On Twitter yesterday, the Examiner's Kytja Weir noted what at first glance struck me as something of a cultural moment: The proposed new Metro map, which the WMATA board reviewed yesterday, no longer uses what she calls a boombox—but what looks to me like a hand-held radio—for its "No Audio" icon. Instead we get something more vertical and iPod-like.

If the iconic map— designed by Lance Wyman more than 30 years ago—really wanted to tap into the 1970s and 1980s' pop-cultural associations of urban noise, it probably should have gone whole hog. But handheld radios and boomboxes haven't had a place on the Metro map for a long time. When you see a ghetto blaster in public now, it's as an intentional throwback. NPR tracked the boombox's decline in a 2009 obituary:

As the '80s wore on, cities started enforcing noise ordinances. The Walkman became popular, and it was lighter and cheaper. Gradually, people stopped listening to music together. The rap world eventually left the corner and moved online. People still pass songs around, but now it's on file-sharing sites and blogs. Headphones are universally accepted, and eye contact is frowned upon.

All of that feels a little reductive—you still occasionally see people listening to rap on the corner—but you can't argue with the overall point: Communal, serendipitous music listening has become a museum piece. Literally: Fab Five Freddy's boombox now belongs to the National Museum of American History.

These days, the most shunned kinds of low-grade noise pollution are loud cellphone conversations, obnoxious ring tones, and noise-bleeding earphones. The era of the sidewalk selector passed a long time ago.

Click Track's Chris Richards went to the show, and has answers! In short: No. And yes.

Friday

• Arcade Fire w/ Spoon. Merriweather Post Pavilion. $32-$48.50
• Gucci Mane w/ Backyard, TOB. DC Star. $40.
• Budweiser Superfest: Anthony Hamilton, Kem, Jaheim, Raheem Devaughn. Jiffy Lube Live. $31.75-$89.75
• Galactic w/ Lionize. 9:30 Club. $25. All ages
• Billy Woodward & the Senders, the Blackberry Belles, the Bellevederes, the Motorettes. Rock and Roll Hotel. $10. All ages.
• Evan Bliss and the Welchers, Mem. The Velvet Lounge. $8. +21.
• Right Round UP!: The '80s Prom w/ DJ lil'e. Black Cat. $10. All ages.
• Achtung Panda w/ Atomic Shotgun, Deville, the Urbangis. The Red and The Black. $8. +21
• NSO: Bugs Bunny at the Symphony. Wolf Trap. $20-$52
• Desert Rose Band w/ Kim Cameron. The Birchmere. $39.50
• The Lydia Finale: A Goodbye & Farewell Tour w/ River City Extension, Analog Rebellion. Jammin Java. $13. All ages
• John Eddie. Jammin Java. $18. All ages
• HeLO w/ Fight the Lion, the Lincoln Bedroom. IOTA Club & Cafe. $10. +21
• Faster Pussycat, LA Guns w/ John Corabi, After Therapy, Critical Propeller. Jaxx. $23. +21
• Stealin the Deal, Alfa Dog Blues Band. Bangkok Blues. Call for price.

Saturday

• Summer Spirit Festival: Erykah Badu, the Roots, Common, Chuck Brown, B.o.B., Janelle Monae. Merriweather Post Pavilion. $44-$100.
• Kings of Leon. Jiffy Lube Live. $36.50-$61.50
• The Silver Liners, the Vanity Plates, Koshari, the Last Monarchs. Rock and Roll Hotel. $10. All ages.
• Rufus Wainwright w/ Martha Wainwright. Music Center at Strathmore. $46
• RUN FOR COVER: Sports Authority, Pure Emotion, Tron Petty, In Ex Sex, Dr. Feelgreat, We Got Da Butt. Black Cat. $10. All ages
• TCB, XIB, ABM w/ Renegade, UEB, HQB. CFE Event Center. Free
• Seamonsters, Seas, Bearshark. The Velvet Lounge. $8. +21.
• One Ton Wonton w/ Blackberry Bells. IOTA Club & Cafe. $10. +21
• Little Bigheart w/ the Loom, the Green Boys. The Red and The Black. $8. +21
• Treasure Fingers w/ Dave P & JDH, Stereo Faith. U Street Music Hall. $10. +18
• NSO: Bugs Bunny at the Symphony. Wolf Trap. $20-$52
• NAPAW: 2010 Memorial Concert in Honor of Susanna "Susie" Kim. Terrace Theater. $40
• Nathan and the Gang Bang w/ Nunchucks, the Wave Exchange. Jammin Java. $13. All ages
• Mary Fahl. Jammin Java. $18. All ages
• Passafire, MOJO. Jammin Java. $13. All ages
• KIDS w/ DJ Cousin Cole. DC9. $6. +21
• Desert Rose Band w/ Kim Cameron. The Birchmere. $39.50
• Rival Tribe, Damn Skippy. Bangkok Blues. Call for price.

