting a brick" comes to mind.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

Amazon Music and MP3 Center

Read more »

Howard Kaylan Storms the White House in 'Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles' - Exclusive Book Excerpt

Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles, Flo and Eddie, and Frank Zappa, etc.

The Turtles, a 1960s folk rock band, were only around for five years – but during that time, they landed a ton of hits on the charts, including "Happy Together," "She'd Rather Be With Me" and their Top 10 cover of Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me, Babe." They also partied like maniacs and had enough wild adventures to fill many books.

Howard Kaylan, the group's frontman (and Eddie from Flo and Eddie) has a new memoir coming out in April – Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles, Flo and Eddie, and Frank Zappa. Here's an exclusive excerpt in which he describes their performance at the White House in 1969 at Tricia Nixon's coming-out party.

I was snorting coke on Abraham Lincoln's desk in the White House. Yes, that Abraham Lincoln and that White House. A bunch of hairy peacenik dopers from California though we were, it seems that Tricia Nixon, daughter of Tricky Dick himself, was a fan of the Turtles and had requested our presence. Our first instinct: you've got to be kidding! No way in hell!

Yet here we were, our noses vacuuming lines off the surface of Honest Abe's very own workspace.

We had gone through several managers during the past five years and been on the charts far more often than anyone would ever have guessed, considering that we were the only ones looking out for us, and that White Whale Records wasn't much of a label.

Random Notes: Hottest Rock Pictures

There had been the folk-rock years, and we had been lucky enough to score a few big hits; we were among the earliest children of Bob Dylan, putting our cover version of his tune "It Ain't Me, Babe" into the Top 10.

Then we had become the good-time music boys, influenced by the Lovin' Spoonful and determined not to protest anything. We'd made it to Number One with a song that's still recognized today as one of the classic rock & roll love songs of all time. "Happy Together," indeed.

And, now, finally, we had engineered our own success with "Elenore," our first self-penned Top 10 record, and "You Showed Me," which we had changed from a Beatlesque rocker into a lush ballad.

We were lucky and we knew it.

Of course, now we had the big-time management to prove it.

Gone were the friends of friends—we'd realized that we really weren't in any position to manage ourselves—and hello to the new Superstar Management Team.

We had been courted, successfully, by Ron DeBlasio and Jeff Wald, who were, at the time, top reps for the Campbell-Silver-Cosby Corporation.

That's right—Bill Cosby.

Mister Pudding Pops.

Fat Freaking Albert.

Bill, his own self, was a full partner in the firm that represented him.

And us.

And others.

And his sweaters.

And he was the number one comic in America.

Across the hall was the office of the appropriately named Artie Mogul, who ran the in-house record company, Tetragrammaton, home to Deep Purple and more.

Of course, he had nothing to do with us. Neither did Mr. Cosby, but his name promised to open a lot of doors in Hollywood and that was exactly what we needed.

But what, I asked, could these guys bring to the table for a band that had been around the block and, hypothetically, overstayed their welcome?

We didn't have to wait long.

 ••••

We had heard, through the grapevine, that the Turtles were Tricia's favorite band, and we'd all had a good chuckle over that.

Old Man Nixon was the creepiest Dick of his generation, the least popular president among the under-30 crowd that had ever been, and a killer of our young men and women, as far as we were concerned.

We were deeply anti-war and deeply self-conscious. We weren't Nixonites, that's for sure. We were everything he stood against.

So when the hand-engraved invitations to perform at Tricia's coming out party arrived at the Cosby office, we were none too thrilled. In fact, we flat out refused to play.

They started to freak out.

"What do you mean, you refuse to play?! Who the hell do you think you are?! This isn't a political thing. It's like a goddamned royal proclamation, you idiots! You play the White House because you're an American!"

Blah, blah, blah …

They shamed us into it.

Not only that, but to add insult to injury, management now was requesting that we each go out and buy a classy new suit. Can't play for the president looking like the sewer rats that you really are.

