Duffy (just Duffy) is a newish UK singer who’s making a splash on both the BBC and Spin’s top artists to watch in 2008.
Remiscent of Dusty Springfield, Petula Clark and the unavoidable Amy Winehouse reference, if you like your brooding fem pop with a splash of Motown, check her out.
Duffy : “Mercy” (stream)

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Duluth, Minn. band Batteries are fully charged and ready to rock.
The group’s debut, That Great Grandsuck of the Sea, is finally here for your approval.
We got our hands on the single, “Childproof.” It’s a bouncy stomper with a touch of sax and healthy dose of Dave Frankenfeld’s loungey vocals.
Check it out:
Batteries : “Childproof” (mp3)

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The Blind Boys of Alabama
Down in New Orleans
Release Date: January 29, 2008
Label: Time Life Entertainment
Four time GRAMMY Awards winners The Blind Boys of Alabama release their new album Down In New Orleans, tomorrow on Time Life Records.
Together for more than six decades, the Blind Boys of Alabama are Jimmy Carter, Eric ‘Ricky’ McKinnie, […]

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I know I’ve been a bit of a Great Northern fan boy, but I do love this band. Some news came out today…

Besides iTunes, Sleepy Eepee EP will be released elsewhere digitally on February 19 and in stores on March 18.

“Home,” from last year’s Trading Twilight For Daylight, will be used during Super Bowl XLII […]

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Cassettes Won’t Listen will release his first ever physical release, Small-Time Machine, on March 11.
Entirely written, played and produced by Jason Drake, Small-Time Machine won’t be the first time most of us scenesters have enjoyed the musical stylines of CWL, but it will definitely help launch the band into the indie mainstream.
I’m super psyched to […]

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Lou Reed refuses to fade into a VH1 “1969 - Best Year Ever” episode, and that’s a very very good thing. Recent collabs with The Killers and Bright Eyes show just how tuned in the godfather of distortion, high volume feedback, and nonstandard tunings is to today’s music.
And after seeing the Sundance film Nanking, […]

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The Get-Rites
Pedal Steel Heaven EP
Label: Magnolia Recording Company
I’m a big Get-Rites fan. The new disc pics up where 2007’s Sideshow Revival left off — country-bluesified spirituals about life, heaven, finding your savior, and on the new EP, Pedal Steel Heaven, even a track about Jesus playing the pedal steel in heaven.
The Get-Rites : “Pedal Steel […]

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We first told you about Chicago rock group The Interiors back in October of 2006. They were still label shopping at the time.
Since then they signed with 54-40 or Fight, a good mid-sized label. But then their guitar player was in a freak accident which ended with the amputation of part of his left index […]

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On March 25, Counting Crows will release their fifth studio album (first in five years), Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings (Geffen/Interscope).
It’s an album of two themes: 1) the electric Saturday Nights, produced by Gil Norton (The Pixies, Foo Fighters) and 2) the acoustic Sunday Mornings, produced by Brian Deck (Modest Mouse and Iron & Wine).
Very […]

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Last week Mark Oliver Everett (aka E) and his revolving lineup of bandmates known as The EELS unveiled their first “best of” compilation, Meet The EELS: Essential EELS Vol. 1, 1996-2006, and its first collection of rarities, EELS Useless Trinkets: B-Sides, Soundtracks, Rarities and Unreleased 1996-2006 (Label: DreamWorks/Geffen).
Meet The EELS offers 24 tracks that showcase […]

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