I missed the leak earlier today, so this is my first time hearing Vampire Weekend’s new song “Cousins.” The track’s not half bad. In fact, it might have done what the entire album should do — move past the formula of the first record, but don’t alienate too many fans. They needed to prove they [...]

Robert Schneider of the Apples in Stereo always has a lot going on. Whether it’s his children’s music alter ego Robbert Bobbert, co-running Garden Gate Records or just playing with old friends, he’s always got something to keep himself (and his fans) occupied. Now his latest creation is finally finished; you can pick up Thee [...]

Yesterday the Monolith Music Festival put up this message: A tough economic year and an opening day of chilling rain combined to put a serious dent in our humble operation. We have continued to pursue any and all options that would allow us to recover from this year and head into 2010 with full steam. At [...]

Boing Boing just premiered this video for N.A.S.A’s song “Spacious Thoughts,” featuring Tom Waits and Kool Keith. It’s a crazy, pen and ink/computer video that gives great visuals to Tom’s voice and the song as a whole.

In 1993 I was seven years old and had likely just conned my dad into buying me a Super Nintendo (thanks, dad!). I was contributing nothing to society other than drawings of the X-Men. These United States, however, were apparently just getting their band together and recording this video for the song “Important Things.” [...]

So in case you don’t read any blogs who occasionally report on goofy feuds within the music community, I’ll catch you up. Matt Friedberger of the Fiery Furnaces said that Radiohead were trying to be hip by writing a song about the inventor of the 43-tone scale, Harry Partch. Problem was that their song was [...]

According to Harlem, they’ve never heard the original, Paul Revere version of this song, only the Flamin’ Groovies cover. So really, this month’s Cover of the Month is actually a cover of a cover. But however it got from their instruments to our ears, let’s be thankful for it. MP3: Harlem – Sometimes (Paul Revere [...]

Sub Pop just posted this new track of Beach House’s upcoming album Teen Dream. It’s hitting stores in 2010, taking it out of the running for best album of the year/decade/whatever, but that doesn’t keep it from sounding absolutely incredible. Here’s your first taste of Teen Dream MP3: Beach House – Norway

Guys, I have a confession to make. Normally when faced with some really awesome, fresh news like “the Magnetic Fields have just announced their US tour dates,” I’ll rush to YANP and post it here before doing anything. But today I had to do something before posting this — I had to buy tickets! I [...]

I ran across this cover of Grizzly Bear’s “Foreground” yesterday while killing time on Twitter. I don’t know how sold I am on the rest of their songs on Myspace, but Memoryhouse’s version of “Foreground” is pretty nice. It’s pretty ballsy to make the voice the focus of a cover when the original lead singer [...]

As if 2009 needed anything else to make it awesome, here’s a video of White Rabbits and Britt Daniel of Spoon covering John Lennon’s “Instant Karma.”

Local design wizards Cricket Press just put out a great new book compiling all their work into one convenient spot. Not only is it a completely beautiful addition to anything you already own, but they were nice enough to ask me to write the intro! Unfortunately that left me a little tuckered out, so I [...]

Thanks to Backseat Sandbar for posting this information on the upcoming Jim James/Daniel Martin Moore benefit show. Jim James w/Daniel Martin Moore December 6, 2009 21c Hotel (Atrium Gallery) 6pm-8:30pm $25/$30 The show will raise money for Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. I’m not sure if I can get up to Louisville for this, but I’ve got to do all I [...]

And the line-ups get more all-starier! For the next installment of his record club, Beck corralled Wilco, Feist and Jamie Lidell to do a cover of Skip Spence’s album OAR. This might be the most solid-sounding recording to come out of the record club recordings, but that could just be because Wilco are one of [...]

On Tuesday my co-worker found a promo DVD of an Ike & Tina show from 1971 buried away in a shelf of the record store. We popped it in and shortly thereafter had our minds blown for the next hour. Their performance packs more of a punch than 95% of concerts I’ve seen. Everyone has [...]

Anyone who’s lived more than a dozen or so years has to be an expert on something. Sometimes it’s just making the perfect cake, playing a favorite video game or celebrity impersonations — but it’s something. So occasionally I like to turn YANP over to a favorite musician who lets us in on an area [...]

Thanks to Saraya for pointing out that Bill Callahan will be playing a show in Lexington this December! I just missed Karl Blau at Al’s bar, so this should make up for that a little bit. Bill Callahan live at Cosmic Charlies Monday, December 7th. $8 Check out the video for Bill Callahan’s Black Cab Session after the [...]

I’ve been hearing about Sesame Street everywhere this week, what with this marking their 40th anniversary and all. Finding this, however, had nothing to do with any of the nostalgia. I was doing some random wikipediaing and realized I’d never looked up any Gene Krupa or Buddy Rich stuff on youtube. Ten minutes later I [...]

Solange (right) performing with Chairlift at Bonnaroo We’ve been hearing a bit about this cover Solange did of the Dirty Projector’s song “Stillness is the Move” for so long now that it seemed like we’d never actually get to hear it. Well, today it was finally made public on Pitchfork. It’s beautiful and it’s free. Happy [...]

We’ve only been waiting a little while since the announcement that Eels would be following this year’s Hombre Lobo with a quick next album, but it does seem like a long time when you consider we’ve yet to hear a peep out of Mark Oliver Everett. Well now we’ve got all the peeps we could [...]