THE BRIDGES album, Limits Of The Sky has spent a lot of time in our cds players as of late. The music is pure female-driven pop in the vein of She & Him or Eisley.

Pop-rock maiestro Matthew Sweet handled the production of the album allowing for some lush arrangements and great pop sensibility. Hopefully with a little bit of exposure and a bit of luck this group of sisters, brother and cousin could be a household name before too long.

VIDEO: The Bridges :: “Pieces”
BUY: The Bridges :: Limits Of The Sky

Someone stole a bit of Ian Curtis! NME is reporting final resting place of the JOY DIVISION frontman was vandalized.

The singer’s memorial gravestone was stolen last night at a cemetery in Macclesfield in the UK. The headstone had been visited by thousands yearly to pay respects to the deceased singer who committed suicide in December 1980. As of right now there are no leads to the theivery and that part of the cemetery was not under any portion of video surveilance. Police are currently looking for anyone who may have witnessed the crime.

The last few months have shown NAS coming under fire for the title of his forthcoming album that was tentatively titled N*gger. Pressure from those around him forced him to change the name of the album. So he’s going simply with “Untitled” as the album title.

But the controversy over the album seems to have just fueled the hype on the album. On July 15th, we’ll see if that controversy helped or hurt Mr. Nasir Jones’ reputation. Hearing one of the new tracks from the record, “America” does lead us to believe that rep will just continue to grow.

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MP3: Nas :: “America” feat. Chris Brown from CMJ.com

In the meantime, head over to www.nasindependenceday.com and listen to what he’s calling “The N*gger Tape”, a collecion of songs that address the ramifications of the word. Some of these songs made it to the new album, others did not. In addition to a bunch of guest musicians (Busta Rhymes, Mark Ronson, The Last Poets) there’s also snippets of Presidential candidate Barack Obama’s speeches for the track “Black President”.

Check out the album tracklisting and art after the jump. (more…)

Last night, ALBERT HAMMOND, JR. performed a secret show with his band at the Mercury Lounge. Hammond started his awesome set by making his way through the crowd with an acoustic guitar, climbing on top of a chair and singing a song completely un-miced.

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MP3: Albert Hammond, Jr. :: “GFC”

More photos and video after the jump. (more…)

Guitarist, activist, general ambasador of badassery, TOM MORELLO has announced he’ll release his second solo album on September 30th. The album, Fabled City will again be released under the moniker THE NIGHTWATCHMAN.

It seems fitting we find out this news on the same day it was announced Rage Against The Machine bandmate/frontman Zach De La Rocha announced a new project to be released on July 22nd.

Serj Tankian is said to be a major contributor to Fabled City.

PURCHASE: The Nightwatchman :: One Man Revolution

“Alone Without You” better known as the theme song to Michael Moore’s documentary, Sicko.

Wondering what BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN will be doing this 4th of July? He will be doing what he does best - rocking.

SIRIUS will broadcast Bruce’s concert live from Göteborg, Sweden with the E Street Band on its all-Springsteen channel, E STREET RADIO. Biographer Dave Marsh will host the the show and segue into selected live songs from the concert. The coverage starts 1 pm (est) on Sirius channel 10.

It hasn’t been released yet but THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM’S new album The ‘59 Sound is already one of our top albums of the year. We will make it an official declaration on August 19th when SideOneDummy puts the album in stores.

The band posted their first single and title track, “The ‘59 Sound” up on their Myspace page. Go listen, now! It’s no surprise the song has tinges of live-ness to it, a nod to Springsteen’s Born In the USA perhaps?

STREAM: The Gaslight Anthem :: “The ‘59 Sound” from the forthcoming album The ‘59 Sound on Mypace
MP3: The Gaslight Anthem :: “Blue Jeans And White T-Shirts” from the album Senor And The Queen via Spin.com

The band is on doing a small stint on Warped Tour this summer before heading overseas. But they will be back in time for some record release shows set up. One at the Knitting Factory in NYC on August 16th and one at the Middle East in Boston the next day. If you can’t get out to see them then, swing by Vintage Vinyl on August 19th, or Looney Tunes on August 20th for in-store performances.

PRE-ORDER: The Gaslight Anthem :: The ‘59 Sound

LITTLE JACKIE is the collaboration between singer/writer Imani Coppola and programmer/producer Adam Pallin. The result is a soul-funk-motown-inspired rock sound that has garnered them a lot of buzz from tastemakers alike. ?uestlove once said Little Jackie’s underexposure is “one of life’s tragedies, but then again it’s cool to have my lil secret”.

Coppola had a brief run in with success in the 90’s with her song, “Legend Of A Cowgirl”. You remember it, that was the song that sampled Donovan’s “Sunshine Superman” and talked about “Spendin’ all my money on absolutely nothin’.” Oh yeah! Now you remember it.

Now a bit more grown up and taking things much more serious, Little Jackie is hoping their underexposure doesn’t last too long once their new album, The Stoop hits shelves on July 8th via S-Curve Records.

Check out the vid for their first single (and theme to the new “New York” reality show on VH1), “The World Should Revolve Around Me”.

COLD WAR KIDS announced their second album will be released this fall. Something we’ve been totally excited to hear for a while now. And last night we got that chance, yep we heard it!

We were invited to a small listening party at the band’s label (Downtown Recordings) to listen to the album. 20 or so people gathered into the label’s new offices. The new offices have a recording studio in them, which we could imagine would help when running a label. After everyone showed up we were ushered into the studio, handed a tracklisting and then treated to the band’s new album. (more…)

Set the TiVo’s

Jason Batemen apppeared on Countdown with Keith Olbermann to do some plugging of his new movie with Will Smith, Hancock. He didn’t get very far because about halfway through his interview David Cross appeared on the set and the two let a few more Arrested Development movie rumors fly. They gave off the general idea that the movie was indeed going down, they just needed to finalize a few more details before there was any official announcement. We still want to make sure Franklin has a part in the movie.

The Followill brothers have announced the name and release date of the next KINGS OF LEON album. Only By The Night will be the band’s 4th studio album and hit the streets on September 23rd. The album was recorded at Blackbird Studios in Nashville, TN. They brought on Angelo Petraglia and Jacquire King to help them with the producing duties.

So from this point on, the debate rages. Do the KOL look better when rocking the beards or the shaven, ‘clean’ look? I for one, think they were more badass when they looked like cavemen from the mountains but some would disagree with me and opt for their good looks to be show through clean shaven faces and trimmed hair. (more…)