Perfect. There it was, again.

Too bad Johny Barbata wasn't the drummer in the band anymore. He'd have loved the sight of us clumsily trying on the very Brioni suits that he'd been trying to get us to wear for three-and-a-half years.

Now we had each bought one. Talk about fish out of water.

****

Came the big day, May 10, 1969, we flew into Washington, D.C. on the taxpayers' dollar. There, we were met by five separate cars, replete with drivers all flying the American flag, and taken directly to the White House. Once there we discovered that the Secret Service had dossiers on each of us. They kept us in a holding lounge while going through our intimate details individually.

After we had all been cleared, it was time to unload the equipment that we had brought with us all the way from L.A.

But we didn't do the unloading. Instead, the Secret Service guys did. And they didn't know the first thing about large equipment cases. So as they began to unload the trap case from the drum set, the large case that holds the snare drum, percussion goodies and miscellaneous items, they tipped it to one side and, unknowingly, triggered the tiny switch on the electric metronome/tuner that we always carried with us.

"…..tick….tick….tick."

Out came the guns.

"Up against the wall!"

Oh, we went there. Up against that wall it was as they carted off our little black box. We stood there, a rock group inside of enemy territory, the Nixon White House, looking down the crosshairs from the wrong direction. Guys in HAZMAT suits were brought in to deal with our little plastic tuner and their freak-out escalated yet another notch when someone hit the tuning switch and the 440 cycle "A" tone started shrieking from the metronome.

The term "shitting a brick" comes to mind.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Read more »

Slaughterhouse Emphasize Complex Wordplay on 'Welcome to: Our House'

Eminem and Slaughterhouse speak with Sway at SiriusXM Studios.

When host Sway Calloway asked the members of Slaughterhouse where they ranked among current rap crews, the question led to five full seconds of dead air last night in Sirius/XM's studios in midtown Manhattan.

Label head Eminem, immediately to Sway's left, shifted under a gray hoodie; Joe Budden looked off into the distance, his eyebrows arching toward one another. Royce da 5'9", the quiet straight-shooter of the group, finally broke the silence. "You're asking us what we think? We think what we think." Joell Ortiz added, "We know what we know." 

Their major-label debut Welcome to: Our House – previewed last night for a small collection of journalists – arrives overloaded with rappy-raps, the kind you press pause-rewind-play more than once to absorb. Verses come packed with alliteral somersaults and tongue-twisting backbends, each line complicated by double-entendres, left-field references and extended jokes. (Crooked I, on "Frathouse": "Her pussy hotter than a chili pepper/ I tell her give it away, give it away now.") Last night, Eminem referred to the group's sweatbox sound as "technical rap" and "competitive rap," understatements both. It's not a question of whether Slaughterhouse can rap; they clearly can. The bigger issue is whether or not their definition of "rap" still matters. 

That is the group's mission and, synonymously, the prevailing theme of the album. "I just wanna be the illest MC," Budden raps on opener "Our House." It's a funny goal in an age of Black Eyed Peas and Chief Keef, where craft and purity is overshadowed by crossover and insta-fame. It's a preoccupation that echos over and over again, its source indiscriminate: Royce name-checks rappers' rappers Canibus, Jakk Frost and Ras Kass in the first song, compiling a list of overlooked torchbearers. In an interlude midway through the album, Joe makes a point of saying, "We can't fail. If we do, it's back to the drawing board." Later, on "Rescue Me," Crook takes it even further: "If I die, tell my son I tried . . . to bring my music to the people." The struggle to keep this kind of hip-hop alive becomes something like a World Wildlife Federation mailer, where it's as important to save lyricism in hip-hop as it is to save pandas in the wild.

