Wilco to rock Prairie Home Companion

Nothing says "down-home" like avant garde noize rock. On May 12, Jeff Tweedy and the trend setting Chicago rockers invade Garrison Keillor's beloved old time radio show A Prairie Home Companion, blasting eardrums and upsetting apple carts from here to Northern Minnesota.

The show airs from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm Central check your local listings for which station carries it, and will be broadcast from the State Theater in Minneapolis.

Wilco's new album, Sky Blue Sky, which dropped earlier this year out on the Nonesuch label on May 15, but you can hear it right now, streaming from the band's website. Wilco appears on Late Night with David Letterman on May 15, and will spend most of the summer on tour.

Social Consciousness for the Indie Crowd: Wear Your Music

The Indie set may have never got on board with Lance Armstrong's "Live Strong" campaign, but thanks to the music magazine Relix, hipsters don't have to flash those ubiquitous yellow bands to show that they care.

With its "Wear Your Music" campaign, Relix has procures guitar strings from rock icons including Brian May, Pete Townshend, and Les Paul to relative newcomers including The Shins, Death Cab for Cutie, Tenacious D, and My Morning Jacket to be recycled for a charitable cause.

Designer Hannah Garrison of AZU Studio turns these old guitar strings bracelets (see inset), and all proceeds will go to one of more than 20 charities chosen by the artist or by the WYM campaign. Prices for these unique items range from $75 to $300.

Postumous Buckley album to feature ultra rare Smiths cover

On 5/22, a week prior to the tenth anniversary of his untimely passing, the Legacy label will release Songs From Jeff Buckley, which liner note author David Fricke calls, "the closest Jeff Buckley -- singer, songwriter, guitarist, seeker -- ever comes to having his own greatest hits record."

For Buckley devotees, though, perhaps the biggest draw is Jeff Buckley’s cover of the Smiths’ “I Know It’s Over,” to be released on the forthcoming album. The crushingly beautiful cover was originally recorded for a radio April '95 radio program but (sinfully?) edited out before broadcast.

Of the track, Fricke says it captures Buckley, "spacewalking with elegance through the harrowing resignation of 'I Know It's Over'".

mp3: Jeff Buckley - "I Know it's Over" (Smiths cover)

Bob Dylan goes back to school

In best grandpa ever news, kids from an upscale L.A. Kindergarten class have been coming home talking about the "weird man" who has been coming to class to play guitar and sing them "scary" songs. Turns out this scary, weird guy is Bob Dylan. His grandson (Onetime Wallflower Jakob Dylan's boy) attends the school in the ritzy L.A. suburb Calabasas.

Dylan says he's been singing to the kids just for fun, but they have no idea who he is. Too bad they have no idea they're in the presence of a musical legend. To them, he's just the weird guitar guy.

Billy Joel Photo Gallery from Scottrade Center in Saint Louis

Here's a photo gallery from the Billy Joel show at the Scottrade Center on April 24, 2007 in Saint Louis, MO.
A review will be forthcoming...

Photo Gallery: Billy Joel @ Scottrade Center