June 11, 2012 – As the summer festival season kicks into high gear, so do the troubles that inevitably accompany large groups of people gathering to listen to a lot of loud noises in massive outdoor venues. The year's first tragedies struck at Scotland's RockNess fest, where, as the BBC reports, a 19-year-old attendee collapsed Saturday night and subsequently died. The Portobello native, Alex Herriot, was rushed to a nearby hospital but "failed to respond to treatment." Though an autopsy is still imminent, a police spokesman said that "early indications are that the man may have consumed drugs." Two others, one 19 and another 20, were also hospitalized "after taking so-called 'legal highs,'" potentially, police say, via "the latest pink ecstasy tablet" or a legal, MDMA-containing substance called Benzo Fury.

June 11, 2012 – Last week, Lauryn Hill became the latest musician to face a tax evasion charge, as TMZ reported, she failed to file three years' worth of tax returns. Hill, however, being who she is, did not keep quiet about the allegations, and late Friday, she (or her publicist, at least) posted an official statement on her Tumblr page responding to not only the reports, but also her three-year removal from the public eye ("in order to wean both [herself], and [her] family, away from a lifestyle that required distortion and compromise as a means for maintaining it"), from 2005-2007, in general (via E!). In the lengthy (1,252 words!) statement, Hill explains that her refusal to pay taxes during those years stemmed from her desire to operate outside "a media-protected military industrial complex with a completely different agenda" from her own.

June 11, 2012 – Against Me! opened for the Cult Friday night at Manhattan's Terminal 5, marking the band's first New York City appearance for singer Laura Jane Grace since she came out as transgender last month (her live debut came two weeks ago in San Diego). For a little extra oomph, the band was joined onstage by Joan Jett, who sang the Replacements' "fuck your gender norms" anthem "Androgynous" with Grace (wearing more or less matching outfits and tattoos, we might add). The song originated on the Replacements' 1984 album Let it Be and Jett covered it on her 2006 album Sinner. Jett and Grace's double delivery in the video below comes off like a cooler, less troubled "Transgender Dysphoria Blues," which Grace — then Tom Gabel — wrote and performed acoustic at Against Me! shows prior to her announcement last month.

June 11, 2012 – When Markéta Irglova and Frames frontman Glen Hansard put their music (and themselves) into an indie film in 2006, they got an Oscar, two Grammy nominations, and a band out of the deal.

June 8, 2012 – In addition to shooting off a few e-mails just before going onstage for his band's last-ever show at New York's Madison Square Garden, LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy had to make 100 percent sure everyone was in the wings, ready to go — this much we know from watching the second trailer-ish clip to drop from the band's documentary Shut Up and Play the Hits (via Pitchfork). We can also be sure that at least one minute and seven seconds of the doc contains the band's performance of "Dance Yrself Clean." The first official trailer, in case you never got around to watching it, dropped back in January. SPIN saw the flick at Sundance earlier this year and proclaimed it was almost as great as we remembered that night at MSG was. Watch the clip below, because it's way better than some of the other projects Murphy has flirted with since.

June 8, 2012 – Dave Grohl's recent good deeds during a sojourn in Philadelphia shouldn't come as a surprise — he's the nicest guy in rock! The Philadelphia Inquirer reported yesterday (via Spinner) that Grohl left a whopping $2,000 in gratuities at the Smith and Wollensky bar in Philly's Rittenhouse Hotel, where he dropped the first grand tip on "a drink" last Friday night (yes, that's a 10,000 percent tip, if it was a $10 cocktail), and returned the next night with a second g, after having "a few drinks." While Wavves have already stepped in to explain Grohl's winning personality to the world, there is still enough confusion out there on the Internet as to what exactly the ex-Nirvana drummer did to earn this title, so we decided to outline few of the key points from his decades-spanning "good dude" crusade.

June 8, 2012 – Following over a year of protests by thousands of musicians, many of them Latin jazz artists, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) has made a slight reversal on its decision to cut 31 categories from the Grammy Awards last year. At its annual Board of Trustees meeting last month, the organization decided to reinstate the award for best Latin Jazz Album and added two categories. The AP reports that the Grammys will now include Best Urban Contemporary Album (for R&B albums that feature pop/rock) and Best Classical Compendium (for albums that "involve a mixture of classical subgenres"), in addition to Best Latin Jazz Album. The rundown now includes 81 categories, up from 78.

June 8, 2012 – Former Fleetwood Mac guitarist Bob Welch was found dead of an apparent suicide at his home in Nashville yesterday. TMZ reports that his wife found the 66-year-old's body, along with a suicide note, around noon, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Welch had recently been battling health issues. In the hours following his death, former bandmates Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood both fondly remembered the guitarist, who sang and played in Fleetwood Mac from 1971 to 1974, what he called, in an interview, "the bridge era," when the band's style was evolving from blues rock to its more "commercial" sound. "I'm so very sorry for his family and for the family of Fleetwood Mac," Nicks wrote in an official statement.

June 7, 2012 – From the looks of the cinematic trailer the Killers just dropped for their forthcoming follow-up to 2008's Day & Age, their next album Battle Born will not follow fellow '00s rockers Muse into the land of wub. The 1:38 of music below via Stereogum indicates the band is sticking to its plan — lots of the '80s keyboard-driven goodness and a few Springsteen-esque grabs at the golden ring. Whether the album's title is Battle Born or Battleborn appears to be up for debate. It appears in the clip with the words separated with a lightning bolt, so do with that what you will. "I think the consensus within the band is to take those things that we've done well and really hone in on that," frontman Brandon Flowers told the BBC in January when he confirmed the fourth album's release. "We don't want to make Hot Fuss 2 or Sam's Town 2, or Day & Age 2.

June 7, 2012 – From Blondie and Michael Stipe to Dave Grohl and Lady Gaga, to My Morning Jacket and LCD Soundsystem, the Muppets have demonstrated a marvelously cutting-edge taste in music over the years, and now it's apparent that no blog threat from Courtney Love can stop them from keeping up with cool jams. In an interview with the Telegraph, Miss Piggy and Kermit name-dropped some seriously en vogue artists. "I’d love to work with Skrillex, even though I’ve never heard his music," Kermit said in response to a question about whether he'd collaborate with an electronic artist like the SPIN cover star. "We don’t get electronic music in the swamp.