Guy Garvey is a busy... um... guy. As the frontman for one of the UK's most critically acclaimed bands, Elbow, he and his bandmates are in the middle of their global tour's North American leg, which ends here in Los Angeles Friday night at the Avalon. They have a newly-released album, The Seldom Seen Kid (read the LAist CD review here). On top of this, Guy is still selecting songs for his weekly BBC......

Not long ago a little band called Jet had a little tune that sounded like the White Stripes a little. Apple used the hyperactive rockabilly flavored single "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" to hype its iPod and the band went on to sell millions of records because of the arrangement. Tonight Feist, an artist no one knew about until Apple used her catchy little song for an iPod commercial, is headlining at the......

Best known for her rendition of Rihanna's "Umbrella" on acoustic -- here she's singing Britney's "comeback" single... A Los Angeles native and former UC Berkeley attendee, she recently drew controversy for using YouTube to get her name out à la LonelyGirl15. It worked. Local radio station STAR 98.7 started plugging her single and it soared in sales on iTunes as a result. You can currently catch her touring the country in small venues.......

Steve Jobs is a very smart and powerful businessman. So did he purposely bite his tongue last week when he announced a $200 iPhone price cut -- just two months after launching the product? Was it a plot to steer additional hype toward the iPhone so the new iPods wouldn't steal all the thunder? Did he plan all along to offer store credit to those who shelled out $600 for an iPhone? Was Master......

This is the story the record labels have always feared. Canadian rocker Matthew Good had been recording professionally in North America for the past 12 years. When his U.S. record deal with Atlantic Records expired, he had some choices to make: try to find a new label that would distribute his music in the States, try to get a new deal with Atlantic, try something totally different, or completely give up on getting his......

Looking for new music to check out? Well look no further. LAist is giving you the 411 on what's moving up and down our playlists. Lisa, Music Editor: The Bees (U.S.) - High Society Kind Hearts and Coronets - Rampart Castle Joan As Police Woman - Real Life Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga The 88 - Kind of Light Tony, Editor: Dinosaur Jr. - Beyond Kayne West - Can't Tell Me Nothin......

-- Bug Music takes a bite of Windswept... -- Sony/ATV gets Famous... -- CBS buys Last.fm... -- iTunes burns its bra. As promised, DRM-free is here. Download version 7.2 and cozy up with the EMI catalog... -- Sea level records will have its goodbye party at Safari Sam’s on June 22nd. Wear black. And don’t you think some last-ditch, Goonies-esque plan needs to go into effect right about now? Let’s gather Data, Chunk and Sam......

Welcome to the latest edition of 'Ask the MACist', the column where I answer your Macintosh and other technology questions. Our question this week comes from Josh in Los Angeles. He asks: There's no problem downloading .avi files, converting to .mov, and playing on the Apple TV, is there? Or showing .mov files generated by iMovie? Also, does it run with 10.3.9? The answer to your questions are pretty simple, fortunately. Anything you can......

Welcome to the latest edition of 'Ask the MACist', the column where I answer your Macintosh and other technology questions. Our question this week comes from Sam, who lives all the way in Portland. He asks: "Even though Apple and EMI are not going to have DRM on their songs, is there any way to have songs from other companies in your iTunes without DRM to? With Apple announcing yesterday that they, along with......

Welcome to the latest edition of "Ask the MACist", the column where I answer your Macintosh and other technology questions. Our question this week comes from Jeff in Santa Monica. He asks: "Ok, I'm tempted to get an Apple TV but what will it do for me and is it worth the price?" Well, as always our readers come up with the best questions. And in this case, the most topical as well considering......

Dear LAist, What is the name of the band that is in the new iPod commercial? It's might be the ITUNES commercial I;m not excatly sure. It's very upbeat, the song. Liek White Stripes but not. Please help. Serge Dear Serge, The band you're referring to is the Scottish trio The Fratellis and the tune is called "Flathead". Even though it might appear that their name was inspired by The Goonies, the band denies......

STARTERS & DIPS Was the MTV President NEXT-ed? Mutiny at Music Television. [via Gawker] 50 Cent condoms will cover your wankster. [via Stereogum] Slash loses his hat. Big whoop. [via Idolator] EARLY BIRD SPECIAL The Shins' new album, "Wincing the Night Away" + iTunes glitch = download early. [via Retro Music Snob] ENTREES Money talks. And now it spies on you too. [via BoingBoing] eBay buys scalper website. This article comes w/ a side......

New releases! Now newer every week!! We begin this installment with a boatload of terrifying and perplexing tribute records, followed by noteables in every genre, including some promising rock offerings, a vault of soundtracks, fancy cello-ing, and more Frankie Valli than you can shake a stick at. Tribute Various Artists - Bluegrass Tribute to Modest Mouse (CMH) Various Artists - Bluegrass Tribute to the Shins (CMH) Various Artists - Can You Bring It? Sing......

At this morning's keynote address for the 2007 Macworld Conference and Expo held in San Francisco, Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced two hotly anticipated new products: Apple TV, which will allow users to watch content from their computers on a television, and the new iPhone, which integrates a cell phone, an Internet communications device and a widescreen iPod into a single device. This news comes on the heels of yesterday's announcement that Google and Samsung......

Podcasting may have not tipped the point like blogging has, but its significance and importance will last long. And to insure proper service to yourself in this day and age, you need to jump on the bandwagon and at least grab the daily free music offered to you. iTunes Store users know that every Tuesday brings a free song to your collection. How would you like an additional 10 songs a week? Thanks to......

While UCPD tinkers around with tasers, LAPD has been playing with their audio equipment. What they presented on their blog yesterday is not truly a podcast, but merely an audio stream of a news conference. But hey, one step at a time, right? The first "podcast" is an audio recording of Chief Bratton's November 14th press conference where he reads a statement in response to the videos floating around the 'net (one, two) and......

I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to buy a Zero 7 album again. Sunday night's performance utterly blew me away. Yes, it was still Zero 7, but this was something else. This was them as giants. This was a Zero 7 I did not expect and frankly, I like this version of them much better. I had a similar experience after seeing Aqualung at the Fonda last year. The nice English band......