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Wonderful news, as it has been revealed that Golden Gate Park will play host to the Outside Lands Festival on August 22-24. Details are still spares, but we know that the headliners will be Radiohead, Tom Petty, and Jack Johnson. This is exciting for several reasons. Mainly, Radiohead. But Golden Gate Park is also one of the most amazing places to explore, so combining it with a music festival seems too good to be true.

I’ll have more information for you as it becomes available. But in the meantime, the anticipation builds. It’s festival season!

I woke up Sunday morning inspired to make a neo-disco-infused mix. Because that’s normal on a Sunday morning. Miraculously it all came together quite quickly, and it’s by far my favorite mix to date.

Track listing:

Róisín Murphy - Overpowered
Holy Ghost! - Hold On
Gui Borrato - Beautiful Life
Mark Ronson - Stop Me (Chicken Lips Remix)
Rufus Wainwright - Tiergarten (Supermayer Mix)
Quiet Village - Desperate Hours
The Black Mustang - Mad as Hell
Fern Kinney - Together We Are Beautiful

And the mix:

MP3: K.Y.L.E. - To the Stars

Holy shit, the new Kills album, Midnight Boom, is amazing. Last night, I just listened to it five times in a row, and I plan many more listens today. I have their previous album, No Wow, but I had never gotten too into them. Now I’m hooked.

The London duo — Alison “VV” Mosshart and Jamie “Hotel” Hince — has put together twelve great track, ranging from electronic dance beats to a sparse acoustic tearjerker to close out the album.

Check out two of the tracks:

MP3: The Kills - U.R.A. Fever

MP3: The Kills - Cheap and Cheerful

Be sure to check out the full album when it comes out on March 10. They also have an incredible website. Check it out.

I’ve had Jay Reatard’s 2006 album Blood Visions for a little while now, and I have not been able to stop listening to it. It’s some of the most refreshing, straightforward rock music I’ve heard in a long time.

Coming out of the Memphis garage punk scene, Reatard played in several bands (The Reatards and the Lost Souls) before striking out on his own. Blood Visions is his first solo album, which makes me all the more excited to see what the prolific musician has in store for us.

The album is punk rock from beginning to end, and it will have you dancing for sure. Two of my favorite tracks are “My Shadow” and “Death is Forming,” which you can hear below, but definitely check out the entire album. You won’t regret it.

MP3: Jay Reatard - My Shadow

MP3: Jay Reatard - Death is Forming

Fantastic article in the Times (UK) yesterday about the music industry in its 1990s heyday. In “‘Til death did we party: the music business in the heady Nineties,” former A&R man John Niven describes cocaine- and vodka-fueled trips around the globe searching for the next big act, which usually never came. Niven notes how the advent of the compact disc and its hefty profit margin propelled the business to such precarious heights, from which it has obviously fallen in the past eight years.

It is interesting to think of the 1990s as the music industry’s “last hurrah,” as Niven calls it. Of course digital music has changed the entire landscape, but part of me is anxious to see if popular music as a successful business is really on its last legs. The music industry continues to adapt, but it has consistently fallen behind in the new millennium. Quite a shame, as that A&R job sounds like it was a blast.

Enjoy the full article in the Times Online.

(Via Stereogum)