Don’t drink but don’t want to feel like a one-person temperance society? Bob Mould has a few tips in this week’s column. Keep those questions coming.

Chingo Bling’s situation is “stickier than molten queso fundido,” writes David Dunlap Jr. in his review of the Houston MC’s major-label debut, They Can’t Deport Us All. Chingo Bling has a solid rep in H-Town’s hip-hop scene, working with Chamillionaire, Paul Wall, and others, but Hispanicized rap parodies and critiques of immigration policies might not make for a rap star. Read Dunlap’s review here.

Aaron Leitko wasn’t a fan of Travis Morrison’s previous solo album, 2004’s Travistan, and he wasn’t alone; Pitchfork famously dismissed it with a 0.0 rating. But Leitko says the former Dismemberment Plan frontman is in much better form on his new album, All Y’All, recorded with his new band, the Hellfighters. Read the review here and listen to a stream of the album here.

If you’re a regular reader of Cheap Seats and City Desk, you might remember the Points as the house band at the now-defunct Shaw skate park, Fight Club. The band plays the Rock and Roll Hotel’s first anniversary blowout on Saturday, and in One Track Mind Justin Moyer talks with drummer Travis Jackson about the Points song “Rock n Roll No Rules,” which you can listen to here.

(Speaking of the Rock and Roll Hotel, in the spring the club’s owner, Joe Englert, gave a few local third-graders a tour of the place, as well as a few other joints in the rapidly gentrifying club district. Read about it in this week’s Show & Tell.)

Plus our picks for the week: Michael J. West on “breakbeat jazz” maestro Mocean Worker, Friday at the 9:30 Club; Jason Cherkis on atmospheric Baltimore duo Beach House, Sunday at the Rock and Roll Hotel; Maggie Serota on Sonic Boom’s post-Spacemen 3 project, Spectrum, Sunday at the Black Cat; Matthew Borlik on Chicago give-the-drummer-some-more trio Mass Shivers, Wednesday at the Velvet Lounge; and Cherkis on Philly noise-rockers Clockcleaner, Thursday at the Black Cat.

In the District Line, Jason Cherkis checks in with DJ Roland Tolbert, a regular fixture on the decks on O Street SW this summer. “Tolbert has been spinning on the block for five years,” Cherkis writes. It’s no easy task in a neighborhood where the competition for air time is fierce.”

Why do you have to move for work? Just find a WiFi hookup and a decent coffee joint, home-school the kids, and you’re all set. That’s Bob Mould in this week’s Ask Bob. Got a question for a D.C. resident who’s led at least two classic bands? It’s as simple as clicking here.

UGK’s Underground Kingz is “that rarest of hip-hop feats: A double disc that never becomes a chore to hear,” writes Joe Warminsky. Read the review and check out the video for the first single, “Int’l Players Anthem (I Choose You).”

In One Track Mind, Aaron Leitko gets the Mantras to explain the provenance of their very Creation song “Demonator,” which you can download free here. The Mantras play the Black Cat on Monday, Aug. 20.

Plus our picks: Leitko on New York’s “out-rock-drone-dub” outfit Religious Knives, Friday at the Velvet Lounge; Maggie Serota on Tortoise-y Richmond outfit Ilad, Friday at the Red and Black; and Cherkis on Glorytellers, led by ex-Karate and Secret Stars member Geoff Farina, Sunday at the Black Cat.

Top-ten lists are due when editors ask for them—usually in November or December of a given year—but I think that editors ask for them months, maybe years, too soon. Sometimes all you can do is guess at a record’s impact. For example, in 2006, one of the metal magazines to which I contribute asked for a year-end list several days before the release of Mastodon’s Blood Mountain, a major-label record that was both highly anticipated and hard to come by. A friend burned me an unmastered, unsequenced leak and I spun it only once or twice before putting it at number one.

By the time the issue hit the newsstands I doubt it would’ve made my top five. But, hey, so it goes. A fellow music critic even admitted as much when a mutual friend solicited our favorite records of recent years (he’s been busy raising a kid). “These are the ones that I still listen to,” the fellow music critic wrote. Which gave me the idea of revisiting an old list. For no good reason, I chose 2003 and set about making a top 10, based on records that I still listen to and own. I didn’t look at the old list or check any year-end summaries until I was done.

