Always a hoot. Never a fourth wheel. R.I.P. Don Knotts.

While Sly runs around town filming New Rocky, Ghostface is in the lab sampling the original recipe. Check out the hottest of the new Killah tracks to leak so far, "The Champ", over at Dodge's six piece bucket o' tunes.

When blogs say jump, Pitchfork asks "onto which bandwagon?" Tapes 'N Tapes gets an 8.3 to go along with their Best New Music tag.

Sam Champion. Residency. The Fire. My god, isn't February over yet?

"Tim admired the way Anna, who is also a painter, used color and shape. Anna found it refreshing that Tim, who is also front-man for the well known punk band Les Savy Fav, had no idea what a home and apparel crossover line was. They moved forward with a can-do attitude and their unique set of skills to form Deadly Squire."


As we bid a final adieu to what has become a particularly frigid month of February here on the East Coast, we'd like to remind our loyal readers that nothing gently warms the heart, yet keeps the hands comfortably not burned, like a pair of hand-crafted oven mitts "envisioned and realized" by this guy. We're pretty sure he knits his own sarongs as well.

When the hottest bands are too busy rocking out to waste time with proper interviews, they come to the 'Stamps for five questions that matter. This week, we talk with Rupert Cresswell, bassist and back-up vocalist for The Capes from South London. The band is currently on the West Coast finishing up their second US tour, and will be tearing SXSW a new one later next month. You can stream their debut album, Hello, in its entirety over here.

1) Does anyone in the group possess superpowers?
Yes

2) Which is the better cape: Good Hope or Cod?
Cod (but we prefer haddock)

3) American food makes people fat and lazy. How have you stayed energized for your shows on this tour?
Boxercise and colonics

4) SkinnySlim has been having some trouble with groupies lately. Any advice?
Sheep dip

5) Complete the hype: NME recently called The Capes the __best__ thing to happen to music since __Gene Pitney & Marc Almond__.

The lovely ladies of Zero 7 are all about WXPN. Tina Dico is playing the World Cafe this Wednesday night, while Sia Furler makes an appearance in the hallowed halls April 15th. So she doesn't feel left out, here's a pic of Sophie Barker.

Ambulance Ltd release their New English EP, a hodge-podge of new songs and unreleased material, on March 14th. Check out the title track, along with a cover of Pink Floyd's "Fearless", over on their MySpace page.

Janet has posted some old-timey Spoon goodness on Out The Other. B-side "If You Say So" is a must have.

The new single from The Zutons, "Why Wont You Give Me Your Love?", drops April 3rd. The song infuses their standard voodoo swagger with a healthy dose of George Thorogood & The Destroyers, while the West Side Story send-up video features the mesmerizing Abi Harding looking hot and kicking ass. Video here. More Abi here, here, here, and here.

We've all seen the "don't try this at home" warnings that precede shows like Jackass and Viva La Bam. But after one of the largest bank robberies in history in Southern England earlier this week, perhaps it's time to start affixing the same warning to mainstream Hollywood films. As investigators dig deeper into the circumstances surrounding the daring heist, some are laying the blame on The Italian Job (or rather, its shoddy 2003 remake, The Italian Job). It's a tough position to defend. The fact that the robbery took place in England, not Italy, seems to be the theory's most glaring flaw. Beyond that, you get bogged down in the debate over whether people really are inclined to behave a certain way just because they see it on the screen. I mean, if crime caper movies really had that kind of influenece over us, then why didn't we all start acting like total douchebags after Oceans 11? You really wanna know how they did it? I'll tell ya my theory: balls of steel. That, and some mean Tiger-style martial arts moves that they certainly didn't learn from any Ang Lee film. Hence the security gaurds' claims that, much like today's Friday Freakout, it was all a Blur.

Go 'Stampers! It's a Thursday! We gonna party like its a Thursday! Stars have been moved to the Starlight Ballroom, so that shit ain't sold out no more. $12, doors get kicked open at 8PM.

Did you forget already? How many times do we have to tell you? Future Tips gaze into the darkest depths of your soul and then take some polaroids Friday night at North Star. Just $8, you say? Why yes, yes we do.

Saturday/Sunday, read a book why dontcha?

