Don’t let the name and the appearance fool you. For this weekend, I was a quiz bowl contender. That’s right, I was pressing high-tech buzzer systems to deliver answers like “The Muppets” and spelling “agave.” There was far too much history and baseball. That must be remedied because we all know how pass‚ baseball is.

Instead of starting with reviews this week: rumor control! The exclamation point is pronounced, thank you.

Status of Living Colour members: Vernon Reid is working on recording with his new band Masque under the same management. Corey Glover is working on recording with his new band, Right Reverend Daddy Love and the Disciples. Glover’s group is still on Epic. This information comes straight from Black Rock Coalition, which counts Glover and co-founder Reid among its members (and me — for now).

Other music-related rumors often involve personnel changes or name changes. This one is no rumor. Minneapolis band Pleasure was working on an upcoming EP when the group was “offered” to be destroyed by an obscure Cleveland, Ohio 70s funk band who had the same name. Luckily for them, they had another name on tap which was going to be used for “the ultimate make-out music band.” Henceforth, the band formerly known as Pleasure is now Semisonic. The EP is Pleasure, on Cherrydisc Records. Yes, that’s the same label where Letters To Cleo started. No, they don’t bear any similarity to Trip Shakespeare, even though guitarist/vocalist Dan Wilson and bassist John Munson were in the band.

Semisonic is a small part of the hi-yooge noise-pop scene in Minneapolis. Unlike their peers, Semisonic doesn’t rely on the bells and whistles provided by digital wizardry or solid state electronics. Not that using either is wrong, but Semisonic easily avoids the trap of working the effects rather than using the effects. This makes for an honest record which has the reduced ability to grate on your nerves even if you don’t like it.

Pleasure is a quaint little EP with no major scheme aside from playing out. “In the Veins” is the punchiest the album gets with its anchor riff darting around like a hummingbird. “Sculpture Garden,” named for the Sculpture Gardens across from Loring Park on the way to uptown Minneapolis, is about a date spent walking through the gardens. Eventually, a romp ensues, which is also something that tends to happen in the gardens.

Also on the album are some shuffle play tracks. You are warned not to expect anything the like of TMBG’s “Fingertips,” but “The Drum Lesson” is dry and funny. While not a standout, the EP is sure to be eaten up by: A)post-Trip Shakespeare project enthusiasts, and B) anyone who was already a Pleasure fan and has been waiting for product for the past two-to-three years.

Potential disappointment, however, could lie within P.M. Dawn’s latest, Jesus Wept. The album has nothing to do with this “quick, easy blessing” verse or The Bible in particular. P.M. Dawn is still ethereal, still floating in the clouds and still drawing flak for being “sensitive hippies.” This time, it may have gotten the best of them, since the tone of this album marks a step off the farthest fringes of hip-hop into mere rap and R&B.

The past two albums at least had some sort of phat beat reservation, which is missing on this endeavor. “Downtown Venus” and “My Own Personal Gravity” hint at the ruins of such bliss, but fall to sensitive songwriter mini-opuses (opi?) like “I’ll Be Waiting for You.” One of the interesting tracks is “Silence . . . Recorded at the Grave of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,” but only for the concept and implied sentiment.

At the end, P.M. Dawn throws on “Fantasia’s Confidential Ghetto,” a trilogy of “1999,” “Once in a Lifetime” and “Coconut.” “1999” is slowed down and drawn out to the point of vomit-inducing sensitivity overload. “Once in a Lifetime” is sung in Prince Be’s sing-song lilt instead of David Byrne’s panicky report. This is rescued by a piano recreation of the hook from Schoolhouse Rock’s pronoun song (you know: Rufus Xavier Sarsparilla et al).

No matter what “it” is, you can always have too much of “it.” P.M. Dawn reaches that point by jam-packing Jesus Wept with ballads and wispy introspectives. I have other opinions, but the decision is ultimately yours. I’ll only say that the album title may be appropriate.