Here’s my new list in alphabetical order:

Cult of Luna The Beyond (Earache)
Down in the Basement: Joe Bussard’s Treasure Trove of Vintage 78s, 1926-1937 (Old Hat)
Killing Joke Killing Joke (Red Ink)
Lungfish Love is Love (Dischord)
Mogwai Happy Songs for Happy People (Matador)
Pelican Australasia (Hydra Head)
Supersilent 6 (Rune Grammofon)
David Sylvian Blemish (Samadhi Sound)
Viktor Vaughn Vaudeville Villain (Sound-Ink)
Miroslav Vitous Universal Syncopations (ECM)

And here’s the list I sent to Village Voice’s Pazz & Jop poll in 2003.

Two CDs on my original list (Outkast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below and Dizzee Rascal’s Boy in Da Corner) made it into the Pazz & Jop Top 10. But neither has really stood the test of time, which suggests that maybe folks aren’t pulling out those Basement Jaxx and Fountains of Wayne records either.

Or maybe it’s just that the hippest of hip hop is only good for a quick fix. Though Ta-Nehisi Coates was on the Viktor Vaughn record right away, it only charted at 141 on the P&J list.

For those who’ve heard both, who thinks that Speakerboxxx/The Love Below holds up better than Vaudeville Villain? I doubt it’s few—if any.

He asked why Black Plastic Bag hasn’t spent much “journalistic energy” writing about “good hip hop from D.C.” There’s no satisfactory answer, but I will say this: He has at least one anthem in his arsenal. So check his ‘Space page and dedicate 4:30 of your time to “This Is DC,” a pro-representation, anti-racism, dirty-soul groove.

Bob Mould, like most sensible people, has serious issues with James Blunt and Live Earth. This week, Bob weighs in on the folly of rock stars broadcasting their feelings about global warming in song. Got a question for Bob about life in D.C., music, culture, or anything else that springs to mind? Send it here.

“You ever have to beat the shit out of a bunch of dudes in lockup so you wouldn’t get raped?” That was John Stabb’s attempt to defuse the fight he got caught up in on the way home from work on July 17. The former Government Issue frontman sustainted three facial fractures, two broken bones, and a broken nose. Jessica Gould has the story on Stabb, who’ll be the recipient of a benefit show tomorrow night at the Velvet Lounge. Gould also has the story on the Warehouse’s potential new digs, and the latest on beleaguered club H2O.

In One Track Mind, Justin Moyer talks with ukulele rapper Jon Braman about his song “The Weather,” the futility of rallies, and the pleasures of playing a very portable instrument. Braman plays Wednesday, Aug. 15, at 14U Cafe.

Plus our picks: Maggie Serota on British pop-rock sensation the Cribs, Friday at the Black Cat; Dave Nuttycombe on Jette-Ives’ Jette Kelly, leading a six-piece band Friday at the Rock and Roll Hotel; Zoe Pollock on Austin jam band Mingo Fishtrap, Sunday at the Kennedy Center; Serota on Vancouver “psychedelic circus” band They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, Tuesday at the Black Cat; and me on Clay Eals, who’ll discuss his book on “City of New Orleans” songwriter Steve Goodman Wednesday at Politics and Prose. (He’ll be joined by Alexandria singer-songwriter Tom Paxton.)

This week in Ask Bob: Bob Mould on the SST years, whether there’s a book in his future, and what DIY means now that it didn’t back the mid-’80s.

In reviews, Aaron Leitko discusses Magnolia Electric Co.’s sprawling four-CD box set, Sojourner, which can be relentlessly bleak but strangely compelling. “[Frontman Jason] Molina has never been shy about saying exactly how he feels,” Leitko writes. Even if how he feels is often bombed-out and shitty.” (You can hear excerpts from the album here.)

In One Track Mind, Joe Warminsky talks with producer Shaun Sharkey about his collaboration with MC C-Rayz Walz, their new album, Monster Maker, and the kid he “wanted to smack the shit out of.”

This week’s picks: Maggie Serota on Scottish party-pop trio the 1900s, who play at the Rock and Roll Hotel on Friday; Jeffry Cudlin on longtime Bay Area sound collagists Negativland, who address monotheism Sunday at the Warehouse; Justin Moyer on Tokyo Police Club, playing “sugary-sweet pop” Tuesday at the Rock and Roll Hotel; and Amanda Hess on Rupert “The Pina Colada Song” Holmes‘ comedy series Remember WENN, screening Wednesday at the Pickford Theater.