It's too bad that for all the emphasis on what they're saying, it's often hard to hear them: The vocals barely manage to clamber above production that's almost permanently loud and busy. On "Get Up," especially, it feels like a Rubik's Cube of sounds grinding and cranking this way and that, with more drums, more guitars, more riffs and fills and effects than necessary. It's as if a middle-school band got tossed in an earthquake and an amplifier was sent to save them. Swizz Beatz, contributing the beat to "Throw It Away," sounds restrained by comparison, as does the single "My Life," cynical as it is, in which Cee Lo goes into high-kick camp mode while redoing "Rhythm of the Night" by Corona. 

With each rapper pushing one another through the album, verse by verse, the highs are impossibly high; the lows, unbelievably low. It gets no darker than "Goodbye," released last night. It's a pounding, ethereal dirge in which Joe Budden sheds light on the twins he (unfortunately and rather publicly) lost after then-girlfriend Esther Baxter had a miscarriage. Crook says, "I used to wonder what it would be like to speak to Pops as an adult," the closest equivalent being his uncle, who died of cancer. While playing the song last night, Joe turned his chair away and put his head in his hands. Eminem rapped Joell's verse to himself, looking downward while mouthing, "Hey Granny, I was fifth row at the Grammys." (The songs "Die" and "Coffin" – which features Busta Rhymes – aren't nearly as gloomy.) 

"Throw That" offers a nice counterweight, though it feels like Slaughterhouse is barely on the song. It's Eminem's show, a return to form, with T-Minus providing the soundtrack from a carnival ride. It's a palette cleanser, proof that lyricism can be fun (or gleefully misogynistic, as Eminem taunts, "With those child-bearing hips and lips, I'll throw this dick on you, girl"). Later, on "Flip a Bird," the group goes full-throttle at gossip sites, with Bossip and WorldStar HipHop getting name-checked before Crooked I raps, "DJ Vlad was glad bullets went into me," saying Vlad's traffic went up as a result.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

Amazon Music and MP3 Center

Read more »

Slaughterhouse Emphasize Complex Wordplay on 'Welcome to: Our House'

Eminem and Slaughterhouse speak with Sway at SiriusXM Studios.

When host Sway Calloway asked the members of Slaughterhouse where they ranked among current rap crews, the question led to five full seconds of dead air last night in Sirius/XM's studios in midtown Manhattan.

Label head Eminem, immediately to Sway's left, shifted under a gray hoodie; Joe Budden looked off into the distance, his eyebrows arching toward one another. Royce da 5'9", the quiet straight-shooter of the group, finally broke the silence. "You're asking us what we think? We think what we think." Joell Ortiz added, "We know what we know." 

Their major-label debut Welcome to: Our House – previewed last night for a small collection of journalists – arrives overloaded with rappy-raps, the kind you press pause-rewind-play more than once to absorb. Verses come packed with alliteral somersaults and tongue-twisting backbends, each line complicated by double-entendres, left-field references and extended jokes. (Crooked I, on "Frathouse": "Her pussy hotter than a chili pepper/ I tell her give it away, give it away now.") Last night, Eminem referred to the group's sweatbox sound as "technical rap" and "competitive rap," understatements both. It's not a question of whether Slaughterhouse can rap; they clearly can. The bigger issue is whether or not their definition of "rap" still matters. 

That is the group's mission and, synonymously, the prevailing theme of the album. "I just wanna be the illest MC," Budden raps on opener "Our House." It's a funny goal in an age of Black Eyed Peas and Chief Keef, where craft and purity is overshadowed by crossover and insta-fame. It's a preoccupation that echos over and over again, its source indiscriminate: Royce name-checks rappers' rappers Canibus, Jakk Frost and Ras Kass in the first song, compiling a list of overlooked torchbearers. In an interlude midway through the album, Joe makes a point of saying, "We can't fail. If we do, it's back to the drawing board." Later, on "Rescue Me," Crook takes it even further: "If I die, tell my son I tried . . . to bring my music to the people." The struggle to keep this kind of hip-hop alive becomes something like a World Wildlife Federation mailer, where it's as important to save lyricism in hip-hop as it is to save pandas in the wild.

