Jarvis Cocker, former lead singer of Pulp, took over the Galerie Chappe in Paris to rehearse songs for his upcoming tour, as well as create new songs - opening the whole thing up to the public. It goes well beyond that though….
“What if you invite members of the public to play with the band? Or invite them to submit song titles which the band then have to base an improvisation upon? Could a live band provide the accompaniment to an aerobics class? What happens if you play music from 12 …

I’m not sure if this is an April Fool’s joke from iTunes or not, but you can download John Cage’s “4′33″” for free. If you are not familiar with the piece, it is actually more of an art/concept piece than music - basically it’s 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence, with the “music” being whatever noise you hear around you during that 4 minute and 33 second period of time. The idea of it is loved and hated by seemingly an equal number of people, yet there is no …

Pure awesomeness!

I am a huge Pulp/Jarvis Cocker fan, and it’s been a little frustrating recently because in recent years he’s refused to play any Pulp songs. Luckily, his first solo album was brilliant. However, while discussing song lyrics at SXSW he pulled out his acoustic guitar and played the Pulp classic “Babies”. This YouTube vid is actually from a UK television appearance, but I’m sure his SXSW performance will show up soon. Not sure about the beard, but really excited to see him playing Pulp songs again!

Unfortunately, the Spinal Tap tour that has been talked about in recent weeks isn’t exactly the full-blown extravaganza many were hoping for (myself included). Instead, it’s going to be an “Unwigged & Unplugged” tour, with the three actors performing songs from This Is Spinal Tap and A Mighty Wind on acoustic guitars. It’ll still be an entertaining evening, just not the mighty spectacle of Tap. Tickets for Seattle and Vancouver go on sale this Friday, 3/6.

The Artificial Owl website is completely unrelated to Bellingham and music, but I was sucked in by the photo gallery of this amazing abandoned monument in Bulgaria. After spending about 15 minutes viewing these photos, I then spent another hour clicking through the site. Some amazing photos here that just don’t seem real.

The Cramps were really the only band from the punk era that mattered to me. The Clash and Sex Pistols had some great songs and I’ve definitely enjoyed listening to them over the years, but The Cramps were really the only band that I identified with. Back in high school I took a trip to Europe with my school German class. There were about 20 of us, many away from home without our parents for the first time, and it was one of the most exciting times of my life. …

This is the funniest thing I’ve seen all week. A few months ago Chunklet magazine dug up audio of David Lee Roth’s vocal track from “Runnin’ With The Devil” isolated from the bass/drum/guitars. It was absolutely hil-ar-i-ous - now you can control Diamond Dave with the Runnin’ With The Devil Soundboard - you can work the vocal snippits into your next sample filled tune, or even imagine what it’s like to have sex with him by alternately clicking the “Woooo Hoooo”, “Aaaaa Yeah” and “Oh God” buttons.

Spinal Tap is reuniting yet again to record some new songs, including the song they performed at the Live Earth concerts in 2007, “Warmer Than Hell”. In an interview with Rolling Stone, bassist Derek Smalls also joked that they might do a sequel to “Gimme Some Money” called “Gimme Some More Money”. This will be the first album of new songs since their 1992 release, Break Like The Wind. I would personally love to see them finally work on and release “Saucy Jack” or perhaps devote a whole album to …

The Flaming Lips have posted a new tune to their MySpace page, an acoustic/noise freakout that reminds me a lot of the stuff they did prior to the Soft Bulletin. Not surprisingly, it’ll be on the soundtrack for the upcoming film Know Your Mushrooms.