Sunday

• Barenaked Ladies w/ Kris Allen, Angel Taylor. Merriweather Post Pavilion. $35-$75.
• Hippiefest: Jack Bruce, War, Mitch Ryder, Rare Earth. Wolf Trap. $25-$42
• The Rockstar Mayhem Festival: Korn, Rob Zombie, and more. Jiffy Lube Live. $31-$69.50
• Here We Go Magic w/ Beach Fossils. Black Cat. $12. All ages.
• CYNIC, Intronaut, Dysrhythmia. Rock and Roll Hotel. $12-$15. All ages.
• Los Lobos. The Birchmere. $49.50.
• Tom McBride w/ Jim Hanfit, Buster Brown and The Get Down. The Red and The Black. $6. +21
• Cerca Trova, Knife at a Gunfight w/ Hero of the Beach, I, The Capulet, Iona Sound, Fyasco. Jammin Java. $13. All ages
• Y and T, Icarus Witch w/ Sidetrak. Jaxx. $28. +21

Evan Bliss photo via Myspace

He is probably "the most popular street rapper in D.C." But we know how these superstar-in-a-nightclub shows go. So, we ask:

1. Will Gucci appear onstage before 2 in the morning?
2. Will Gucci perform for more than 20 minutes?

Well, at least Backyard, TOB, and Reaction will be makin' the go-go music, too.

Check out this behind-the-scenes video from the set of Wale's "Pretty Girls" promo. For starters, it'll need a reshoot or two following yesterday's near-kerfuffle: Members of the go-go group Backyard Band—whose own standard "Pretty Girls" is sampled in Wale's single—were upset they weren't included and took their grievances to Twitter and Facebook (they've since deleted the relevant tweets). The near-beef's been dodged: Wale told WKYS last night that Backyard Boys vocalist Weensey will now appear in the video. Phew?

But "Pretty Girls" also raises another ish—what do you do when your guest artist is in jail? Consider Gucci Mane,  who 1) probably dropped more guest verses than any other rapper in 2009; and 2) is currently serving a 12-month jail sentence for violating his probation. To judge by this clip, Wale's, erm, prepostproduction answer is to nod in front of a green screen while looking conspicuously bored.

Not to frustrate what's already turning into a video shoot of Rube Goldberg-like complexity, but we hope Wale will figure out a way to incorporate his incarcerated friend that's slightly more creative than Big Boi's recent attempt. In the "Shine Blockas" video, shots of the OutKast rapper occasionally fade into repentant, martyrlike stills of Gucci that come off as utter overkill—especially since, despite the jail-stay, Gucci will probably release two albums in 2010 to Big Boi's zero. Some ways that Wale can avoid such pitfalls after the jump:

Make the most of the green screen: Here, Wale can follow Omarion's lead. Check out the "I Get It In" video, for which the former B2K singer and Gucci probably didn't even stand in the same room. For "Pretty Girls," Wale could tap some archival footage of Gucci, or, like, bake a Flip camera into a birthday cake and hope it makes it through prison security. That plan always works, right?

Animation: Gucci with superpowers? Gucci in a flying house? Gucci with unicorns? Instant gold.

Sock puppets.

Inventive casting: The I Am Tiger Woods Spartacus manoever. To avoid all future beefs, Wale could just tap everyone he's ever known, ever, and dress 'em in Gucci Mane T-shirts—or, for that matter,  "Free Gucci" Tees. Teach everyone the words to Gucci's verse and we're good.

Make a Blingee:

If none of the above works: Jail break.

XIB – "Photo Shoot"

In today’s paper, I mention that lately, Gucci Mane, and not Wale, has been the most popular rapper in the DMV. I attribute that to the car-stereo test, but there’s admittedly no definitive measuring stick for this assertion. Street buzz is a vague construct and neither artist’s audience is buying too many records these days (Gucci’s The State vs. Radric Davis moved 90K last week, roughly triple Wale’s first-week sales, but still far from an earth-shattering chart debut). But I want to bolster my claim with a slightly more tangible testament to Gucci’s local popularity—his ubiquity in the go-gos. So hit the jump for some more YouYube clips of cranking go-go takes on future Gucci classics.