It's too bad that for all the emphasis on what they're saying, it's often hard to hear them: The vocals barely manage to clamber above production that's almost permanently loud and busy. On "Get Up," especially, it feels like a Rubik's Cube of sounds grinding and cranking this way and that, with more drums, more guitars, more riffs and fills and effects than necessary. It's as if a middle-school band got tossed in an earthquake and an amplifier was sent to save them. Swizz Beatz, contributing the beat to "Throw It Away," sounds restrained by comparison, as does the single "My Life," cynical as it is, in which Cee Lo goes into high-kick camp mode while redoing "Rhythm of the Night" by Corona. 

With each rapper pushing one another through the album, verse by verse, the highs are impossibly high; the lows, unbelievably low. It gets no darker than "Goodbye," released last night. It's a pounding, ethereal dirge in which Joe Budden sheds light on the twins he (unfortunately and rather publicly) lost after then-girlfriend Esther Baxter had a miscarriage. Crook says, "I used to wonder what it would be like to speak to Pops as an adult," the closest equivalent being his uncle, who died of cancer. While playing the song last night, Joe turned his chair away and put his head in his hands. Eminem rapped Joell's verse to himself, looking downward while mouthing, "Hey Granny, I was fifth row at the Grammys." (The songs "Die" and "Coffin" – which features Busta Rhymes – aren't nearly as gloomy.) 

"Throw That" offers a nice counterweight, though it feels like Slaughterhouse is barely on the song. It's Eminem's show, a return to form, with T-Minus providing the soundtrack from a carnival ride. It's a palette cleanser, proof that lyricism can be fun (or gleefully misogynistic, as Eminem taunts, "With those child-bearing hips and lips, I'll throw this dick on you, girl"). Later, on "Flip a Bird," the group goes full-throttle at gossip sites, with Bossip and WorldStar HipHop getting name-checked before Crooked I raps, "DJ Vlad was glad bullets went into me," saying Vlad's traffic went up as a result.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Three Stabbed During Swedish House Mafia Show

DJ Sebastian Ingrosso of Swedish House Mafia performs at Roseland Ballroom in New York City on April 6, 2012.

Three men were left injured after being stabbed during a Swedish House Mafia show in Milton Keynes, U.K. on Saturday, NME reports.

According to reports from the Thames Valley Police, one of the men, a 23-year-old from the West Midlands area, is being treated for a punctured lung at Milton Keynes General Hospital. Another 23-year-old man was treated by an onsite ambulance for minor injuries; the third man, a 24-year-old, received cuts on his head and arm but was discharged from the hospital.

"This appears to have been an isolated incident, and overall we are very pleased with how the event passed off," said Detective Chief Inspector Justin Fletcher. "But we would like to trace the person responsible for this assault."

Police described the suspect they are looking for in connection with the attacks as a white man in his early 20s wearing a Nike T-shirt, black jacket and black jogging bottoms. A police spokesman added, "Anyone who witnessed the incident, particularly if they captured it on their camera or mobile phone, is requested to contact the police."

Other arrests were made at the show, with three taken into custody on suspicion of possession of Class-A drugs with intent to supply. None of the arrests were reported to relate to the stabbings.

Just a week ago, a 23-year-old man was charged with multiple stabbings that left nine injured during a show at Dublin's Phoenix Park that Swedish House Mafia headlined, with other performances from Snoop Dogg, Calvin Harris, and Tinie Tempah.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Premiere: The Weeks Host a Block Party in 'House We Grew Up In'

Premiere: The Weeks Host a Block Party in 'House We Grew Up In'Rockers clown, chill with friends and neighbors $(document).ready(function() { $('.socialActionsTop .pageActions .email-content').hover( function() { $('.socialActionsTop .bubble.email').show(); }, function() { $('.socialActionsTop .bubble.email').hide(); } ); $('.socialActionsTop .pageActions .print-page').hover( function() { $('.socialActionsTop .bubble.print').show(); }, function() { $('.socialActionsTop .bubble.print').hide(); } ); }); By

