
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book. Hos, Hookers, Call Girls & Rent Boys collects stories, poems, and essays by sex workers. Compiled by David Henry Sterry and RJ Martin, Jr., the book organizes this collection of refreshingly genuine and brutally honest writings by category (love, life, money, etc.). The New York Times wrote of the book: "From the unappealing title, you might think this is a truly trashy [...]

La scorsa settimana abbiamo terminato il nostro viaggio attraverso gli album più importanti del decennio che si sta concludendo. Abbiamo quindi pensato di riassumere il tutto in questo post che non è altro che la lista completa, tappa per tappa, degli album che di volta in volta abbiamo approfondito, in modo tale da avere una sorta di indice delle varie puntate. Dopo il salto trovate anche la listona di tutti gli album che di anno in anno sono stati inseriti fra "gli album da salvare". [...]
Here, for no apparent reason, is a collection of bands named after places. Architecture in Helsinki I never knew the city was renowned for its flair for buildings. I guess it's catchier than Architecture in Slough. Beirut A New Mexican who named his group after a Lebanese city and plays eastern European, French and Mexican-influenced folk. Somebody has identity issues. [...]

Since Late Nights and Early Mournings , I've been following Junclassic 's career and I finally got a chance to interview him this week. This was probably one of my favorite interviews I've done so far, so read week #3's interview from Junclassicafter the jump. P.S. I am "Killa", it's not bad... If there was one song that describes your life right now, what would it be? Wow thats a great Question Killa. U mean off [...]

After a summer of hard work, the payoff is here: Flawless Hustle proudly presents Money Isn't Real , our first compilation. If there's one topic that's a constant in Hip-Hop is money. Whether heads are making it, spending it or stealing it, the scene (and our world) is obsessed with money. Hell, one of the reasons people hustle is to get loot, so we ourselves know the power of a dollar, which got us thinking: what the fuck is money, really? It's an interesting concept, and was a great jumping off point for this debut project, so [...]
ROcktober continues with another great weekend. On Thursday, you could go to Precinct to check Barrence Whitfield on his second week of his October residency or go to the Alchemist in JP to see Lars Vegas (for Free!). Or maybe you want to revisit the 1980's and see Howard Jones at Scullers. On Friday,not certain if there are still tix available but I'm looking forward to seeing Black Joe Lewis at the Landsdowne Pub and then heading over to Harpers Ferry for the Upper Crust (gotta love their powdered wigs, puffy shirts and beauty marks!). If that's not your thing [...]
CMJ released the band schedule for its 2009 Music Marathon & Film Festival yesterday, which is about as good a sign of fall hitting New York as the return of apple cider at Greenmarket. The festival runs from Oct. 20 - Oct. 24 and includes various venues throughout the city, and the list of featured artists would probably take all four days to read through. But skimming the selection reveals a fairly equal distribution of well-known acts like Atlas Sound and Deer Tick , anonymous locals (including krautrock-y Jeff Buckley-channelers Pocketknife), twenty-two bands who [...]
The press release below doesn't actually list all the acts performing at CMJ this year, so you're probably better off checking out cmj.sched.org to get a true idea of what's happening during this year's marathon. Of course, sched.org is a little confusing too and it doesn't list unofficial events and day parties (as far as I know), so you'll have to wait a little bit longer for info to trickle out from the blogs and other unofficial sources. Lastly, even though the press release says the schedule is "final", you can pretty much bet that things will shift [...]
It's the Gallup UK Top 40 Singles of the Year 1984 - and your chance to download a whopping 7.5% of it! Imagine that! Times must've been hard, pocket money-wise, in this year, as I only owned three of these on 7" (numbers 1, 15 & 37). I'd just discovered the delights of the compilation album in '84, mind, so subsequently own a lot of the songs here as part of various early Now double LPs (oh, and Hungry For Hits ! Anyone remember that?). Here are the runners and riders in full [...]
And so we've reached the last three months of the calendar year, known in the world of music as the Fourth Quarter. It's the last chance for bands and labels to make an impression, pocket a bit of cash, and maybe, just maybe, earn a sport on those illustrious year-end lists. As usually the case with these types of things, we got a lot of music to look forward to... with a heavy emphasis on "a lot." Fortunately, as it's usually the case with these types of things, we got you covered. Below, you'll find an extensive and [...]
Wow, it's already October. I guess time flies when you're having fun or something like that. On Friday I'm torn about the Dinosaur Jr show at the Middle East for a little Pioneer Valley rock or Jay Retard at Harpers or Jetset and Highland Moore at the Plough, too many choices. Saturday has another good night of music with Ra Ra Riot at the Paradise (I love their Rhumb Line cd but have never seen them live yet), a great local line up at TTs with Sidewalk Driver, The Motion Sick, Aloud and John Powhida's International Airport and yet another [...]
Buddhist monks blessing the crowd in the wee hours of the morn. For the Bon Iver preformance review jump to where is says BON IVER. So I think everyone has a little Goth in them and why not? I mean there is darkness all around in the media in our daily lives in general. Justin Vernon must have a little more than the average Cure fan. Look at his lyrics: "Only love is all maroon Lapping lakes like leery loons Leaving rope [...]
Monday, September 28, 2009 Fever Ray at Webster Hall Marcy Playground, Nine Days and Jimmie's Chicken Shack at BB King's Mono at Bowery Ballroom Dolores O'Riordan at World Cafe Live, Philly Maxwell, Common and Chrisette Michele at Madison Square Garden Tuesday, September 29, 2009 Obituary and Goatwhore at Gramercy Theatre Fever Ray at Webster Hall Charlatans UK at Bowery Ballroom Tina Dico at Highline Ballroom Matt Kearney at Irving Plaza Roots at [...]

