"I was half-dead, then I was born again..." - The Hold Steady.

So here is something crazy. If you frequent the blogosphere then you are probably somewhat hipped to the existence of an act called Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, who have gotten hyped at Coolfer and the Pfork and Big Ticket and countless other places despite not have a proper release or a label deal. Well at the behest of the Ticket we finally got around to checking them out, and we were pleased with what we heard. Then we went to their web site and lo and behold, it appears CYHSY includes the Sargent twins, friends of former Placeholders Scales and Stengel. If memory serves the Sargents once passed through our old kitchen on Magazine Street. And at least one of them was in a Boston act called Clown Down, which cut a very good demo we have a copy of. So perhaps in the future we will post some of the best Clown Down stuff. Only problem is we don't think we ever got the track list for it. Oh well...

MTS has posted the leadoff cut to the new Mazarin record, which is a quiet monster, much in the same way the Lilys' Eccsame The Photon Band is. The record streets today, and is the first in a series of big, big releases out of Philadelphia, three others being forthcoming discs from Windsor For The Derby (now operating out of Illadelph), The Get Quick and, uh, another band we can't think of right now. Anyway, Philebrity also hypes the new Mazarin joint. Seriously people, big record here. Grab three MP3s at the link, particularly "Louise" and the title track.

According to its web site, the Mendoza Line have completed mixing their next record, Full of Light and Full of Fire, which is slated to drop in November on Misra. Congrats all around. We look forward to seeing the band up here again in MA September 8. The band now has a MySpace page and suggests there may be new tracks previewed there sometime in the future.

OK, so Brainwashed isn't going away, it is just doing away with The Brain brand, which we don't think anybody ever really paid attention to anyway. The stalwart pub is revamping and relaunches 8/1.

The NYT gets at the nuts and bolts of the Sony BMG payola: cash, gift cards, free TVs, laptops, air fare, and sneakers. Quoth Spitzer: ""It is omnipresent. It is driving the industry and it is wrong." Fine. But whatever happened to hookers and blow? We jest...

Wolk says the forthcoming Big Star record is abominable. And that's too bad.

That is all.