Blog: am/fm

Just so you know, you can stream Sonic Youth's forthcoming "The Eternal" here .

Last week, the unofficial video for "Paranoid" leaked, and Kanye sternly addressed the internet , in all-caps, of course: "IT HURTS ME TO SEE THE OLD AND VERY WRONG VERSION OF THE PARANOID VIDEO GET LEAKED ALL OVER THE NET WHILE I WAS ON AN 11 HR FLIGHT AND COULDN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT." It's a legitimate complaint, no artist wants an inferior or unfinished product masquerading as the real thing, but, seriously, turn off the caps lock. But this, supposedly, is the real thing: [...]

The animation is creepily accurate. I'm a little excited and a little creeped out. Stereogum has a partial track list.

By eh Last night I went out to see the very lovely Norwegian group I Was a King. Immediately, what I noticed was that the bassist was wearing the t-shirt of the band he was in , but it was a cute shirt, so I'll give it a pass. The music had a feel that was a little bit laid-back seventies, and a little bit laconic nineties (in fact, all night they kept reminding me of a song that I couldn't put my finger [...]

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Despite the lukewarm reception of her Tom Waits cover album, Johansson is now working on a follow up, a collaboration with Pete Yorn. You can hear a single here . Again, it's not terrible, and I won't begrudge Johansson her fun. She doesn't really sound like herself, though. More like an amalgam of quirky female singers, up to and including Zooey Deschanel — an actress/singer hybrid who has met with far more critical acclaim. I'm having trouble mustering any kind of strong feeling about this song. It's inoffensive, I guess is the best/worst [...]

By Emily Hulme • A Camp is at Bowery Ballroom tonight. After eight years, A Camp is releasing a sophomore album, "Colonia." The delay is excusable, though, as their frontwoman Nina Persson needed some time to record and tour with her original band, The Cardigans. The first A Camp album was conceived during a Cardigans hiatus, when Persson teamed up with Swedish musician Niclas Frisk. This time around, they've added former Shudder to Think guitarist Nathan Larson, who is also Persson's [...]

By Pete Catapano Jimmy Page's imprint on rock music is hard to deny. Besides his prowess on the guitar and eclectic songwriting, Page's studio innovations changed the way rock music was recorded. Author George Case told us what he learned about the Led Zeppelin founder while researching his biography on the star, "Jimmy Page: Magus, Musician, Man: An Unauthorized Biography," which is now in paperback. There have been so many Zeppelin books, what insights into Jimmy Page does this have over that the others [...]

By eh Ah ha! In this hastily researched post , I mentioned an Animal Collective car commercial, but it turns out I was wrong on both counts. It was this Miller Chill commercial I was thinking of, and the band is actually The Dodos, a San Francisco psych-folk duo, according to Spinner . Here is the actual song, "Fools."

They Might Be Giants have never been a conventional rock band, and we like it that way. The latest is that they're looking to sponsor some little league teams, inspired by a Seattle team that named themselves after the band. You can read the full story here , including how to submit your team for consideration. If you're just about the music, TMBG plays Le Poisson Rouge Saturday (for grownups) and Prospect Park July 11 (for families).

I've been meaning to put this up for a while: Here's Matt & Kim shilling for Bacardi, with their song "Daylight." Also, there's a new Heinz commercial that uses the Squirrel Nut Zippers' "The Suits Are Picking Up the Bill," which I cannot find online, and I've mental noted that I thought I heard Animal Collective in a car commercial, but I'm having trouble sorting that one out.

By eh Sad news broke over the weekend. The Danger Mouse/Sparklehorse collab, "Dark Night of the Soul," is being held up by EMI for legal reasons. According to NME , the accompanying book of David Lynch photos will still be released, and it "will come with a blank CD bearing a sticker with the message: 'For Legal Reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will.'" For now, you can still hear the stream of the album at NPR's First Listen .

"Good Girls Go Bad (feat. Leighton Meester)" by Cobra Starship has cracked the iTunes top 25 today. I don't wanna be all, "Um, stick to acting, Blair," but ... maybe look for some more interesting collaborators, Meester. Like, this one wasn't so bad: It actually has some Song of the Summer potential ... XOXO

By eh Last night, I went to the Bell House for their "Lost" season finale party, featuring recap rockers Previously on Lost. It was one of the more awesomely dorky things I've done in my life. PoL is fronted by Jeff Curtin and Adam Schatz (who grew a Beardy Jack-like beard ... and given their commitment to the show, I totally believe that was intentional). Last night, they had a full band and performed on a stage decked out with inflatable palm trees and other island jetsom. The [...]

I just came upon this band in my iTunes, and I totally forgot that I ripped the album and why. A little research reveals that the Scottish band is also half Spanish and released on a Spanish label, and I love Spain ... so, sadly, my reasoning was no deeper than that. But, awesomely, they're awesome. The main singer has a voice like Bill Callahan's, but with a sexy Scottish burr. Also, they have a song on their album, "Friday Afternoon Car," called "The Cut of Your Jib," which is one of my favorite phrases. [...]

This is awesome! Andy Baio, of Waxy.org , is getting together an 8-bit cover of Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue." It's all on the up-and-up; Baio is paying to license the music, so there will be only a limited run of CDs and downloads, which will be available Aug. 17. More info here . For a taste of some 8-bit jazz, here's John Coltrane's "Giant Steps," by 8bitcollective's ast0r. Baio has a few more links here . And, of course, here's Coltrane's original: [...]

By eh As Pitchfork reported , head Shin James Mercer has jettisoned his two band mates for replacments Ron Lewis from Grand Archives and Fruit Bats on bass and Joe Plummer of Modest Mouse on drums. Now there's video circulating of the new trio in action, and what do you know, it's pretty good. "Double Bubble," as the above song is called, is way more rock and roll than anything they've done before. I kind of miss the dreamy psychedelia of their [...]

By Emily Hulme • "John Lennon: The New York City Years" is at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex NYC John Lennon was the quintessential New Yorker. An ambitious outsider, outspoken sometimes to the point of obnoxiousness, Lennon embodied the city's "anything goes" spirit. "He was a New Yorker already, in Liverpool," said Yoko Ono yesterday of her late husband. Ono was speaking at the opening of "John Lennon: The New York City Years" at the local annex of [...]

Listen to this and tell me it doesn't sound like something done by the Mighty Boosh.

• Stereogum checks in with one of my favorite bands, The Long Winters. They're working hard on a new album, a follow up to 2006's "Putting The Days To Bed," but we probably shouldn't expect anything for another year or so. • Download Gnarls Barkley's "Mystery Man" here . Why now? It was released as a B-Side to the "Who's Gonna Save My Soul" EP in November and there's even a video already. (We even wrote about it way back when .) Well, the renewed interest is due to the [...]