Bon Iver Wants to Meet You at the Cemetary Gates On Sunday So much to do, so little time.... Monday 9/21/09 [Pick of the Night] Ross Flournoy of the Broken West @ Largo Little Room ($10) – I'm excited to see Ross play a solo show. The Little Room has a liquor license too. [Recommended] David Cross / Todd Glass @ the Wiltern ($36) – One of my favorite stand-ups [Recommended] Leslie and the [...]

[This week's Sunday Supplement has been very kindly written by perhaps my oldest (and oldest) reader, Campfires & Battlefields. C&B has emailed me more good music suggestions than pretty much anyone, being the first to alert me to Samamidon, O'Death, Fleet Foxes (okay, we'll forgive him that one) The Felice Brothers and quite a few more, so hopefully we can persuade him to do a monthly column - sort of a Letter From America sort of thing. Thanks C&B.] A few weeks back these hallowed pages were given over to iniquity in [...]
"Pitching is the art of instilling fear." - Sandy Koufax How many hits did Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis have to contend with on June 12th, 1970? Depending on your interpretation of the question it was several or none. In an amazing story that is rarely in any baseball highlight reel, Ellis pitched the only LSD induced no-hitter in the history of major league baseball. Let's see Barry Bonds or Alex Rodriguez enhance their game on psychedelics (no really, let's see it!). Dock Ellis was baseball's first true king of performance enhancing drugs. Ah, but wait... there's more. [...]
Or: "things i have learned from listening to The TV Theme Players ". — My god but there are a lot of TV shows. This double CD has 110 tracks. And they're pretty much all American shows, the only UK representative being the really crap Skins . — The Blind Boys of Alabama version of "Way Down in the Hole" is apparently the definitive Wire theme. Which is balls, of course, as everyone knows it's the Tom Waits original. — Hardly any TV themes [...]

I have to tell you, I've got a list a mile long on songs and bands I'd like to post about. I can be just about to open up the Panther dashboard and peak behind the curtain to actually post and I will change my mind at the last second. Barring a concert...by the way I spared you my thoughts after seeing The Allman Brothers Band and Widespread Panic for the umpteenth time as well as a great performance by one time icon & legendary Humble Pie guitarist Peter Frampton last week...you can thank me later I suppose...I usually just [...]
Welcome to my weekly roundup of inexpensive indie(ish) musical happenings in downtown Toronto, all for $10 or less. If I'm missing something you think I should list, or you have any comments, let me know. I star (*) shows that most interest me. Like this list? Join my Facebook group to get my weekly Toronto indie music listings. Subscribe to my weekly podcast (or download the episodes) here , or through iTunes . Or just listen to the latest [...]
Like a Version is a segment on the Australian radio station Triple J. It was created by Mel Bampton as part of the Mel in the Morning program. Currently the segment pops up whenever artists are available and willing to do it, though mainly on the Breakfast show. It involves Australian, and more recently, international artists playing live, acoustic versions of some of their favourite songs. This segment's popularity has led to, so far, the release of four compilation CDs. Samples of the 4 Vol Set: Vol 1 Damien Rice - "When Doves Cry"* (Prince) [...]