November 1, 2012 – Mostly imprisoned Russian fire-starters Pussy Riot have been shown mucho American love from Madonna, Green Day, Ad-Rock and everyone in between; and now they can add Jesus to that list — sort of. Last night's South Park episode "A Scause for Applause" spoofed the Lance Armstrong doping scandal and everyone's obsession with those LIVESTRONG causes-as-fashion rubber bracelets (to wit: we're still rocking our "VOTE JASMINE TRIAS" wristbands from Idol Season 3).

November 1, 2012 – Unscrupulous contemporary totem of douchebaggery and occassional pop singer Chris Brown has somehow discovered yet another icky fashion choice to put in his closet next to his OOPS! chain and his tattoo that looks creepily like his battered ex-girlfriend. Never afraid to venture into new frontiers of insensitivity, Chris Brown attempted the modern classic of idiot fratboys everywhere: the racist Halloween costume!Looks like Chris and the rest of Team Breezy decided to show up at Rihanna's Halloween party (disturbia!) dressed as Middle Eastern terrorists...or, possibly, the world's worst ZZ Top cover band.

October 16, 2012 – Mysterious collective Goat dropped one of 2012's most coveted pieces of vinyl with World Music, a damn-near indescribable collision of searing psych-metal, trance-inducing Afrobeat congas, Krautrock infinity-gazing, and demonic disco. Recorded hot-as-hellfire to tape, this thing could be mistaken for a Now Again or Finders Keepers reissue from West-Africa (via Mars), but in fact the group hails from a small town in Sweden called Korpilombolo. The band claims this town runs deep with a history of practicing voodoo and ducking religious persecution, but this may just be another great backstory from a country filthy with genre-bending anonymous bands (holler at us, Ghost).

October 12, 2012 – Looks like Halloween and Christmas come early this year! Chapel Hill one-man doom-drone euphorist Horseback and Chicago's ridiculously prolific séance organizers Locrian have proved themselves to be quite the excellent sparring partners on last year's vinyl-only New Dominions 12-inch (ed. 477) and self-titled 7-inch (ed. 300). Luckily the fine folks have Relapse have saved these four spectacular sides from record collector obscurity (and added a James Plotkin remix) for their swagged-out New Dominions reissue, coming via CD and vinyl November 9. The album's centerpiece is the 14-minute solitary-confinement anthem "Our Epitaph" which mixes both artist's propensity for terrifying-yet-transcendent dronework with a feedbacky pulse like Joy Division gone totally joyless. Hear it below!

October 11, 2012 – "I was such a fan of the band," says parody kingpin "Weird Al" Yankovic about Nirvana. "I heard Nevermind and I thought, Oh this is really great. I wish it were popular enough for me to do a parody…but that's never going to happen!"For years, the food-obsessed zeitgeist surgeon and former college-radio DJ had been attracted to alternative music — see his note-perfect swagger-jacks of Devo, Talking Heads, and B-52's from the '80s for proof. But after the three unlaundered, longhaired, unapologetically sloppy, Seattle-borne feedback enthusiasts started chewing up MTV's airspace, it was the first time alternative culture had come to him. "It's hard to articulate for me exactly what I loved about Nirvana," he says. "It was the energy, the attitude. I liked the sound of real instruments. I like guitars.

October 9, 2012 – When not drumming for delirious, Suspiri-ous bloodfeasters Zombi, A.E. Paterra is a full-time cosmonaut. His Majeure project has been steady releasing astronomical space electronic/drone/kraut/minimal synth music for a minute, and his second full-length, Solar Maximum, hits all the warmest, creepiest, retromaniacal sweetspots: Tangerine Dream, Cluster, Harald Grosskopf, Vangelis, Terry Riley, and especially John Carpenter (whose fog seems to be leaking all over 2012's great records, from Beak>, to Emeralds, to the Alchemist, to Majeure tourmates Maserati). If you like your synths analog and and your vibes heavy, stream this thing...and see you in another astral plane!

October 5, 2012 – Ed Droste, Grizzly Bear: We got him in 2005. He was found on the side of road with a broken leg. Some place was about to kill him. One of the ladies there — she would only save Chihuahuas — saved him and put him on her Chi farm where she tried to give him up for adoption. You know how TV stations do "Adopt This Dog"? He was a featured dog. They made him run around in a ballroom with a Phillies jersey.He came with the name DeForest because the woman who ran the Chi farm was obsessed with Star Trek. And for a month we tried to call him DeForest but it just felt so random. So he basically doesn't have a name. We kind of call him Beast, but we also call him Mr. Peepsins, or Professor Poopsins, or Stink Breath, or Rat, or just Stupid. Or Stupid Face. Any name goes. If you just use a high-pitched voice and call out a random word, he'll come.

October 4, 2012 – Alterna-metal insitution Tomahawk is returning early next year with Oddfellows, their long-awaited fourth album and first in six years. The supergroup (that's Faith No More barkjaculator Mike Patton, Jesus Lizard aggy-twanger Duane Denison, and Battles drummer John Stainer) have replaced bassist Kevin Rutmanis with the mighty Fantômas/Bungle/Madlove bassist Trevor Dunn, who has been dutifully blogging for us while hitting on the road on Melvins Lite's record breaking 51 States in 51 Days Tour. Oddfellows is easily Tomahawk's most diverse to date: There's groany, smoky, Morricone-jazz; there's twisty AmRep-gone-R&B bludgeon; and, most notably, there's the types of epic, majestic choruses that Patton diehards might remember from the final Faith No More LP, Album of the Year.

October 2, 2012 – On October 9, veteran prog-metal headfuckers Between the Buried and Me are returning with their sixth and most ambitious album to date, The Parallax II: Future Sequence. A group of five brainiacs that never met a time signature they couldn't eviscerate have returned with a 72-minute(!) space voyage that feels like a conceptual odyssey ("Can't you hear me? / An endless journey") put plays more like a backyard brawl over an iPod — Styx-ian theater one minute, Scandinavian death metal moshpit massacre the next, Bungle circus disaster in between. Mixing some enormous hooks in with their growling bluster, Parallax II should rightfully unite fans of Dillinger Escape Plan and My Chemical Romance and Meshuggah and Muse and everything else. Opening single, "Astral Body," is like a metalcore version of  Rush's "Spirit of Radio," which is the best thing.

September 29, 2012 – "They call me 'Eight Shows H.O.' / You can stunt like that when you own the whole place, though," rapped Jay-Z, a cappella, at the very first event held in Brooklyn's new Barclays Center.The rap monolith and Brooklyn cultural ambassador was taking a breather during the first of eight sold-out shows at his brand new 19,000-capacity arena. Well, it's not technically his per se (he's owns a fraction of a percent of its basketball team, the Nets), but he's certainly been its most visible face (Hov's been helping with details like logo designs and champagne brands). And not to mention, he's its brightest story. Born into Brooklyn public housing an eight-minute drive away, Jay-Z would ultimately grow up to help give the borough its first arena — so no doubt the night played as victory lap for Jay-Z, for Brooklyn, and for hip-hop culture itself.