The news today has been focused on the death of the Beastie Boys‘ founding member, Adam Yauch, aka MCA.  So I couldn’t help but to think of one of my favorite bands who were heavily influenced by them, the Dirty Heads. We told you previously that they have a new record, Cabin by the Sea, out June 19th.  Two songs have been leaked from it, “Mongo Push”, and “Spread Too Thin”.  “Mongo Push” features Rome Ramirez from Sublime With Rome, who of course was on their huge single “Lay Me Down”, and is good friends with the band.Front man Jared Watson describes what a mongo push is. “It’s when you’re skating and your front foot should be forward and you should be kicking with your back foot, but it’s pushing with your front foot and your back foot is on the back. It looks ridiculous and it’s way unstable.”

“Spread Too Thin” was the first single that was released, and made it’s debut on MTV this week. Check em out below:

Beastie Boys‘ founding member Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch is dead at 47, due to cancer.  Russell Simmons’ Global Grind broke the initial news.  He was being treated for a cancerous tumor in his salivary gland in 2009, and missed the Beastie Boys’ Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction last month. Everyone had hoped, and assumed, he was over it.

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The people have spoken: Blunderbuss is #1.

The popular response to Jack White’s debut album has matched the critical fervor surrounding it: In the week since its April 24th release on Third Man Records/Columbia Records, Blunderbuss has sold 137,554 domestically, debuting at #1 on the U.S. albums chart–his first ever recorded effort to do so.

The highest charting and selling solo debut album this year in Read more

We first told you back in February that Toronto based band Metric would be releasing their new record this summer.  Today they confirmed that Synthetica, their 5th studio release, is still set to come out June 12th. Here is the first single, “Youth Without Youth“, along with the brand new tour dates and tracklistings listed below.

The tracklisting for ‘Synthetica’ is as follows: Read more

Friends, foes and readers alike, volume seven? It was a quick year in 2011, and we still haven’t compiled the best of last year, perhaps a soon-to-be podcast.

Unsigned and Wound Up of 2011
Volume 1: Volume 2: Volume 3: Volume 4: Volume 5: Volume 6:

Alright, from January 15th through April 15th, we received 1200-plus submissions. An estimated 30-percent were from international acts. While I wouldn’t say this was the best crop of artists we’ve ever received, it ranks up there in some of the best.

The bad news: Read more

The up and coming white rapper Rittz from Georgia started off the year by releasing a new mixtape, White Jesus: Revival. He then performed several times at SXSW in Austin. He is quickly and steadily building momentum from his live shows and mixtapes. We told you last month that he dropped another new single, ““Cashin Out (Speedmix)”. Here is another one that was just released, “Love Me”. Beginning to emerge from Yelawolf‘s shadow and earning respect in his own rights,  the Slumerican emcee shows off his storytelling abilities on this soulful new track about dysfunctional relationships. You will notice the  horn-led instrumental he raps over, produced by The Beatchefs. This is just a promo single from  and won’t appear on any specific project. He just recently shot a new music video for ”Walkin On Air”, hopefully to be released soon.

A month shy of the one year anniversary of Torches, Foster The People have released the video for their fourth single, “Houdini.”  The video premiered worldwide on MTV recently.  Directed by Daniels (The Shins, Chromeo, Battles), the video for “Houdini” is a darkly comedic take on the age-old saying “the show must go on.”

On the heels of groundbreaking performances at this year’s 54th Annual GRAMMY Awards^® and Elton John’s AIDS Foundation Oscar Party, Foster The People will kick off their Summer tour on May 29th including  three sold-out nights in New York City’s Central Park playing to 17,000. The band will also make their debut at this year’s Bonnaroo Arts and Music Festival.  Foster The People will go on to play multiple sold-out shows in major cities around North America, including nights at Chicago’s Congress Theatre, the Gibson Theatre in Los Angeles, and a performance at the iconic Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado (see all dates below). Support along the way will include The Kooks, Tokyo Police Club, Mayer Hawthorne & The County and Kimbra.

During their summer tour (tour dates below), Foster The People will Read more

The electric pop duo Yacht from Los Angeles have premiered a new music video. “Le Goudron” is a cover of Brigitte Fontaine.  She was an Avant-garde French musician who combined rock, folk, jazz, and spoken word into an eclectic art form.  This surrealist revolutionary song was originally done in 1969 with The Art Ensemble of Chicago. YACHT has reinvented its naive-apocalyptic candor for a neon-soaked dance floor, our preferred autonomous zone.

Tour dates are listed below. Read more

Back in the day, when this place was crawling with forums and chats about random acts of music, we used to poll ourselves to see which release by an artist not only set them atop of the industry but stapled them in as musical gods.

From 1981 to somewhere around 1986, Pantera was glam of all glam. Sort of like a reverse Metallica, somewhere between 1986 and 1990, Pantera transformed… giving us one of the most influential Metal bands in the history of music. Question is, what is their best record to date?

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Devonté Hynes is from Houston but was raised in the UK.  He has been bouncing back and forth between Los Angeles and New York City for the past three years. Devonté has produced a lot of music. Some for himself: Test Icicles, Lightspeed Champion and some for others: Basement Jaxx, Florence+The Machine, Theophilus London, Solange Knowles, Cassie, Diana Vickers. Somewhere in between all of this, Blood Orange was created.

He just released a new music video, “Champagne Coast”, from new his newest album Coastal Grooves. It already has over 30,000 views in the first 24 hours. The video was directed by Haley Wollens and was produced by Maya Rose and Jude Mc. Catch the artist live, currently on tour as opening support for Florence+The Machine.