Jarvis Cocker is in the process of putting together a week long festival of his fantasies. This is akin to the hypothetical question: which bands would you want to have play your perfect birthday party? While most will never actually experience the exact lineup they'd wished for, those who are in the UK in the middle of next month may encounter an event far greater than they could have imagined themselves. The Meltdown festival begins with metal rockers Motorhead ,...

Lupe Fiasco entered the studio this week to commence the recording of his follow-up to Food & Liquor , The Cool (tentatively scheduled for an Oct. 31 release date on 1st & 15th / Atlantic ). His original dream to collaborate with Pink Floyd on a track for the forthcoming full-length has yet to be realized; Fiasco admitted to Billboard.com at Coachella , "Nothing has developed yet. But...

Kate Tunstall, better known as KT Tunstall, announced the title of her new album, Drastic Fantastic, which will come out on Virgin in September. Of Drastic , which will again be produced by Steve Osborne , Tunstall told Billboard.com , “The second album sort of feels like the next half of a book rather than a totally different book. I'm really excited about that because the first album was made in the middle of the country, so I'm now...

The Giant Step NYC Street Team is always looking for dedicated music fans to help promote artists and events in and around New York City. In addition to extra cash in your pocket for working at great events and parties, you will get FREE Music, T-Shirts, Bags, Stickers, and all those other goodies. This is a great networking opportunity. All inquiries please respond to street@giantstep.net with "Street...

There’s no doubt that artwork plays an integral role in our adoration for music. Whether its flyers, 12” sleeve-art, CD liner design, T-shirts, posters, digital release jpegs or music videos, someone took the time to contextualize and create a visual association to enhance our sensory experience. Ed Banger Records’ art director SO ME has been doing an exceptional job at doing just that. Through caricaturizing and simplifying each producer on the label’s roster, SO ME nods to...

Gutted you couldn’t afford tickets? Or get time off of work, or for whatever reason just couldn’t make it to Indio Field for the weekend? No worries. Coachella’s streaming a handful of performances live from the festival, including Noisettes, Rufus Wainwright, Sonic Youth, Bjork, Arcade Fire, Kaiser Chiefs, CSS and Klaxons. The current listing is below with more acts to come (hopefully). And the best...

Located just south of Astor Place in New York City, the aficionado's heaven Other Music has been a long standing pillar of the new cool, the esoteric, and the difficult to obtain. And just recently, on its 12th year of operation, it launched a shiny online store-front grounded in its original ethos: "tracking down great music and making it available to passionate music fans." With all of their aptly titled genres ported to the web and thousands of releases already uploaded (as...

Fancy a socio-cultural debate on the role of hip hop? Initially sparked by TV icon Oprah Winfrey (as shown in the video below), the conversation continues with poetry slammer Saul Williams’ eloquently written open letter. Hip-Hop Townhall Meeting On Oprah

The world’s favorite online retailer, Amazon.com has embraced indie (and not just indie rock) artists and labels, opening a brand new section called Go Indie . Despite partnering with just over 30 labels, Amazon won’t necessarily carry a more diverse range of titles – it already has a fairly deep selection. However, it is a fantastic excuse to promote 150 indie albums for $9.99 each and get the word out by featuring select artists like Air, Bebel Gilberto, and...

Lily Allen’s canceled 10 dates in May and June on her American tour to spend time in the studio writing her new album. As blogged on her MySpace, the popstar reported, "I am not falling apart at the seams, I am not suffering with exhaustion, I am not pregnant, and I am not going to rehab. I will be here in America, promoting the album and also starting to write the second album, which I am beyond excited about." So the news she...