In their video for "House We Grew Up In," rowdy, fun-loving rockers the Weeks get down for a good time in their neighborhood, clowning around in restaurants, cruising on skateboards, riding wheelchairs and hosting a block party for their friend and neighbors. Frontman Cyle Barnes triumphantly sings "They can't stop us!" as everyone dances along in high spirits. The clip also cuts to filtered shots of the group messing around town, all in good fun.

"House We Grew Up In" is on the Weeks' upcoming EP Gutter Gaunt Gangster, out September 25th on Kings of Leon's label, Serpents and Snakes.

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'Snooki & JWoww' Recap: The Barbie Guidette Dream House Effect

Snooki and JWoww welcome some of their 'Jersey Shore' roommates into their new apartment.

Snooki and JWoww have so much fabric! Just drowning in fabric! Swimming in yards of leopard print and zebra and glittery pink and black! "You can't make a vase out of fabric," JWoww sniffs one morning. Seeing as how Snooki and her fetus sleep until roughly 4 p.m. every day (as the pregnant and unborn are wont to do), JWoww rolls out of the apartment to buy more furniture.

Just to be clear: they have furniture; they are just acquiring . . . more of it. She selects a bar set, a leopard-print ottoman and a gigantic leopard-print pump that is also a chair, thus explaining who else buys those things other than high school yearbook photographers. JWoww also picks up between 10 and 20 rolls of leopard and zebra duct tape, with which the girls will go on to commit unspeakable acts. Why such a rush to make such questionable decorating decisions? (I'm joking, of course. There is no rush. We are four weeks in and every episode has been in some way about decorating the apartment.) As it turns out, the roommates are coming over! Hurray! Oh, except the Situation. Never the Situation. "You couldn't pay me enough to fucking do that," Snooki declares. You mean again? Okaaaaaaaaaay! But seriously, what in God's name are they planning to do with all that fabric? It's like they own three-quarters of a yurt.

Time to call a handyman! "He sounds like a sexy black man," JWoww squeals after hanging up with him. Sadly, he is instead a normal white guy named Anthony, who makes quick work of hanging yards and yards of fabric around the room in a bunting-type situation, as well as hanging fabric over the walls. Like you do. While he works, Snooki elicits from him "a sex story that went wrong," and things take a dire turn. Anthony tells his tale, which begins with him, a lady and his friend, a friend who he makes sure to point out is a big guy like Anthony. That's all we get to hear before the bleeping obscures his tale. At this point I started to panic, because so much of the story was bleeped out I was convinced we would never know what happened! "I want you to do something for me, " the woman ominously told Anthony, followed by 20 seconds of bleeping. Luckily, while the girls' faces contort in hilarious disgust to details unknown, Anthony reaches the climax of the story, and declares, "I said, let me go in the other room. This way I won't have to smell it." Okay, that's really all I needed to know. I can fill in the blanks. "I just feel like he wants to take us away to his dungeon," Snooki shudders when he leaves. His poop dungeon? It had to have been a poop story, right? And to think he put his grubby paws all over the fabric!

Once Anthony leaves, Snooki and JWoww cover the entire apartment in leopard and zebra print duct tape. The doors. The windows. The garbage can now has a duct tape 'G' on it for Garbage, so you don't get confused and try to make soup in it. In their defense, the tape goes a long way toward creating the desired "Barbie Guidette dream house" effect, in as much as everything looks like it's plastic and about to peel off the wall. If only it also made everyone's genitals turn into smooth, hard plastic nubs.