Finally, in a Fancy Pants addendum, Prince (and, we assume, The Blouses), will be playing the Electric Factory next Wednesday. Tickets are $50. Hey, a custom-tailored wardrobe made entirely of crushed purple velvet don't come cheap. Man's got billz, yo.

Pre-sale tickets for the two-headed tour de force that is the April Fool's Day Editors/Stellastarr* show are still pre-selling right now over here (username: editors, password: munich). Regular tickets will become available Friday at noon on-line and at the Troc box office. No word yet on when Amanda Tannen will become available.

R5's done it again. Yeah Yeah Yeahs are playin the Trocadero April 5th. Tickets are on-line and available at Spaceboy Records starting Friday at noon.

Wait for it. Wait...for...it...The Strokes at the Electric Factory April 23rd. Tickets go on sale Saturday at 10AM. No way to avoid Ticketbastard "service" charges on this one, so just bite down on something and get ta clikcin'.

Wow. Just when you were getting worried that the US Supreme Court was gonna start making all sorts of wacky decisions, like overturning Roe v. Wade or banning pizza in laundromats, the robed ones go and remind us exactly why we've trusted them for 200+. Yesterday afternoon, the nine justices voted unanimously, and against the wishes of the Bush administration, that a small church in New Mexico was indeed free to drink a hallucinogenic tea during the course of their religious practices. The tea, which includes the illegal drug DMT among its ingredients, is consumed in four-hour ceremonies twice a month, during which practitioners believe they can understand god. Other side-effects of enlightenment include understanding how walls melt and going totally batshit when somebody pops Labyrinth into the VCR. The court's decison was written by recently-appointed Chief Justice John Roberts, who we hear does his best work at 4:20. We also hear that the tea's cheap and converting is easy.

Two times the temptation this evening at The Fire. First, Sam Champion is queud up for the third night of their month-long residency. Will they try out new songs? Change up the old ones? Announce that they're leaving music behind and joining Cirque du Soleil as a tumbling act? Whatever they do will have to be pretty bold, 'cause they're slotted to play after a scorching opening set from Philly's own Future Tips. Sure, you could wait to see them headline at North Star on Friday night, but that's, like, three whole days away. Who wants to wait?

The list of things that get us more excited than good local music here at the 'Stamps is short indeed, but Hot Chip sits right at the top of it. Which is why we're thrilled to point out the crazy electro-soul freshness just waiting to be had now at both Fluxblog and Palms Out Sounds. Are we counting down the days until The Warning reaches US shores? Nope. Try minutes. But you can't appreciate the future without first understanding the past. So here's a vintage slice of glitchy gurgling beauty from 2002's Sanfrandisco EP, lost to the ether but for the efforts of master archivist (and also pretty ace blogger) James Headphonesex. It's becoming more and more obvious that the noughts will be remembered, if at all, as the decade of the Chip. Don't doubt it.

Come to think of it, I never have seen them together in the same room at one time...

After wetting appetites with a spectacular b-sides collection last summer, The Concretes are set to monopolize your speakers once again with In Colour, their sophmore album due March 13th (April 4th in the US). Numbers like "Ooh La La" and "Chosen One" sport the familiar shiny twang of previous releases. But the subtle touch of producer and Saddle Creek guru Mike Mogis lends other cuts such as "Grey Days" a slicker, slightly updated take on folksy warmth, one that ultimately prevents songs from blending together. Another element which keeps the album fresh from start to end is Victoria Bergsman's occaisional delegatation of lead vocals to other members of the band. "Your Call", a duet featuring drummer Lisa Millberg and The Magic Numbers' Romeo Stodart, comes straight out of Stars' playbook, while the aforentioned "Grey Days" is held together by guitarist Maria Eriksson's plaintive honey-tones. Check out the whole album for yourself right now by clicking on the little blue radioblog at top left.

Let's face facts, NBC. When you're depending on hockey for a big ratings boost, you know you've got issues. Everybody just has better things to do than watch the Olympics. I mean, it's not like America isn't already emabrrassed on the international stage pretty regularly. Do we really need to watch our nation's most dominant athletes fall woefully short of their dreams in prime time? After all, it's become apparent pretty quickly that this just ain't our every-fourth-year. The local news intermissions ain't helping either. Why would I want to watch Vai Sickahema get the queer eye treatment when just a few channels over on ABC there's some crazy dude threatening to give Soho Pizza the I've-got-explosives-strapped-to-my-chest treatment? I just hope all those majestic cut-away panoramas of the Italian Alps are enough to keep advertisers happy. Otherwise, the remaining nine days in Torino are gonna be one very black mark on NBC's fiscal year.

