Calmer Than You Are

Wow. What a week. As we collectively watch the National economy eat itself into non-existence and the Presidential elections take a late-inning nasty turn into racial mud-slinging and excessive non-truths, it's good to know there music out there to elevate our minds and spirits to a better place.

Some music news:

According to Billboard.com, the Beastie Boys are planning a series of shows to encourage fans to get and vote. Ben Harper, Norah Jones, Sheryl Crow, David Crosby & Graham Nash and Jack Johnson will help fans fall asleep, err I mean energize people to make the trip to their local polling stations in November.

Check www.beastieboys.com for details of the tour.



My Morning Jacket lead man Jim James took a nasty spill during the band's concert at the University of Iowa. According to various reports on the web, James' went to lean on a stage monitor with his foot while rocking out and ended up stepping right off the front of the stage and hitting his noggin pretty hard. The injury forced the band to cancel the rest of the show and postpone a series of dates including shows in Chicago and a Jim James acoustic show at a Barack Obama event as well. Rest up and get better Jim!




Noel Gallagher thwarts fans of iTunes. Alway's a goldmine for quotes, Gallagher recently spoke to XFM radio and discussed his disdain for the modern youth's penchant for cherry picking a few tunes off a new album and not listening to the album as a whole.

"I think it's the first album we've ever made where we're consciously not hanging a collection of songs around three songs, which is what seems to happen these days." Gallagher says. "That's why all the songs fade into each other and there's sound effects that join them all together. It was a conscious effort to say to people 'Well, if you're going to cherry pick songs off iTunes, you can have a few seconds either side of what you're missing. It's a real album - 'Get Off Your High Horse' or 'Falling Down' don't make sense if you haven't heard the rest of the record....The new technology's a great thing, but the 'album' had died a little bit. The reason people only want three songs off an album is 'cos most albums are shite."

Well said Noel.

Lastly, here's Ryan Adams & the Cardinals performing "Cobwebs" off their upcoming album Cardinology in Boston, MA last month. Rock.