The ladies also have an epic idea for what we in the interior design biz call "a focal point": a giant mural of themselves to be painted by artist Nick on the wall of their living room. "I found Nick's number at a department store," JWoww explains. As always, it's the little details that get me. For example, what does that even mean? Then, of course, all the fabric falls down off the walls. Anthony! Maybe stop telling poop stories for once and do a little work! The ladies rush to put them back up, so their roommates don't have to deal with having their mouths and noses closed off with fabric while they're visiting. A real hosting faux pas, I'd say.

Finally, cabs are here! Cabs are what I call friends! Pauly D is the first to arrive and rip on their apartment décor. "The style of this house is Art Deco. Just kidding!" he laughs. Aw, I missed him. He jokingly tests to see if Snooki can fit inside their garish new ottoman (she can), which is great because they always say it's a good idea to have a piece of furniture that doubles as a casket. "Just take the ottoman! You don't even need a coffin!" JWoww enthuses. "I know, but then bugs will get in and eat me," Snooki muses. The other roommates stream in, except Mike, of course, who couldn't make it because he was busy not being invited. Oh, and he might have been in rehab too. Either way, it's really nice to see everyone. "It's creepy but cute," Ronnie says of the apartment. Pauly D and Vinny friend-flirt hardcore, scampering away to friend-smoosh on Snooki's bed.

Sitting down to a delicious meal of green beans and garbage can soup (just kidding! They saw the G in time), Snooki finally drops one of her two bombs on the Jersey Shore mates: she's engaged to Jionni. Their reactions to the news could only be described as devastating. "You think two years is long enough time?" Vinny wonders, later explaining that Jionni was initially Snooki's one-night stand and therefore unworthy of love or commitment. They point out how difficult it will be for Snooki to have only one penis for the rest of her life. "I love his penis," she explains.

"Did she buy it?" Pauly D cracks when Snooki shows off her ring. Yikes. I guess they're all so used to Snooki being a drunken trainwreck joke they don't remember she's a human being with feelings. Or they're all just terrible people. Both totally plausible explanations.

Ball-busting aside, they could at least have the decency to talk about her behind her back like normal people. Concludes Vinny, "You guys are going to be divorced soon anyway." Ugh. It's enough to make Snooki not want to tell them she's pregnant. Too bad she already had the announcement printed on a cake in icing! Well then, it's enough to make me want to crawl inside that leopard ottoman coffin and have them seal me up with zebra duct tape. Luckily next week's promo has Roger saying, "I've had chlamydia four times," so I have a reason to go on for a little while longer.

Last week: Behold the Child of Snooki

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Premiere: The Weeks Host a Block Party in 'House We Grew Up In'

Premiere: The Weeks Host a Block Party in 'House We Grew Up In'Rockers clown, chill with friends and neighbors $(document).ready(function() { $('.socialActionsTop .pageActions .email-content').hover( function() { $('.socialActionsTop .bubble.email').show(); }, function() { $('.socialActionsTop .bubble.email').hide(); } ); $('.socialActionsTop .pageActions .print-page').hover( function() { $('.socialActionsTop .bubble.print').show(); }, function() { $('.socialActionsTop .bubble.print').hide(); } ); }); By

In their video for "House We Grew Up In," rowdy, fun-loving rockers the Weeks get down for a good time in their neighborhood, clowning around in restaurants, cruising on skateboards, riding wheelchairs and hosting a block party for their friend and neighbors. Frontman Cyle Barnes triumphantly sings "They can't stop us!" as everyone dances along in high spirits. The clip also cuts to filtered shots of the group messing around town, all in good fun.

"House We Grew Up In" is on the Weeks' upcoming EP Gutter Gaunt Gangster, out September 25th on Kings of Leon's label, Serpents and Snakes.

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'Mad Men' Recap: Cleaning House

Christina Hendricks as Joan Harris on 'Mad Men.'

Bravo, Joan.

