Go to Stereogum now. Wow.

Alternatively, head over to Ryan’s new website to hear a couple live tracks from Ryan’s show in Salisbury UK last week.

Edited to add: Or you can go here and listen to a lot of short “country song” snippets of Ryan singing about how he drinks to much. Hit the yellow buttons. The second one is hilarious.

Seriously, I need to start watching The Daily Show more often. When I’m home, I usually go with Futurama instead, but clips like this have me re-thinking that decision.

It’s a long one, but well worth it. War!

Jay Bennett ia back with his first album in two years, The Magnificent Defeat (Rykodisc). The album’s first single, “Replace You”, is available for free download at Insound. I like it, but it seems that Jay’s gone even more overboard with the number of instruments he throws into the mix. Definitely worth checking out, though.

Jay will be hitting the road next month for a tour of the midwest and northeast, including a couple New York area shows.

Wed., 10/18: Fitzgerald’s / Chicago
Thurs., 10/19: Cowboy Monkey / Champaign
Fri., 10/20: The Picador / Iowa City
Sat., 10/21: Off Broadway / St. Louis
Sun., 10/22: 3rd + Lindsley / Nashville
Mon., 10/23: Uncle Pleasant’s / Louisville
Tues., 10/24: Club Café / Pittsburgh
Fri., 10/27: Iota / Arlington, VA
Sat., 10/28: M-Room / Philadelphia
Mon., 10/30: Union Hall / Brooklyn
Tues., 10/31: Joe’s Pub / Manhattan [TIX]
10:00am On-Air Show at WFUV
Wed., 11/1: Middle East / Cambridge

Two shows going on sale at the Beacon:

Thurs., 11/16: Cheap Trick and Soul Asylum. Wha??

Tickets range from $49.50 to $79.50. Presale begins tomorrow at 9am, and regular onsale is Friday at 10am. Decisions decisions. Do I go see Superchunk at the Daily Show anniversary show, or do I throw $80 at a show that’s not worth $30? Hmm…. Didn’t Cheap Trick just play in Jersey for free?

Tues., 11/21: Brian Wilson

Tickets range from $58.50 to, dear lord, $128.50. Presale begins tomorrow at 10am, and regular onsale is Friday at 11am.

I really, really hope that Michael Rapino isn’t full of shit, because this is just getting ridiculous.

A number of live sets from this year’s Lollapalooza festival are now available for sale on iTunes, including Broken Social Scene, Ben Kweller, The Frames, Editors and many others. Head to the website for more info.

A word of warning – it doesn’t look like all of the downloads are full sets. Prices range from 99 cents to $9.99, so I’m guessing some of them include only a couple of songs.

Personally, I’m going to wait until October 19th, when they’re launching LiveLollapalooza.com, where you’ll be able to get recordings of all the bands in MP3 and FLAC formats.

Just wish they had the Flaming Lips set, which was pretty much my highlight of the festival, despite the fact that it was the exact same set they always play.

I’m posting this on Tuesday night… new things (CMJ?) may pop up overnight, so don’t take it as gospel. Also, I’m only listing shows that interest me, so if you’re expecting another show to go on sale, you best check for yourself.

All tickets are available via Ticketweb and go on sale tomorrow (Wednesday) at noon unless otherwise noted.

Bowery Ballroom
Sat., 11/11: Mouse on Mars plus Birdy Nam Nam / Lithops, $15
Mon., 11/13: Robert Pollard plus Starling Electric, $23
Wed., 11/15: Hidden Cameras plus Spiral Beach, $15
Sun., 12/3: Straylight Run plus Matt Pond PA / Street to Nowhere / Kevin Devine, $15 (on sale Friday, 9/29 at noon)

Maxwell’s
Sat., 11/18: Robyn Hitchcock & the Venus 3, $15 (on sale now)

Mercury Lounge
Fri., 11/17: Centro-Matic / Bobby Bare Jr., $12 (on sale now)
Sat., 11/18: Centro-Matic / Bobby Bare Jr., $12 (on sale now)

North Six
Wed., 11/1: CMJ/Kork Agency, Magnolia Electric Co. with 5 others, $15 (on sale now)
Fri., 11/3: CMJ/Jade Tree, David Bazan, Snowden, and 5 others, $15 (on sale now)

Or is it Shit Town? I’m confused. Anyway, Stereogum points out that the best album in 20 years is now streaming in all its, err, glory, over at MTV.

Stereogum also points to a not-so-glowing review of the album over at Rolling Stone. I won’t reprint it all here, but wanted to share my favorite passage:

So this is the Killers in 1980s Springsteen-clone mode: better than Tommy Conwell and the Young Rumblers; not as good as John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band; about even with Billy Hixx and the New Breed. (That was Rob Lowe’s band in St. Elmo’s Fire, though the Killers have better fashion sense.)