Fire in the Khyber! Dick Valentine, Rock-N-Roll Indian, and the rest of Electric Six are returning to Philly tonight with a new album and a mission to rock you harder than Gibralter.

Friday night at the Khyber, National Eye are gonna give you a live show and a copy of their new CD for a paltry $8. And with Capitol Years and The Spinto Band on opening duty, it's like eating your dessert before your dinner. Crazy-go-nuts!

Meanwhile, over at WXPN, The Autumn Defense show their faces in Philly for the first time since January '04. This side-project of Wilco's John Stirratt and Pat Sansone is THE way to chill out on Friday night, people.

"You are not what you own, it's Yah Mos Def on the microphone!" Kick-ass local rapsters at the Khyber on Saturday. Fuck guitars.

Did somebody say guitars? Black Rebel Motorcycle Club at the TLA Sunday.

Kanye and Coldplay, together at last. Mission Impossible 3 and BBC Radio 2 bring about one nightmarish collaboration that's bound to lick mad Grammy nutsack next year.

The new single from The Streets, "When You Wasn't Famous", is playing over on Fluxblog. Skinner's songs have a way of ripening and revealing themselves once you can place them within the context of a whole album, so I'm trying to avoid jumping to conclusions. All I'll say right now is that, after several listens, I'm not impressed.

Oh, and before I go any further - Dick Cheney was drinking before he shot that guy.

I left my Swedes in San Francisco. The SF Bay Guardian profiles some of the most pop-ular music blogs around, including our pal C-Bon's excellent Swedes Please. Here's a sweet, jangly little Ikea meatball from Like Honey that he posted a few months back.

Be Your Own Pet, who were slated to perform tonight at Space 1026, have been moved to the First Unitarian Church basement.

Sam Champion are playing the second night of their "Month of Tuesdays" residency at...The Fire. Maybe somebody should let them know Space 1026 just opened up...

Nothin' Cupid loves more than a slo jam. Slo Mo bring their nu-hop to the World Cafe and totally put it on you.

And this just in...THE GO! TEAM!!! CHURCH BASEMENT!!! WITH LOVE IS ALL!!! THE POWER IS SOOOOO ON!!! Ok, so now it's really a happy fucking Valentine's Day.

A box of chocolates. A fresh bouquet of long-stem roses. A peppering of buck shot right in the kisser. The 'Stamps boys know that on a day like today, it isn't just those three little words, but rather how you say them that truly matters. And we, obviously, choose to do it in song. Whether Saint Valentine is smiting you with arrows or snubbing you like a World Champion baseball manager, this musical extravaganza is sure to warm at least the cockles of your ears. Those other cockles...yeah, you're gonna have to take care of those on your own. First up, we're showin' you some leak love with the lead-off single from the new Concretes album, due out early next month. Follow that up with a b-side encore from everybody's new musical crush, Guillemots. Then close out the date with a Dirty/Macy mixtape gem, a romantic anthem which proves that even the two most bizarre voices in the history of substance abuse can still make beautiful music together. Ya know, when the feelin's right. And here at the 'Stamps, it's always sooo sooo right.

Update: Out The Other has lots more to say about Guillemots, and points the way to several new songs the band has posted just for V-Day. If there was an old blog tree, we'd carve "BS + OTO" with a heart around it into the blog tree's bark, no lie.

They don't call him The Upsetter for nothing. Lee Perry scratches his Wednesday night WXPN performance, reschedules for May 23rd.

Yes you Can! Rockpile Magazine presents the second installment of its Rock Snob Film Series tonight at the Khyber. No cover, free snacks, cheap booze, and all the Krautrock you can handle.

Oh, and before I go any further - Dick Cheney shot a guy.

Dear Brandon Flowers: Perhaps I'm stating the obvious here, but if you want people to take you seriously when you name-check Bruce Springsteen as an influence on your new album, well...for starters, the bright pink suit will have to go.

HMV has listed a tentative May 1st release date for the still-untitled debut album from Guillemots. This soaring, string-laden epic of a new single, which lead singer Fyfe Dangerfield says will precede the album some time in late March, has also just started streaming on the band's MySpace page, and is right on par with the rest of their spectacular output to date.