The Democratic presidential candidates’ YouTube debate the other night reminded me of this bit from David Denby’s review of Ratatouille in the New Yorker:

At a time when many Americans have so misunderstood the ethos of democracy that they hate being outclassed by anyone, when science is disdained as dangerous and expertise as élitism, this animation artist, working in a family medium, has made two brilliant movies that unequivocally champion excellence. “Ratatouille” suggests that some omnivores are better than others. There’s nothing to do but get over it.

Which in turn reminds me of Novelty Rock, Jason Cherkis’ 2005 piece on novelists who play rock critic.

All of this Creative Loafing business has brought some anonymous Cherkis haters out of the woodwork, to which I say, Hey, if you want the guy fired, please suggest someone who has written a better piece of rock criticism in the last couple years.

One afternoon about 13 years ago my dad and I were working on our ’77 Chevy Impala. We’d been futzing with the engine for what seemed like an eternity and couldn’t fix what was wrong with it. Finally, my dad called a mechanic who was a member of his congregation (my dad is a Protestant minister). The guy dropped by the house and fixed in several minutes what we couldn’t fix in several hours. He said, and this is a good one, “Now, pastor Jim, I don’t tell you how to preach, you shouldn’t try to fix your car.”

In my cover story on Michelle Rhee and the Washington Teachers’ Union, I mention that WTU President George Parker is a former musician. Allow me to expand on that: Before becoming a full-time WTU teacher in 1980, Parker had some pretty serious chops.

According to Parker, one R&B outfit he sang for, Special Delivery, had a No. 1 hit locally with a tune called “I Destroyed Your Love.” (It landed around 20 on the national R&B charts.) Parker says he’s a natural alto, but could sing anywhere from tenor down to baritone. The stand-up vocal group opening for some of the top acts of the day, Parker says, including Natalie Cole.

Check out this YouTubed version of “I Destroyed Your Love”–set to some cheezy scenes from what appear to be B-movie versions of Zane and Eric Jerome Dickey novels (I’m pretty sure Blair Underwood’s in there, and is that Terence Howard?). Anyway, it’s damn sweet track.

• Have a question for Bob Mould? Of course you do. This week Bob discusses steroids, and next he’ll discuss…well, that’s up to you. And hey, if Bob selects your question, we’ll send you something from the pile of uniformly excellent, rootkit-free CDs delivered to us by America’s finest music-label conglomerates. We promise it’ll be something better than Collie Buddz.
• In Artifacts, area Advancement Theory advocate Andrew Beaujon visits with the folks behind d.c space’s 30-year anniversary show, which takes place Sunday at the 9:30 Club.
• In reviews, Michael J. West explores the kinda-fusion-but-kinda-not collaboration between San Francisco psych-rock outfit Mushroom and jazz trumpeter Eddie Gale; and Emily Zemler catches up with Tegan and Sara’s fifth full-length album, The Con.
• In One Track Mind, Sadie Dingfelder gets the Dance Party (who play the Black Cat tomorrow night) to talk about their song “Lipstick” and why they don’t dare try vocal harmonies onstage. (For more from the Dance Party, see the interview outtakes.)
• Plus our picks: David Dunlap Jr. on Arkansas metal group Rwake, who’ll play “riffs as thick as milk gravy” Friday at the Velvet Lounge; Aaron Leitko on Earth, whose songs resemble “Slint covering Ennio Morricone” (Saturday at the Black Cat); and Maggie Serota on You Am I, who’ll bring their “raw, unapologetic garage rock” to the Black Cat next Thursday.

Bob Mould, who answers your questions weekly on everything from MMA to DRM, addresses Guns N’ Roses’ much-delayed, oft-leaked album Chinese Democracy. (Don’t have a question? You can still drop him a line and wish him well as he rests up from a broken ankle.)

Joe Warminsky talks to Le Loup about its recent signing to Sub Pop’s Hardly Art imprint and the band’s new efforts to hit the road.

Sarah Godfrey reviews T.I.’s schizophrenic new album, T.I. Vs T.I.P. and why it’s “the musical equivalent of a McD.L.T.”

In One Track Mind, Justin Moyer talks to Zulu Pearls’ Zach Van Hoozer the song “Wasted,” Germany, and being conflicted about alcohol.

Our picks this week: Mirah Saturday at the Black Cat, Aphrodizia tonight at Project 4 Gallery, Marnie Stern Tuesday at the Rock and Roll Hotel.