As I mentioned last night, my favorite radio station in the world, WOXY.com, is coming back in a couple of weeks. What I haven’t mentioned is how.

WOXY is being saved by a man named Bill Nguyen. Bill is an internet entrepreneur based in San Francisco who owns, among other things, a music venture named LaLa.com. Bill heard about WOXY’s plight a few weeks ago, and like all good businesspeople, he saw an opportunity – an established trade name, a dedicated fanbase, and a huge potential for growth. So in the space of about 10 days, Bill contacted the principals of WOXY, starting talking about a deal, and reached an agreement in principal to revive WOXY sometime in the next two weeks. Talk about fast.

While the exact details of the new WOXY.com are still kinda murky, the generalized outline includes more live in-studio performances, an expanded physical presence into San Francisco, and close integration into LaLa.com.

What is LaLa? Essentially, it is an online CD trading forum. You set up an account, and then list all the CDs in your collection that you don’t want anymore. If someone else wants your CD, LaLa tells you, and gives you a postage-paid envelope (much like NetFlix), and you send it to the person who wants it. For every CD you send out, you can choose a CD from someone else’s collection for the price of only $1.75 (not sure if this is variable at all), which includes, among other things, shipping costs and a royalty to the artist/songwriter.

In a nutshell, LaLa allows you to give up CDs you no longer want, pay an additional $1.75, and have a CD you DO want. Oh, and they also sell a number of brand new CDs at good prices from Newbury Comics. So they’re indie through and through. Go here for a better explanation of exactly how LaLa works.

I think this is a great idea. I just joined, and I’m looking forward to getting rid of the Sufjan Stevens, Devendra Banhart and Winger CDs in my collection. And, very soon, LaLa will be integrated with WOXY, so that any time you hear a song or band you like, you can click on a button to add them to your LaLa “want” list. How easy is that?

If this sounds interesting to you, do me (and all WOXY fans) a favor, and head over to LaLa.com and check it out. Show Bill that he made a wise choice!

Portastatic’s new album, Be Still Please, is now streaming at the Merge Records website. The album comes out on October 10th, but can be pre-ordered here.

In other Merge news, the lineup for Merge’s CMJ lineup has been set:

White Whale
Richard Buckner
Portastatic
The Brokedown

Exact order of bands has yet to be set. The show is on Friday, November 3rd at the Knitting Factory, beginning at 7:30pm (sharp!). Tickets are still available, but I guarantee they’ll sell out soon.

(Thanks to Matt for the heads up!)

Since MTV doesn’t show videos anymore, I figured I’d post a few good ones you might have missed. They’re all courtesy of my dad, who’s pretty hip to the indie rock. I’ve taught him well:

Flaming Lips, “SpongeBob & Patrick Confront the Psychic Wall of Energy”

Josh Rouse, “Come Back” (live)

McCluskey, “She Will Only Bring You Happiness”

Michael McDonald, “Reach Out, I’ll Be There” (sorry, I tried to find “Ya Mo B There”)

Sleater-Kinney, “Entertain”

And, from the “Are You Fucking Kidding Me?” department, check out Dashboard Confessional covering, ahem, R.E.M. Carraba totally wants to kiss Michael Stipe.

Dashboard Confessional, “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight”

The word from Cincinnati (Ohio, for those geographically-impaired) is that WOXY.com will return to the internet airwaves in less than 2 weeks! Not too many other details right now, but Mike and Shivvy will definitely be on board. Not sure about Bryan Jay or the DJ Princess. Will pass along info when it comes in.

BAM! The future of Rock and Roll is back!

Go here. And here.

There’s no way this thing stays up long, but enjoy it whilst you can.

Aversion.com reports that the new album from …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of The Dead, entitled So Divided, will be released on November 14th via Interscope Records. That’s three days after I’m seeing them at Irving Plaza, so I hope the album leaks ahead of time so I’m somewhat familiar with the new songs.

One song on the album that I don’t need to become familiar with is “Gold Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory”. That’s right – Trail of Dead are covering Guided by Voices. And it’s the fifth track on the album, so it’s not like this is some random b-side. Odd.

A so-so week from AOL. It’s better than last week, though, when I couldn’t find a single album worth linking.

Scissor Sisters, Ta-Dah
Tori Amos, A Piano – The Collection
Jerry Garcia, The Very Best of Jerry Garcia
Samiam, Whatever’s Got You Down
The Lemonheads, The Lemonheads
George Harrison, Living in the Material World (re-release)

Personally, I’m really liking the new Lemonheads disc.

OK, so I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much on this, but there’s some serious talk out there about a possible revival of WOXY.com. If you’re interested in the details so far, go here or here.

In a nutshell – an internet investor who has some other successful music-related internet holdings is looking to buy WOXY and integrate it into his holdings. So far he has indicated he wants to keep most or all of the WOXY format, and as much of the staff as wants to stay.

We’ll see. Word could come as soon as this week. Keep your fingers crossed.