December 11, 2012 – "When I first started writing songs, I was doing a lot of folky stuff with the guitar, and my mom said, 'Ugh, it's so boring. Why don't you rock it up a little bit? Make it rock'n'roll.'" That one conversation, says Marnie Stern, has shaped the way she's approached songwriting for much of her decade-long career. At the moment, the manic, 36 year-old New York native is at home, preparing both for the March 19 release of her fourth studio full-length, The Chronicles of Marnia and a trip to visit her mother and ailing stepfather in South Florida. "Now," she says of her songs, "I usually equate sparse and simple with boring. And even though it's irrational and I know that's not the case, it's really difficult for me otherwise.

December 7, 2012 – After the 2011 release of Terra, his third full-length in as many years, Julian Lynch decided he needed to really focus on school. For the past few years, the New Jersey native (and Real Estate associate) has been juggling his pursuit of a PhD in ethnomusicology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a fledgling career as bedroom pop auteur. "That's actually part of why it's taken me so long with this record," he says of his next, "90 percent done," still untitled LP, due tenatively in April on Underwater Peoples. "But I'm done with coursework now and for the first time, during the academic year, I feel like I’m actively booking shows. It’s a reflection of the fact that I have a little more time on my hands."Time, Lynch says, is a luxury he's never had when writing and recording. "In that way, I think the process has been a departure," he explains.

December 4, 2012 – "I was cocky," Kurt Vile says with a laugh. "I didn't think it'd happen: I had a week in the studio booked, didn't think the baby would come early. She came a week early." Vile is currently prowling the leafy length of Bainbridge Street in his native Philadelphia, en route with his band, the Violators, to procure a fresh set of amp tubes for afternoon rehearsals. In two days, they'll head to New York to provide opening support for Dinosaur Jr., the legendary trio whose longtime producer, John Agnello, has returned to Vile's side for the recording of his full-length follow-up to 2011's breakout effort, Smoke Ring for My Halo, an album they tracked together at J Mascis' home studio in Amherst, Massachussetts.

November 27, 2012 – "What we really wanted to do," says Bleached's Jessica Clavin of her sisterly duo's recently recorded full-length, "was explore. We've been doing this since we were teenagers and we have a certain sound on our last three seven-inches, but we wanted to show some variety. This new record has songs you'll be familiar with, but there are also things that will be a surprise. It's just really fun."Recorded with frequent collaborator and Darker My Love bassist Rob Barbato in both Burbank and Los Angeles' Echo Park neighborhood this past October, the as-yet-untitled debut LP (due spring 2013 via new label home Dead Oceans) is rife with songs that Jessica says were shaped by a year on the road and "definitely, definitely going through breakups." The former in particular has defined the past several years for the Clavin sisters, from their time in beloved, now defunct L.A.

November 26, 2012 – Nearly ten years ago, director Ondi Timoner unleashed Dig!, the feature-length culmination of a near decade's worth of footage she collected while spending time with the Dandy Warhols and Brian Jonestown Massacre as those two rival, creatively entwined outfits navigated their way through the '90s underground. Surprisingly, during all that time both at odds and in love, erratic BJM mastermind Anton Newcombe never remixed (or released an official remix of) a song penned by the Dandys. But in the wake of the latter's recently released eighth studio full-length, This Machine, comes Newcombe's spacious re-imagining of album highlight "Autumn Carnival." Hear it for the first time below.

November 23, 2012 – In April 1990, Jeff Ament was reeling from the death of his friend and bandmate, Mother Love Bone frontman Andy Wood. But it wasn't the subsequent, much mythologized formation of Pearl Jam that righted his course. It was an unexpected set of jam sessions with fellow Seattle outfit War Babies."I was having a tough spring and a tough summer," Ament said recently over lunch at the Breslin in New York's Ace Hotel, War Babies drummer Richard Stuverud seated just to his right. "I felt like [Mother Love Bone] was my shot at being in a band that could put out records. But War Babies had lost their bassist and Richard had asked me if I would play with them. So we'd get together to just jam and I'd bring along a Prince song or a Cameo song, just some kind of rhythmic workout." Stuverud interjects, his eyes wide: "It was so refreshing.

November 21, 2012 – Who: Carson Cox, Dave Vassalotti, and Patrick Brady, three vets of the Tampa, Florida hardcore scene who, as Merchandise, specialize in shape-shifting noise-pop that suggests a wealth of interests beyond the boundaries of punk. But Cox, 26, describes his work in the Tampa scene as that of both architect and disciple, having resolved to begin recording his bands, his friends' bands, and distribute cassette tapes from home each time he left to travel or tour. "To say it's a hardcore scene is funny because, yeah, it was," Cox explains. "But that was just the surface. Below it, if you were involved in it, there was a lot of music and a lot of art, from pop to punk.

November 18, 2012 – "I wanted 'Death Proof' to have a Tarantino feel," English songstress Kate Nash says of the Aram Rappaport-directed clip for her new EP's titular cut. "But I also love this movie called Freaks so a lot of the inspiration came from that as well: old Bettie Page pictures, travelling circus people, and freak shows."Nash and Rappaport had actually worked together last summer in New York on the film Syrup, in which she had a small part. And when she told the Rappaport she'd be in L.A.

November 14, 2012 – "I think that it's easy, in this time of a million and one bands being blasted at you from all angles, to quickly take a band at surface level, judge them, and move on," says Pissed Jeans frontman Matt Korvette. "And probably, most bands deserve a quick 'sounds like XYZ, file under indie' designation. But I like to think there's more to Pissed Jeans than just "loud crazy rock.

November 13, 2012 – Earlier this year we posted a download for "Sunsick," a righteously anthemic chunk of streamlined, Brooklyn-built power-pop that improved upon all the wonderful noise that defined Fort Lean's remarkable CMJ run several months earlier. Today, we are pleased to remind you that the band is back with a small family of new songs. Below, for the very first time, hear the relatively moody Change Your Name EP in its jangly entirety.