I stumbled upon the personal blog of New York Yankees top-prospect Phil Hughes this week. It’s mostly fan-oriented Q&A type stuff and insight into the daily life of a young professional baseball player. In one of his regular features, he posts the music he’s been listening to. I was pleasantly suprised to see the guy has some great taste! THURSDAY, THRICE and ALKALINE TRIO appear among his favorites.

It’s so bizarre to think of a ballplayer on a larger-than-life team like the Yankees is walking around with an iPod playlist similar to mine. It makes sense - he’s only a couple years younger than me. We were likely both playing high school ball around the same time, listening to the same albums during our practices. I guess that’s what it’s like to get older. You go through life idolizing the concept of ballplayer as rugged, old, dad-mustachioed Don Mattingly until one day you realize you’re older than most of the league!

Anyway, neat little blog if you’re a Yankees or baseball fan and need a break from any news with the words “Mitchell” or “Santana” in it.

M83 announced plans to return to North America. The tour will be in support of the band’s new album, Saturdays = Youth which will be released here in the states on April 15th via Mute. The first single will be “Couleurs”.

Gonzalez got the hlpe of mega-producers Ken Thomas (Sigur Ros, Sugarcubes, Cocteau Twins, Suede and Clinic) and Ewan Pearson (The Rapture, Ladytron) for the album.

We’re officially psyched!

Dates can be seen after the jump. (more…)

THE LEMONHEADS recently announced it will be performing its album It’s A Shame About Ray in its entirety at this year’s SXSW Festival. The group, fronted by Evan Dando will play on March 12th at Emo’s Annex.

This is being done in celebration of the 1992 seminal album being released as a collector’s edition on Rhino on March 25th. The album will be remastered and will add unreleased demos, as well as a DVD of the 1993 video Two Weeks In Australia.

The release of this album is part of a string of re-issues Rhino is putting out in the near future, including The Replacements, The Jesus And Mary Chain, and Otis Redding.

Fearless Records is launching another cd in their Punk Goes… series. This time around all they are getting their punk rock friends and launching Punk Goes Crunk.

The likes of Hot Rod Circuit, Emanuel, Set Your Goals, and A New Found Glory are all donning the bling and trying their best to cover their favorite hip hop jams. Seems like some could be more successful than others.

You can give the SAY ANYTHING cover of the Old Dirty Bastard song “Got Yr Money” a listen now. Pay particular attention to frontman Max Beamis over-pronouncing the words as much as possible. For if you can’t rap like ODB/Big Baby Jesus/Dirt McGirt you whitewash that thing up as much as you possibly can!

You can view the entire tracklisting for the Punk Goes Crunk comp after the jump. (more…)

We’re always down for a get together so it was no surprise to catch us at The Annex last night for a little party put on by Vice Records to celebrate the release of the new album Lust Lust Lust by THE RAVEONETTES. The Newcastle was flowing at the bar and the dj was playing the tunes. Not much more one needs than that.

The band’s sounds is a blend of vintage garage rock and fuzz, packed into what often sounds like the soundtrack to a classic black and white horror film. Check out their first single “Aly Walk With Me”.

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MP3: The Raveonettes :: “Aly Walk With Me”

Happy GOLDFRAPP week! In honor of the new album Seventh Tree dropping (hurray hip hop terms!) on Mute, here’s the first single from the album.

Give it a listen now because Alison Goldfrapp takes no mess from anyone.

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We’ve been excited about the upcoming X-Men spinoff films based on the origins of the franchise’s most popular characters. The first star to get the treatment is Wolverine in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Hugh Jackman we be reprising his role as the title character.

Now, some other people have been named to star in the flick. Judging from the roles being cast, it seems that most of the movie will focus on the days of Wolvie’s time in the Canadian Weapon X program.

Ryan Reynolds is said to be the masked, wisecracking, sword-toting Deadpool. Black Eyed Peas rapper Will.I.Am is to play John Wraith. Also announced are Liev Schreiber (as Sabretooth), Danny Huston (as William Stryker) and Lynn Collins (as Silver fox).

Perhaps our the most exciting piece of news is the announcement that there will indeed be an appearance by everyone’s favorite Creole-card tosser Gambit! Taylor Kitsch (aka Tim Riggins from Friday Night Lights) has signed on for a 3 movie deal to star as Gambit. A character we all were pretty excited to see in the first set of trilogies but never got to see.

The movie is said to hit theaters May 1, 2009.

Last night TVT RECORDS, the country’s biggest independent record label, fired off the bulk of its staff. The label is expected to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection before the end of the week.

Since forming in 1985, TVT has hosted a wide roster of acts. Ranging from Nine Inch Nails early on, to current acts like The Polyphonic Spree and Lil’ Jon.

At this time there are no reports of what will happen to the current roster artists, what will happen to label’s upcoming release schedule, or why this decision has been made. But lately there’s been more than a few reports of the label’s artists publicly airing problems with label founder and current President, Steve Gottleib. Like this recent one by Pitbull.

In fact, even though he’s not been on the label for many years, Nine Inch Nails frontmant Trent Reznor posted this single sentence statement about the label on hiswebsite then linking to this story on allhiphop.com.

18 February 2008: you’re gonna get yours

Not ALL news about the music industry is bad these days.

Damn Trent! That’s cold!

But maybe all those record breaking “Crunk Ain’t Dead” bling chains weren’t a good idea after all.

WE ARE SCIENTISTS’ new album Brain Thrust Mastery is definitely another one of our most anticipated releases of 2008. We have to wait a bit longer until the new album is released but in the meantime we can check out the album art which was just posted. And it looks like the guys had a bit too good a time on prom night.

If we haven’t declared it already…we love us some SPOON! There’s not much that this Austing band can’t do right! Case in point, their new video for “Don’t You Evah” the next single from their album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. When you hear about a treatment being a lo-fi recording of a live show mixed in with clips from the band on the road, you would think twice before wanting to watch it. But somehow, Spoon manages to work their magic and pull off the video. And to top that all off, it’s not their song! It’s a cover of a track from The Natural History.