I’ve been slackin’ on here again, big time. So I thought I’d cram a bunch of artists I’ve taken a liking as I’ve sifted through the countless press releases and mp3s:

Tip of my hat to this video:

Now, I don’t have all the facts, but after some web browsing I’ve pieced together a few things about Weezer’s Hootenanny Tour. The band is going around the country performing songs with select groups of fans; everyone’s playing instruments. I’m under the impression the fans picked to jam with the band were selected based off YouTube submissions prior to the tour. Though I haven’t

found any decent videos of the Seattle session, I did come across a few from Portland, including a cover of Radiohead’s “Creep”:

Island in the Sun:

Creep:

Can’t find an audio file of this track yet, so a YouTube video will have to do for now. Allen also has a bit of the track streaming on her Myspace. The acronym to ‘Guess Who Batman’ just happens to be GWB, our current president’s innitials. Coincidence? Doubt it. Quite the charming chorus:

Besides a good cover song, there’s nothing better than a well-made remix. It’s especially hard when a song like “Don’t You Evah” is already untouchably good. Ted seems to pull it off:

Spoon - “Don’t You Evah (Ted Leo Remix)” (alt)

In an opposition to an iTunes-obsessed world, Kid Rock has now encouraged listeners to “steal” his music. In an interview with the BBC, the musician explained why most of his music isn’t found on the Apple-oriented music store:

“The internet was an opportunity for everyone to be treated fairly, for the consumer to get a fair price, for the artist to be paid fairly, for the record companies to make some money. But [iTunes is] an old system, where iTunes takes the money, the record company takes the money, and they don’t give it to the artists.”

If that wasn’t enough, Kid Rock has just issued this YouTube public service announcement, encouraging everyone to steal not just music, but iPods, cars, and gas. The best (if not the most honest) part: “I’m fuckin’ rich. So how can I bitch about someone downloading a song or two?” (Video After the Jump)

A new Clipse single has surfaced thanks to Blender. Clipse’s previous Neptunes-produced album, Hell Hath No Fury is one of my favorite hip-hop albums to date, so I’m quite excited for this release, although Scott Storch produced this cut as opposed to lil’ skateboard P.

Clipse - “Fast Life” (alt)

To be honest, I don’t know a ton about this girl. I was watching an old episode of Weeds and heard a short clip of her song and had to check her out. As far as Weeds is concerned, I’ve been pretty impressed with the music they’ve featured; not cornball Scrubs music, and not Adam Brody-indie OC music (though, this song in particularly is a little bit OC-ish). As far as the rest of the album, Batten the Hatches, it’s very Kate Nash meets the Format, with a dash of Stars.

Jenny Owen Youngs - “Fuck Was I” (alt)

Grizzly Bear’s got some new tracks up their sleeve, the first of which debuted during a Morning Becomes Eclectic performance. The band played the track (”While You Wait for the Others”) again during their recent appearance on Conan. The band is due to unveil another new track, “Nine”, on Letterman, early July.

Morning Becomes Eclectic:

Grizzly Bear - “While You Wait for the Others” (alt)

Conan Performance:

It has come to my attention that my Throw Me the Statue track feature in the “Halftime Report” post hasn’t been working, so I thought I’d highlight the band and give you a working link to their latest single, “Lolita”. If you recognize it, it’s probably because you’ve seen the Rhapsody commercial it’s featured in a billion times like I have. (mp3 and video after the jump).

Throw Me the Statue is a small local group, so it’s pretty exciting to see them get to where they are already. Hopefully they don’t turn into 15-minute of famers, like some other recent indie trends.

Throw Me the Statue - “Lolita” (alt)