Blog: Don't Fear the Mainstream

Joel Madden and Rivers Cuomo discussed upcoming Weezer concerts and Weezer's new album Hurley: Joel: Hey @ riverscuomo I'm getting my tix for the bluealbum & Pinkerton shows u should add nights 4 the greenalbum, make believe & Hurley! Rivers: @ JoelMadden thanks, man. will be playing lots of goodies from the other albums too. would love to meet u at the shows. [...]

Rob Thomas provided some all-important breaking news this afternoon: there's a FREAKS AND GEEKS marathon on IFC right now!! Big news, indeed. That show is classic! http://twitter.com/ThisIsRobTh omas

Album Review: Toadies Feeler In lieu of being able to attend the Toadies show this Friday (9/17) at the Altar Bar, we humbly offer a review of Feeler , their latest release. If you're looking for a good rock n' roll show in Pittsburgh, the Toadies will certainly deliver, as evidenced by when we caught them at Lollapalooza in 2008 . Overall, this effort from the Texas trio lacked the cohesive feel of [...]

Huge news this week from the Dresden Dolls' Twitter account: Please tell friends about http://bit.ly/FALLdolls & http://bit.ly/FOTSmusic and use the #DresdenDolls tag, maybe it'll trend...more soon! Clicking the link takes you to a YouTube video in which Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione announce they are getting back together for a brief fall tour. This has us ecstatic, as long-time readers know that the Dolls are one of our favorite bands and provided the lyrical inspiration for [...]

Martina reminded us that the Country Music Academy nominees were announced: Congrats to all the CMA nominees! Happy! Perusing the list of nominees , it's pretty surprising to see that Miranda Lambert earned a leading five nominations. That's a good sign. She's even up for Entertainer of the Year, a shocking nod because women never get nominated for that award unless they do something superhuman. http://twitter.com/martinamcbr ide

MUST-SEE SHOW: 9/5 Lady Gaga & Semi-Precious Weapons @ Consol Energy Center Though her Lollapalooza performance left a little to be desired, Gaga's show should work much better here, where she'll be in front of hardcore fans, not the casual fans that typically comprise festival audiences. Though Gaga's excessive banter during Lolla made the show drag a bit, there was no more exciting moment in the entire festival than when the first notes of "Just Dance" exploded through the speakers. Her infectious music speaks for itself. [...]

Slim Thug - he's the rapper who turned A Flock of Seagulls' "I Ran" into the thuggy dance-rap number "I Run" - was busily tweeting away yesterday about cars and bling and the hood. A sampling: Instead of dropping out of school to be a rapper or trapper go to college and get a degree that will last forever. U can't sell dope 4ever Instead of buying a $3000 Louie purse $1000 red bottoms and shopping in galleria. Put that $4000 in a $300 bag [...]

Lisa's recent tweet described her night: Ben and jerry's peanut brittle ice cream, side stage watching my morning jacket Sounds like a pleasant Saturday evening. https://twitter.com/lisaloeb4r eal

You can always tell when a newbie plays a music festival. Badu played Lollapalooza last weekend and thought it was cool to take the stage 20 minutes late. But that sort of thing doesn't fly at music festivals, where everything is planned down to the minute. She played for the last 40 minutes of her hour time-slot, then got shooed off the stage when Wolfmother act began playing right on time at the next stage over. Badu was busy tweeting all weekend and into this week. A sampling: I'm finding it difficult [...]

We all know that festival shows in 90-degree Chicago weather are not exactly optimal conditions, but rain sucks it even harder. Wussing out, I passed up on seeing Miniature Tigers, Neon Hitch, and The Cribs and had brunch at a biker bar that garnishes their bloody marys with bacon and chorizo. Amazing. Sunday--Getting Lazy My latest start to Lolla ever, I arrived at 3 and thought I'd check out the hyped Mumford & Sons , but the humidity and heat combo got the best of [...]

I had trouble committing to most of the acts I saw on Saturday, mostly because I had already seen them or wasn't terribly familiar with their body of work . Thusly... Saturday--Deena Has ADD The theme song from Team America: World Police blared from the south stage just before Blues Traveler (left) took the stage for their set of uptempo blues-rock. They boldly opened with [...]

I'll admit it--I have been really lousy about keeping up with music over the past year or so. And I didn't do nearly as much research on the bands playing Lolla this year as I did when Scott and I took on the festival in 2008. Also, this year my fiance reluctantly agreed to accompany me and I had to keep someone else's interests in mind and not focus on my journalistic/blogging tendency to want to be up in every band's face, standing in the blazing sun for 8-10 hours every day. So yeah, my Lollapalooza experience [...]

Deena and I, as well as several other Pittsburgh bloggers (check out BNAC , PGH Music Report and The Pop Eye ) attended Lollapalooza in Chicago this weekend. I'm not sure if I'll be posting much in the way of a review, as I've posted my opinions at length elsewhere, but I'll share some of the weekend's photos and list my favorite shows of the weekend. My top 15 shows of Lollapalooza 2010: 1. Mavis Staples 2. Gogol Bordello 3. Frightened Rabbit 4. Arcade Fire 5. Lady Gaga 6. Matt [...]

Kanye West joined Twitter just over a week ago and has already been declared one of music's top tweeters. A sample of his tweets: I love everybody... only thing I don't like is taxes.. me and taxes gone fight Office clothes are the shit I need a flight to Brazil soon as possible [...]

MUST-SEE SHOW: 8/18 Paul McCartney @ Consol Energy Center This month's must-see show is a no-brainer. Any time you get a chance to see a Beatle, you go. (Even if it's Ringo.) Paul McCartney makes his first stop in the Burgh in years. Crazy off-the-wall prediction: He's going to play "Hey Jude." ALSO WORTH ATTENDING: 8/6 Heart @ Station Square Amphitheatre I've been wanting to see Heart forever but I keep missing them, and it's not going to happen this time either, as we'll [...]

Guitarist and best-selling author Slash had this to say on Twitter earlier this week: Just did some licks on Travis Barker's new solo record. Really cool song called "Sat Night." Good stuff. Who knew Travis Barker was working on a solo album? Cool news. http://twitter.com/Slash

Paula Abdul can melt down in front of the Idol cameras and in cyberspace. Last night she ranted with a series of tweets about people who were arguing on her twitter page: I cannot believe what's happening. I just took a little break from filming video replies & people are saying horrible things to each other! PLEASE the fighting and the profanity is ENOUGH. I don't want it. I care about you, I do not [...]

Amanda Palmer is releasing an album of Radiohead covers recorded on ukelele. Why? Because she can. The album can be purchased online for a donation here . I haven't heard it yet but I'll give it a listen at some point in the near future. Meanwhile, NPR recently surveyed hundreds of female musicians about life on the road, life in the music business, and all that stuff. Their responses have been categorized and posted individually here . Check it out, very fascinating even though most of the women surveyed are not household names.

This week Jason Isbell served as news anchor with his tweet: Hank Cochran has died. Damn fine songwriter. http://www.google.com/hostedne ws/ap/article/ALeqM5jSUlNcszRG bPobW4pmJy_Y0XTjcgD9GVMG6G0 http://twitter.com/JasonIsbell

I've been slacking on listening to new music this year. I think it's because so many of my favorite artists released new albums earlier this year, and they were mostly disappointments. I'm looking at you, MGMT, Gogol Bordello, New Pornographers, the Hold Steady and the National (though I think those last two will grow on me with a few more listens.) But, inspired by BeckEye's recent post at The Pop Eye , I decided to get caught up this weekend. I downloaded 21 albums, the majority of which came from the NPR list of the top [...]