
It's time for another edition of "What's Your Muse?" The concept is simple: We ask a band/artist to choose a song that means a lot/the most to them. Then, they record and send us a video of themselves describing why they chose the song. Think of it like a collaborative video mixtape project. In this edition, we hear from Bard & Mustache. Photo by Scott Braun [...]

Today's Valentine's Day eve episode of my NTS radio show (5-6pm London time) will be all about love. To give a sneak peak, I blogged about seven of my favourite love-related 45s on the NTS blog . Several of these tunes have appeared around these parts previously, but I thought you might still be interested, especially if you're in the midst of putting together a mixtape for someone special. mp3: Dee Clark - Nobody But You (1958) A sweet love song [...]

Back when I started doing these mixes every month, I saw it as a manageable way to keep recommending music without the effort that it takes to do a researched, singular writeup. It seemed to me that picking out 10 random songs wouldn't be all that hard - I always have new things that I'm listening to, as well as my entire musical upbringing to highlight. A part of the experienced mixtaper in me was never satisfied with these as "mixes." For one, there is only so much you can do in 10 songs... they really seemed more like [...]

Welcome to our big Labor Day singles spin-a-thon ... I believe I mentioned earlier that the first single I ever bought was "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys. Naturally, I still have it in a box some place. So yesterday I'm looking for it, and as I flipped through the stacks of old 45s a wave of memories came flooding back to me. My grandmother on my mother's side and her second husband (not my grandfather) owned a pool hall/dive bar back in the 1960s, in Catahoula, Louisiana. Called Knott's, the place was [...]
Over at our NME blog Thee Fair-Ohs were nice enough to tell us about their ferocious sub-sixty-second single, I'm A Woman I'm Your Wife. The trio also went big on our 321 questions. Check out their epic answers after the jump and sample some of their favourite tracks, from Pharoah Sanders to Billy Childish.

Phil Phillips We're taking a trip from Texas to New Orleans and plan to get there in time for Mardi Gras. Along the way, we're revisiting some of the interesting characters we've met in past years. Today we stop in Lake Charles, Louisiana. It's a long way from crawfish Louisiana to a sun-drenched Caribbean island, but Phil Phillips made that trip in 1984 - or rather, his song did. "Sea Of Love," written and sung by Phil Phillips, soared (almost) to the top of the pop charts in 1959 and [...]
SEA OF LOVE Phil Phillips with the Twilights Single Mercury : 1959 [Buy It] ALWAYS ON MY MIND The Pet Shop Boys Discography Capitol : 1991 [Buy It] HALAH Mazzy Star Rough Trade : 1990 [Buy It] MAMA, YOU BEEN ON MY MIND Bob Dylan The Bootleg Series, Volumes 1-3 Columbia : 1991 [Buy It] [...]