Is it the prospect of being stuck inside with the kids all day? That sinking feeling when some slush works its way inside your shoe? An irrational fear of salt? What is it about the spectre of a few downy flakes that makes normal people - okay, normal Philadelphians - suddenly start to act like gang members in a Mad Max film? Whatever the reason behind it, your favorite Road Warrior script is playing itself out across the city once again this week as Philly braces for, like, maybe five inches? Septa bus drivers are manhandling passengers like Lord Humungus. Meanwhile, citizens are side-swiping busses and blocking transit routes, wielding their Chevy Luminas like instruments of divine retribution. I'm not sure if it's because the weather in Nashville is that much better, but Kings Of Leon don't seem to bear the same bitter-cold scars as us Northeasterners. Instead of road rage, the white stuff just inspires them to pen ecstatic Friday Freakout-style guitar hoedowns. Download this rollicking little diddy, strap your headhones on like ear muffs, and enjoy the winter wonderland, 'Stampers. And for safety's sake, try not to look any motorists in the eye.

First, quick word to the Anglophiles up in NYC. Tickets for Editors' Webster Hall show go on sale today at noon. Then on Sunday night, The Capes bring their super catchy nu-Blur to CBGB. From what I understand, the promise of this show was one of the only reasons that place was kept open. True story. And you can't argue with their marketing...

Meanwhile, the killer bees may be swarming in Florida, but here in Philly it's Wu-Tang Weekend, muthafucka! Wu-Tang Clan go back to back tonight and Saturday at the Electric Factory. Tonight's already sold-out, but tickets for tomorrow evening are still available at $45 a pop.

Local chamber-pop maestros Audible take the stage tonight at the Khyber. Fair warning: the crowd at Audible's last Khyber show in November featured many many hotties. If you choose to attend, I suggest being either single, or drunk enough to legitimately forget you're attached.

Sunday night, Centro-Matic frontman Will Johnson will be serenading the WXPN World Cafe along with some other familar indie faces as The Undertow Orchestra. If you're looking for a soundtrack to warm up a dark, cold Sunday night in February, you really couldn't ask for better than this.

Plus, lots of tickets to buy. The Magic Numbers show at the TLA goes on sale at noon today. Same time tomorrow, you can scramble for passes to Franz/Death Cab (Tweeter Center), Wolf Parade (TLA), and an alluring bottom of the bill in Giant Drag and The Joggers (opening for Pretty Girls Make Graves at the TLA).

Sports and courts don't mix well. And you'd think they'd be a great combination, right? I mean, they rhyme. But I speak not of the courts on which sports are played, but of the legal-type courts. Just ask assistant coach and former hometown hero Rick Tocchet. He made a living putting the puck on net for almost 20 years. But it's "Operation Slapshot", a New Jersey state investigation into his illegal nationwide sports betting ring, that has landed the former Flyer (along with other former and current players, state troopers, and Wayne Gretsky's wife) in water hot enough to strike fear in even the pluckiest of zambonies. But coach Tocchet's not the only person behind the bench to fall from his pedastal. Not when a Washington state judge refused to proceed with a manslaughter trial until the entire court joined in a Super Bowl chant. Besides showing the world that Seahawks fans, like their team, are offensive at all the wrong times, this incident reminds us just how important the constitutional demands for the separation of sport and court really are. When the two mingle, our larger-than-life role models in both arenas run the risk of being exposed as all too human. Thank god we still have rock stars, eh 'Stampers? Let Alan Donohoe restore your faith in humanity as you rock out to the new single from The Rakes, due out Feb. 27th.

Apparently, the name of the album is gonna be Hopefully Dr. Dre. Or am I reading that wrong?

You've heard the remix. Now listen to the original. It's the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs single "Gold Lion". So...whaddaya think? C'mon 'Stampers, and leave some comments up in this piece, furrealz.