Reaction Band – "Gucci Bandana"

Reaction – "I Think I Love Her"

TOB – "Gorgeous"

Renegade Band – "Gucci" ("Walkin On Ice")

BWA – "Burrrprint 3" (Medley)

Renegade – "Spotlight"

Allstarz – "Wasted"

What Band – "Trap Say Aye"

XIB – "Lemonade" (rehearsal)

Admirers lauded the Atlanta MC’s genuine passion for his craft and his ability to deconstruct complex beats. Even the golden era nostalgics—who find his rhymes garbled and reactionary and see him as the epitome of everything wrong with the slurring, iced-out, Stanky Legg-shaking South—deemed him worthy of dissertation-style discourses. And this was before they even heard his latest major-label studio album, The State vs. Radric Davis, whose title references his government name and his myriad legal problems. So hold onto your hats, haters: Gucci’s big-budget shot at the title is every bit as rewarding, innovative, and delirious as Lil Wayne’s 2008 masterpiece Tha Carter 3—and it might be the finest rap record of the year.

Read the full review here.

Gucci Mane: "Heavy"
Gucci Mane's got some big problems—community service, jail time, an ever-changing album release date. On "Heavy," a song from his forthcoming record The State Vs. Radric Davis, the Atlanta rapper blows off a little steam. "Yeah I got amigos but they don’t bring me tacos/ Only bring me kilos but keep that on the d-low," raps Gucci. That's a bummer, but maybe moving weight keeps helps distract Gucci from the weight of his problems.

The Big Pink: "Sweet Dreams" (Beyoncé Cover)
Solange's cover of Dirty Projectors' "Stillness is the Move" was great, but UK duo Big Pink's take on "Sweet Dreams," not so much. The good stuff from the original—the rhythm, the bass, the C-3PO get-up Beyoncé wears in the song's video—is systematically removed, leaving a maudlin stinker that even Robert Smith would wag his wrist at.

Lindstrom: "Little Drummer Boy"
Synthesizers and Christmas carols make great bedfellows—just ask Mannheim Steamroller. But Lindstrom's take on "Little Drummer Boy," which clocks in at an epic 40 minutes, takes the whole candy canes-and-moogs idea about as far down the Autobahn as it will go. With its tubular bells and vocoders, this four-minute snippet only hints at a larger, more lysergic, composition that will surely bring enduring yuletide cheer to many a house junkie.

Atlanta based emcee Gucci Mane is not on Facebook or Twitter. His Myspace is a label curated holder space mostly advertising an eighteen month old album that, by all rational accounts, was a flop. And yet, strictly though word of mouth, he's become the most popular rapper in the South and probably the country. Or at least in those corners of the country where rap music still holds cultural cachet. Last Friday night (5/8) was his debut performance in one such corner, Washington D.C., as part of the week-long celebration of Wire star/Backyard Band frontman Big G's birthday party. (Forgive the delayed quasi review, this writer has seemingly lost an entire week of his life in Gucci Land. Pause.)

As a live performer, Gucci is not outstanding but considerably better than he needs to be. He leans on the all too common live rap show crutch of simply rhyming over his own vocal tracks but he does it well enough that it doesn't seem like a crutch. He exudes stoicism, barely moving but paradoxically breaking a sweat (understandable, DC Star was a sauna and at least one unconscious, presumably heat stricken body was hauled off the floor by security) as he mechanically runs down nihilistic dope boy hits like "Make The Trap Aye," "Photoshoot" and "I'm A Dog". Yes, hits. Gucci is the last underground rap star standing and even with no major label promotion much of the room knew every word before he said it. The only glimmer of personality Gucci showed was upon closing with a heartfelt and reverent thanks to DC. He then exited stage right, only to quickly announce a middle school style "PSYCH!" and run back out to the tune of "Trap House." The encore is a rarity in hip hop, and its presence implies a certain unspoken dedication to the craft that has permeated and probably assisted Gucci's meteoric rise.

The week since has, coincidentally, been something of a coronation for Gucci, turning up with both an XXL magazine cover and his long awaited, first post prison mixtape, the aptly titled Writing On The Wall. For those of you playing the proverbial rap stock market, Gucci is the smart money for '09. Think 50 Cent or Lil Wayne before your grandmother knew their names.

Here's a single blurry photo I was able to take with the camera I snuck into Star against their wishes and took to spite my own incompetence. Note, if you can, Gucci's half forerarm length diamond piece looking like something out of medieval times. Show money must be nice.

TCB opened and basically tore the house to pieces with their trademark bounce beat go-go. Their momentum was squandered by a string of unidentified competent rappers. Backyard followed and delivered something of a trunucated set, but delivered none the less, rocking fan favorites like "Keep It Gangsta."