"I'm out here without a scratch on me," Maino insisted. He described the incident as a case of a fan getting out of pocket, overstepping the line between performer and audience member, and going so far as to threaten him.

"He was talking crazy, so I smacked him," Maino said. "He was trying to get onstage; he was a little too aggressive. I wanted to calm him down and smack some sense into him. … I didn't get jumped, but we had a good brawl, though."

Footage of the altercation has popped up all over the Internet — and so has Maino's all-star remix of his hit "Hi Hater." T.I., Swizz Beatz, Fabolous and Jadakiss are among the names who appear on the re-tooled anthem.

Maino is on the road ("I'm good, I'm in Cincinnati, chillin'"), still promoting his debut If Tomorrow Comes. The album is slated to drop on September 23.

Maino has been involved in his share of public altercations since hitting the music scene after spending a decade in prison. Back in June 2006, an assailant in Brooklyn tried to rob him in a sneaker store — but Maino was able to commandeer the would-be robber's gun! He was not seriously injured in the incident.

We asked a lot of celebs about "love you long time" recurring in pop culture — thanks to Mariah's new single — and now we're asking you: Do you find the phrase offensive or empowering?

Here's a sample of what some New Yorkers had to say:

Valerie Stahl: "It was used as derogatory in the film, and it's a sort of sexual joke, I'd say. It's more derogatory towards Vietnamese culture than women in particular, because of how it was used in the film, but it's also a shot at a woman as a sexual object. It's kind of ironic that a majority of these pop singers using it are women, so in a sense, it could be a term of empowerment of sexual freedom."

Catherine Sharp: "I think it's degrading, absolutely. To me it means someone, usually someone of Asian descent, in an area where prostitution is more common and where they're treated worse, even worse than they are here. I think it refers to that. I think a lot of people will just listen to the songs and not really notice it, but when you hear it, it's kind of a ridiculous thing to hear."

Sunjeoung Lee: "I feel like it's an issue of freedom of expression. It's OK to use it, but you have to be responsible. When you use whatever phrase, you have to know what kind of impact you're going to have on other people, especially if it's going to be Asian people, Asian women listening to that music."

Kai Kuroiwa: "Among Asian-Americans, it's kind of like a running joke, like something you might see in a pornographic film. I didn't even know it was being used in these songs. Among males, it's a different issue, but it is a race issue."

Cassy Wheeler: "I wouldn't listen to Mariah anyway. It seems like every time you turn on the radio they're talking about slamming women, just treating women without respect."

Join the debate — tell us what you think!

Is it possible that MTV has launched an all-out war between crazed fans of the Jonas Brothers and Tokio Hotel?

When our sister blog Buzzworthy published an entry seemingly comparing JB fanatics with TH devotees, the site's dear readers almost killed each other (in the blog sense, that is). The original Buzzworthy post was actually talking about the official addition of the word "fanboy" to the Merriam-Webster dictionary and hinted that JB and TH fans may be the ones to thank.

But then things got out of hand ... really out of hand. Karleigh and Katie Santry, who run JonasBrothersFan.com, even say that angry Tokio Hotel fans started posting inappropriate material on their forums, including pornography and violent photos. "Morbid stuff," as the girls described it.

The Jonas site has removed all the nasty images, and Buzzworthy even tried to reconcile the fighting fans. After much trash-talk, it looks like a peace may have been forged. Come on, gang. We're all in this together. Can't we all idolize in peace?

Dan "Monty" Montalto — Sunny Day Real Estate's Diary
Undoubtedly one of the most influential indie records of the '90s, Diary is one of the few albums that I have kept in constant rotation over the years. The brand of "emo" that this album represents (and essentially created) made for some of the best punk/indie/emo records of the late '90s (the Get Up Kids, Braid, Piebald, Texas Is the Reason). Any fans of those artists — and all those that followed — owe much to this album. Even lo-fi rockers No Age recently told us that Diary is one of their all-time faves. For a band with a short and frequently troubled lifespan, Sunny Day Real Estate's discography continues to shine 14 years later.

Chris Harris: The Reverend Horton Heat's The Full Custom Gospel Sounds of the Reverend Horton Heat
I first discovered the Reverend Horton Heat — which is both a three-piece psychobilly outfit from Dallas, Texas, as well as the stage name of its frontman, Jim Heath — while watching "Beavis and Butthead," when the band's "Wiggle Stick" video was put up for ridicule by the cartoon delinquents. I remember thinking I'd never heard music quite like this before; I was only 15 — if my math's correct — and listened to Jane's Addiction almost exclusively. I was caught in that awkward phase between listening to what my dad thought was awesome (Pink Floyd) and doing my own digging, finding bands on my own. So I picked up a copy of TFCGSOTRHH and became an immediate fan of the band. Songs like "Loaded Gun," "The Devil's Chasing Me" and "Gin and Tonic Blues" introduced me to an unfamiliar sound, one that was dirty, raw and exciting. Live, the band was manic: They ripped through a badass, truly entertaining set, and my impressionable mind was blown. This is one of those records that I can still put on today and not skip a track, which, to me, is the true mark of a solid studio effort.

