Recently in music Category

Rock for Kids, an organization that raises money to help provide music lessons for underprivileged children, was inspired to pay tribute to the king of pop and in tandem to help to raise money for the organization. ImissyouMJ.com is a collective photo memorial that includes 10,000 photo plots available for purchase; the plots come together to form a mosaic of MJ's famous white glove. A $25 donation allows you to submit your own photo into the mosaic and receive a copy of this poster once the squares have been filled. Proceeds go to Rock for Kids and the poster itself will be presented to the Jackson family as a tribute.

Les Paul, the man who made the sound of rock 'n roll possible, died today at the age of 94.

He will be missed.

If you are a Nirvana fan, this might disappoint you. Or maybe not. Either way, it's always interesting to see how formulaic music can be.

As I previously mentioned in the past, I am an avid reader of Monitor Mix, the NPR music blog of Sleater-Kinney guitarist Carrie Brownstein. Last week, after asking readers to justify their love for a favorite band, she decided to learn as much about Phish in one week after being inspired by a reader's comments.

She has 10 total updates documenting her journey. Below is Update #9, the night she organized a Portland, Oregon Phishhead get together.

Oh, and for the record, I am not a Phish fan, but I do know a lot of their songs and appreciate them for what they are...a great band that will stand the test of time. And Bounce Around the Room is awesome.

Monitor Mix Meets Portland Phish Heads from Carrie Brownstein on Vimeo.

With his a new venture called Polyphonic, Radiohead manager Brian Message, who worked with the band as they released their most recent album, In Rainbows, online for free, is looking to "invest ... in new and rising artists who are not signed to record deals and then help them create their own direct links to audiences over the Internet."

Metric, a band who decided to not sign onto a label and release their most recent album Fantasies themselves, has been greatly served going the solo route. (Note the article does not specify if Metric was involved with Polyphonic.)

On a personal note Metric is very much worth checking out. In addition so too is lead singer Emily Haines' solo work with a group dubbed Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton and on top of that Broken Soical Scene, a Canadian supergroup if you will who site 23 members, also claims Emily and Metric guitarist James Shaw as members along with Leslie Feist, members of Stars and hoards of other bands, and for my money is the best of the three.

The first single off of Pearl Jam's upcoming record, The Fixer, was released to radio stations today. You can listen to it on their MySpace page. Pearl Jam's ninth studio album, Backspacer, will drop on September 20th.

I dig the new tune, but then again I am very biased. To me, it sounds like a modern version of The Who.

This past friday the Wall Street Journal had a great write up about Jack White from The White Stripes, The Raconteurs and his newest group The Dead Weather. A fascinating look into what has enabled him to pursue a variety of creative outlets. Related: Pitchfork has The Dead Weather's two new videos. Will There Be Enough Water is particularly awesome.

The Sony Walkman, the world's first portable personal music player, turns 30 this week.

While the sudden death of Michael Jackson left behind many valuable assets, there is also a mountain of debt. Sony executives are trying to make sense of it.

This diverse group of young children have stunned pop culture pundits everywhere by actually enjoying the music of Journey. You know what they say in Journeyville: Don't stop believin'! (thx Em)