She couldn't save those eight murdered student nurses in Chicago, but when Joan kicked her abusive husband's sorry ass out of the house at the end of "Mystery Date," she switched the entire tone of the episode from that of fear to empowerment. It's just a shame she wasn't around to help budding teen Sally understand that just because you're young and pretty doesn't mean men are allowed to turn you into a victim. Even Don wasn't immune to the details of the gruesome July 1966 news story, as it manifested itself in one of the most twisted, perverse plot lines yet.

You Give Me Fever

It's quite an impressive feat when Don can go one day without crossing paths with one of his former conquests. Unfortunately for Megan, who never got the memo that her husband pretty much had a one-sided open marriage with Betty, Don has been bumping into his old flames a little more often than she'd like. "How many times is this going to happen?" she pouts after meeting the flirtatious Andrea Rhodes in the elevator,  a "freelance writer from the old firm." Under the haze of a bad cold, Don spends much of the episode convincing Megan that she has nothing to worry about – but we know better. Don Draper may be many things, but "monogamous" has never been one of them.

Until now. Don goes home sick, but rest eludes him when mystery date Andrea shows up at his doorstep for a quickie. Don orders her to leave and collapses on the bed – but when he awakens, she's back, reminiscing about how they had sex behind Lincoln Center while his "wife was waiting inside." The memories overtake Don and he starts tearing off her clothes.

When they're done, an uncharacteristically remorseful Don pleads with Andrea to never return, because this was a "mistake." But Andrea reminds him that it's a "mistake you love making . . . because you're a sick, sick –" A naked, sweaty, enraged (was that full-frontal, Hamm?) Don chokes her to death and pushes her under the bed, permanently silencing the memory of all his sordid affairs. Remaining faithful to one woman goes against every fiber of his being, but for the first time, it appears that Don is actually going to take his wedding vows seriously.

While the scene's bizarre setup suggested early on (only the elevator run-in actually happened) that this was a dream brought on by Don's fever-induced delirium – confirmed by Don waking up to an attentive Megan and no traces of a dead body – it was no less disturbing, especially because even though it wasn't "real," what makes Don Draper any different from Richard Speck, the student-nurse murderer?

Riot Girls

Pete informs a snoozing Roger that Mohawk Airlines wants a campaign run-through first thing Monday morning. The problem? It's Friday evening and Roger was too busy doing nothing all week to bother mentioning this to Michael Ginsberg, Mohawk's official copywriter. In a panic, Roger begs Peggy to work up a campaign over the weekend, because Ginsberg is conveniently MIA. Peggy quickly deduces that Roger doesn't even know how much money she makes, and he's desperate, so she squeezes him for every cent in his pocket to do the job. Four hundred dollars later, Peggy is the giddiest copywriter on Madison Avenue.

Later that night, Peggy discovers she's not the only one still hanging around the office. Apparently Don's new secretary, Dawn, has taken to bunking at SCDP for her own safety. Funny, Peggy says that Abe has been in Chicago covering the riots, yet she has no idea that a taxi won't take someone like Dawn "past 96th Street," and it's not exactly in Dawn's best interest to take the subway home at night ("there was a 'thing' in Bed-Stuy").

Things get even more awkward once Peggy brings Dawn back to crash at her apartment. She offers beer and attempts small talk, but even the good girl from Bay Ridge can't hide her prejudices. Earlier, Peggy had casually mentioned to Dawn that she had a large wad of cash on her, and just as she prepares to turn in, she notices her green purse sitting on the coffee table next to Dawn. Without either woman saying a word, we know what they're thinking. Peggy: "She might steal my money." Dawn: "That bitch thinks I'm going to steal her money." Peggy leaves the purse, but in the morning, Dawn is gone, with a note thanking her hostess for her hospitality. Girl, you just got owned.

