Item World: Local views and news

Along with the 15,000 fans who showed up and loudly sang along to Atmosphere and Brother Ali -- OK, you old folks need to officially take Minnesota indie-rap seriously now -- Soundset '09 also drew a couple of camera crews from seemingly unlikely networks to Canterbury Park on Sunday. MTV2 took a break from its nonstop production/upchucking of "The Hills" and "Real World" to film the proceedings for a series on independent music nationwide. Rhymesayers' new-media director Skye Rossi said, "We pointed them to a lot of the other great indie music around town, too." Cinemax was also there following P.O.S. for a new music series called "Max Tour Stories." The rapper said the racy cable network (aka "Skin-emax") is trying to "reshape its image." We're glad it's not the rapper who's remaking his image as a soft-porn stud.

CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER

If I.W. had more than lint in our pockets, we would have grilled original "Apprentice" winner Bill Rancic about investing. Instead, we settled for advice about books ("The Millionaire Next Door" by Thomas Stanley and William Danko), restaurants (Riccardo Trattoria in Chicago) and booze (Glenlivet 18-year-old single malt). Rancic shared his secrets at a recent cocktail party at the North Oaks home of Charles and Tami Lucius, CEOs of Gradient Financial Group. The couple have teamed up with Rancic, host of the Emmy-nominated A&E show "We Mean Business," to launch a charitable campaign to help families in need of a financial makeover (see GradientGivesBack.com for info). The project doesn't exactly mesh with Rancic's next TV show, a Style network series about his marriage to E! news anchor Giuliana DePandi. "My wife talked me into that one," he said.

NEAL JUSTIN

On assignment to paint a mural on the outside wall of Crazy Fantasy Tattoo in New York's Greenwich Village, acclaimed Minneapolis graffiti artist Deuce Seven was startled last week by a 2:30 a.m. visit from an art critic. "Killer," the critic said of the work in progress. "What?" Deuce asked. "Dude, that's killer," said the observer, whom many TV viewers would recognize as Kiefer Sutherland, aka Jack Bauer of "24." Having been painting since 3 in the afternoon, Deuce was a little slow to realize who the visitor was. "Thanks," he finally told Sutherland. "'Stand By Me' is my favorite movie."

JON BREAM

Nick Zinner didn't need any reminder that his killer band, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, has performed at First Avenue a few times before its sold-out show there Saturday. "I've played there four times, including once with Bright Eyes," the guitarist quickly recalled in a phone interview last week, going on to mention "the great pizza place around the corner" (probably Pizza Lucé). He even had a vivid memory of the YYYs' first gig there in 2003, which happened to fall on frontwoman Karen O's 25th birthday. "I remember Har Mar Superstar brought out the cake to her onstage. How could I ever forget that?"

CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER

If you were friends with Nico Muhly (like Björk and Antony), he might give you a nice original piece of music for your nuptials. At his show with superb violist Nadia Sirota last week in Minneapolis, Muhly played a piano piece that he wrote as a wedding gift for friends, even though he called the music "a bit depressing," and said that the betrothed, now living in Belgium, were not that happy. "I'm tired of writing music for my straight friends' weddings," the chatty pianist/composer continued. "I'm not going to do it anymore until they make straight divorce illegal or something." Muhly liked the Southern Theater, where he performed on a bill with Son Lux: "If there was a venue like this on the Lower East Side, I would never leave New York." On his blog at NicoMuhly.com, he said people here were "painfully kind. ... Minneapolis seems to me like a city that is trying very, very hard to do a lot of things and is actually succeeding at most of them." We think we're pleased.

CLAUDE PECK