Christopher "CJ" Smith: Wolf Parade's Apologies to Queen Mary
Arcade who? With the help of producer Issac Brock, this Montreal quartet rattled some bones in 2005 with their debut LP. Montreal was the new Seattle! Although some prefer the low-fi and dirty production on the band's previous EPs, Brock brought a tight cleanness to the album that's allowed it to age gracefully into a modern classic.

Lindsey Thomas: Velocity Girl's ¡Simpatico!
In 1994, I listened to whatever was on the mixtapes my brother made for our dad's Geo Metro: Archers of Loaf, Sebadoh, Dambuilders and other bands that make me sigh whenever I think about the '90s. But none of them were really mine. Then I saw the video for the jangly, summery "Sorry Again" on "120 Minutes" (R.I.P.) and rushed out to buy ¡Simpatico! While the pop songs on the band's first LP, Copacetic, were muddied with shoegaze inspiration and bad production, the follow-up had just the right amount of polish. The melodies were catchy, the guitars were clean, and Sarah Shannon's voice floated on top, a much-needed salve for a 13-year-old music fan who was used to only seeing guys in her favorite bands.

Conor Bezane: The Postal Service's Give Up
Indie icon Ben Gibbard needed a break from his duties as frontman of Death Cab for Cutie, so he teamed up with Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley and Jimmy Tamborello of DNTEL for a side project called the Postal Service. Packed with hypnotizing bleeps and beats, 2003's Give Up was a dance-pop masterpiece. Fans are still anxiously awaiting a follow-up.

Rya Backer: Mark Lanegan's The Winding Sheet
I really take to Mark Lanegan's voice. It's not especially pretty, in fact, it's — for lack of a better word — intense? The point is, Lanegan could probably sing a Danielle Steele novel, and I'd be totally capitvated. Luckily, The Winding Sheet contains no such content. Rather, it's a really drony, thoughtful and brooding album that I like to listen to whether I'm happy (to bring me down a little) or sad (to bring me even down-er). It's probably uncouth to say this in public, as it's a rather (gasp!) popular number, but my favorite song on the album is "Where Did You Sleep Last Night."

Got a favorite Sub Pop record or three? Let us know!

But once inside — up a single elevator to the third floor — you sort of understand why they've got to be discreet. If they flew a flag out front, the place would be inundated by excited music geeks like me.

As the label celebrates its 20th (official) year in business, there's so much history on display here, it's simply mind-boggling. (For a look back at the label's history and a list of 21 quintessential Sub Pop albums, check out this week's Bigger Than the Sound column.) The walls are lined with original mockups for album covers (like Mudhoney's Superfuzz Bigmuff EP and the banned artwork for Tad's 8-Way Santa), early design concepts for Sub Pop's iconic "Loser" T-shirt (complete with handwritten instructions from founder Bruce Pavitt that read, simply, "Make it BIG") and original Charles Peterson photographs of young bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden. There are Polaroids of Beck, Greg Dulli and Stephen Malkmus clowning around at the old Sub Pop store. And there are gold and platinum records in the bathrooms.

And then there's the warehouse, staffed by none other than Mudhoney frontman (and grunge god) Mark Arm and overflowing with every rare album the label has released over the course of two decades. The 15-year-old inside me leapt at seeing Saint Etienne CDs I hadn't even thought about in a decade, and fainted a bit when Arm showed me the original pressings of 'Honey's "Touch Me I'm Sick" single. Oh, and there were T-shirts to the rafters. It was magical.

I was lucky enough to be given a tour by Megan Jasper, Sub Pop's receptionist-turned-VP, who proudly showed off the photo booth and beer machine in the kitchen, joked about the lack of "happy endings" in the office massage room and let me run wild and free in the warehouse, where I grabbed records and generally behaved like an idiot.

Jasper knows all the names of the office dogs, knows how to sneak up to the roof to catch a glimpse of the Space Needle and can explain each piece of artwork and ephemera stuck to the walls. It was like having the world's greatest tour guide on the world's greatest tour. It was my indie-rock dream come true. It was amazing.

Oh, and as I was leaving, they even let me take my photo in the booth and stapled the pics on the wall, right next to the guys from Oxford Collapse and below Martha Plimpton. Sometimes I am very lucky.

OK, guys, I thought about it over the weekend. I read all of your comments. Maybe Tokio Hotel isn’t so bad, right? Unless you're the messenger ...

(By Sarah Muller)

For twentysomething Germans, the love might not extend past the Hoff.

Three friends from Hamburg recently came to New York for a visit. (Lovely bunch of people. Very open-minded, always up for anything.) One night during dinner — and somewhat out of the blue — their chief pop-culture export of the moment came up: Tokio Hotel.

On this side of the Atlantic, the boy band has been gathering both
buzz and rabid, tween young fans. (Hey, we already apologized for that one!) But my friends aren't buying into the hair, the eyeliner or the hype.

Words like "embarrassment" and "lame" were thrown around a lot. One woman said Tokio Hotel only appeal to "kids and teenagers between 6 and 12 years old" or those "too young to realize what kind of stupid phonies these boys are." My guy friend begged Americans like myself to "take them off our hands." He added, simply, "They suck."

I'll be the first to admit this was not exactly a scientific poll, though they could represent a bigger backlash to come. Is this band just part of a prepubescent phase, or are fans onto something big?

Just curious. Tell us what you think.