Adventures in Babysitting

We've yet to see if Sally is seeing a therapist in Rye, but after just a couple of days under Pauline Francis' (Henry's mother) care – Henry and Betty are out of town – it will be a miracle if Sally isn't in a padded room in the next episode. We've known since last season that Pauline is no fan of Betty, but it's evident that Pauline's distaste for her daughter-in-law is so profound that she's taking it out on Sally. To Pauline's credit, she discloses what makes her such a hard-ass, which is more than we can say for Betty (her father was strict – read: abusive).

Pauline keeps whispering about a bunch of student nurses who were killed. Sally, deeply curious and prevented by her babysitter from actually learning about it, sneaks the newspaper out of the trash and reads it under the bed covers. Traumatized by the grisly details, Sally seeks out a kitchen-knife-toting Pauline for answers as to why something like this could have happened – and her explanation is almost as disquieting as the actual event. Basically, the heavyset Pauline hates young, pretty girls like Sally and Betty, and she blames the student nurses for enticing Richard Speck to commit multiple homicides: "All those young, innocent nurses, in their short uniforms, stirring his desire." And now that Sally has been completely scared shitless and is unable to fall asleep, Pauline sees no problem in giving her half a Seconal.

The next morning, Sally is passed out cold underneath the couch as a clueless Henry and Betty (who has lost an incredible amount of weight in the span of one week) return from Buffalo. This girl is going to be in rehab before the Beatles break up.

The Doctor Is Out

When Greg Harris comes home on a 10-day leave from Vietnam, Joan – who has not yet returned to SCDP – and her mother, Gail, orchestrate an elaborate dance of keeping Greg from spending too much time with baby Kevin, lest he should figure out that the kid isn't even his. But that plot point turns out to be a red herring, because the real conflict within the Harris marriage is Greg's decision to return to Vietnam for another year – and the reappearance of his abusive behavior. Naturally, Joan is disappointed when Greg tells her he's going back, and even more devastated when his parents let it slip at a family dinner that he volunteered. This, coupled with the fact that he has become increasingly more menacing toward Joan reminds her that she doesn't have to be Greg's victim anymore.

The morning after the disastrous dinner, Joan tells her husband to return to Vietnam – and to not come home when his second tour of duty is up. An incensed Greg grabs her wrist and angrily insists that he's a very important doctor over there. Joan, as calm as Greg is agitated, soberly informs her husband that while the Army makes him feel otherwise, he "is not a good man. Even before we were married – and you know what I'm talking about" (he raped her in Season Two). In a formidable display of taking back her life, she fluidly pulls her wrist out of Greg's tight grasp.

Wrap-Up: Christina Hendricks' scathing performance in the final few minutes of this episode completely made up for last week's absence. And the end credits song, "He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)," written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin, is a sad reminder of the demons Joan has been battling in her marriage for the past three years.

Last episode: Summertime Blues

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Swedish House Mafia's Axwell to DJ Cosmic Opera

Axwell performs at Global Gathering at Long Marston Airfield in Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom.Dance music fans have been wondering how Swedish House Mafia will top December's blowout show at Madison Square Garden. For Axwell, one-third of the DJ supergroup, the answer was in the works long before the lights went down at MSG.

Axwell will be headlining and curating the musical talent for Cosmic Opera, a dance event series taking place at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom beginning February 24th. Like an opera, it will take place in "acts" in the form of three monthly, six-hour-long events that will integrate the high-tech 3D mapping techniques used by Skrillex and Deadmau5 on their tours. Baroque-era performers, along with dancers and acrobats, will be placed throughout the room to create a 360-degree spectacle that pays homage to the venue's history.

Axwell has been working on the events with Cosmic Opera creator Justin Cohen, former COO of entrepreneurial conference Summit Series. "It is a revolutionary time for dance music," he tells Rolling Stone. "To go with it, we needed to establish a new type of event." Axwell will be responsible for filling the musical bill at each of the three events. In a nod to Hammerstein's theater roots, Axwell will also play the role of conductor, not only manning the turntables but leading accompanying opera singers. Watch the trailer for the event below.

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