The superstar QBs and marquee running backs were all pretty much non-factors in last night's big game. The most compelling moments of the match were the questionable officiating and one play where a receiver threw the ball to another receiver. So it's no wonder that ABC lost a substantial Neilson share to its competition over on basic cable: Puppy Bowl II. Held at Animal Planet Stadium in Silver Springs, MD, The Puppy Bowl outshined the NFL hoopla in almost every major category. Instead of surly 300lb men, you had 3-month old puppies from local shelters. Instead of ass-slapping after a good play, there was ass-sniffing after every play. The Visa Sky Cam ain't got nothin' on the Water Bowl Cam when it comes to compelling video angles. And talk about extreme! It's hard to call an excessive end-zone celebration "unsportsman-like" when, a few channels over, players are literally shitting on the field. Puppy Bowl's broadcast had no fascist 5 second delay, and the kittens at half-time weren't censored once. Throw in sparse commentary from Harry Kalas instead of John Madden's verbal diarrhea, along with some genuinely innovative Alpo commercials, and it's pretty obvious which of last night's sporting events truly deserved a good belly-scratch.

Look, we all know where the real Friday Freakout is happening this week. I'm not even gonna waste my strength typing very much here today - that's how badly I'm gonna need to reserve every ounce of energy. Too bad, 'cause most Fridays I'd have plenty to say about a band that takes its musical pedigree so seriosuly that it names itself after its influence's influences. Suffice to say, sounding like mid-90s Radiohead while naming yourself after a classic Talking Heads album is a bold move. But fortune and Freakouts favor the bold, and Fear Of Music will offer no quarter to half-assed listeners. You're either in or you're out. Kinda like our party tonight. Can you rock too hard? Can you hop too hip? Can you drink too much? How much for that Taiwanese hooker? We honestly don't know the answers to any of these questions, but that's all fixin' to change when the sun goes down, and the anticipation is killin' me. It's a strange kind of terror, 'Stampers. Strange, but good.

Remember those crazy spandex-clad fellas from the "Daft Punk..." video? It was fantastic concept, and may have even inspired a fast food knock-off. But the real question on everybody's mind was who would be the breakout star of the whole affair? Now we have our answer: It's the green dudes. While red and yellow spandexers have gone back to toiling in off-broadway obscurity, the greenies have scored a starring role in the hi-larious new music video for Hot Chip's "Over And Over". The video does, however, raise new rip-off/homage questions of its own. I mean, doesn't this seem a little too much like a certain sketch from MTV's way-ahead-of-its-time comedy show The State? Is Hot Chip getting its hormones all worked up? The craziest part of it all is, if you told me Hot Chip had produced the music which soundtracks this vintage bit of comedy, I'd be hard pressed to say you were lying. So what do you think, 'Stampers? Which came first: the Hot Chip or the Hormones? 'Cause we know it wasn't Kerri Kenney!!! Oh, SNAP!!!

Arctic Monkeys grace their second of eighteen NME covers this year.

Grammy season is in the air, and that can mean only one thing: collaborations! The award show producers announced today that Gorillaz will kick off the evening doing a joint performance with Madonna.


Bang your head, Philadelphia! Early Man will be corrupting your very soul tonight at the Khyber. 8PM, $10.

If you're stuck in New York this Friday, be sure to check out FIXED, from the fine folks who bring you Making Time. This month, the event features Simian Mobile Disco, the new party machine composed of two former members of Simian. Trust me - if your weekend plans include shedding several pounds on the dance floor, these guys are your friends.

The great hallmark of modern popular music is that it's designed to be disposable. Push out a song, make it a hit, ride it into the ground, then dismiss it. Let it disappear quickly and silently into the shrouded mists of pop-culture yore. While most of us are more than happy to go along with this routine, there's one small but influential demographic that refuses to play along, refuses to let us forget. I speak, of course, about sports arena sound technicians. These dastardly disc jockeys take candy corn tunes that were supposed to have been fully digested and passed out of our system years ago - from the likes of Europe, Baha Men, and Snap - and foist them back upon us, letting them turn and stagnate like some backed-up pop septic system (often, it should be noted, in locations that closely resemble toilet bowls in odor and appearance). Exactly why these shadowy figures behave in such a way is unclear. Perhaps they consider it a noble pursuit, a way to keep history from repeating itself. Perhaps it's to compensate for all those middle school dances and Bar Mitvahs they weren't invited to growing up. Perhaps they're just sadisctic jerks who get off on mind-fucking captive crowds with Markey Mark & The Funky Bunch. All I know is, as long as there are beloved local teams and public address systems, they've got the power.