July 18, 2012 – Bikini Kill, the riot grrrl quartet notorious for saying "fuck you" to major labels, will celebrate their 25th anniversary by launching their own label, Bikini Kill Records, to reissue the entire BK discography. A message on the band's website this morning reads:As our 25th anniversary approaches, Bikini Kill has decided to start our own record label called Bikini Kill Records. The Bikini Kill back catalog is currently available digitally via bikinikill.com, eMusic & iTunes. The Frumpies and Casual Dots are also up for sale now. We are working towards reissuing the physical Bikini Kill records one at a time. There are brand new Bikini Kill T Shirts available from bikinikill.com at this time with more merch to come in the near future.Bikini Kill's Self-Titled EP will come out in the fall of 2012 to commemorate the 20 year anniversary of its original release.

July 18, 2012 – Tyler, the Creator and Chazwick Bundick of Toro y Moi have publicly documenting their bro-love for one another for a while (see here, here, and here). In March of last year, Bundick even remixed Tyler's Bastard cut "French." It would seem now, though, that their particularly specific tweets back and forth last summer actually produced a formal collaboration or two. One "leaked" recently (or leaked "a couple months ago," according to Bundick) and was furiously passed around by the Internet today when Tyler Tumbl'd a link to the song, a Toro-produced smooth jam called "Hey You." The original version apparently used to feature a verse from Danny!, but the version Tyler shared had the South Carolina rapper's verse wiped clean off. Coincidentally (or not?), the song drops the same day Odd Future announced an as-yet-venueless fall U.S.

July 18, 2012 – Pitbull has officially joined Nickelback as a hater-bait artist with a sense of humor. A couple of Twitter punks gamed an Internet promotion, rigging the results so he'll be "banished" to Alaska — and not only is the MC happily taking the journey, he's bringing the jokesters responsible along for the journey. Pitbull, for those of you who haven't kept up on the every move of the Latin-cum-dance star, has been promoting Sheets energy strips, which involved a social media campaign with Walmart.

July 18, 2012 – First! Considering the market for mainstream, country-tinged rock is still massive, it's not a huge surprise that the Zac Brown Band's fifth studio album Uncaged, and not Frank Ocean's surprise-released, acclaimed major label debut channel ORANGE earned the top slot on the Billboard 200 albums chart. Uncaged sold 234,000 copies, making it the trio's second No. 1 album, following 2010's four times Grammy-nominated You Get What You Give. 2 Through 10: Ocean's No. 2 arrival is still quite impressive — keep in mind, that's just 3,000 fewer copies than Chris Brown's recent No. 1 debut! Meanwhile, the Beliebers kept Justin Bieber's Believe at No. 3 (45,000), Team Breezy supported Brown's Fortune at No. 4 (a little less than 45,000), and Maroon 5 fans (Marooners? Fivers?) put Overexposed at No. 5 (44,000). No.

July 18, 2012 – The Red Hot Chili Peppers are about to unleash 18 new songs on fans, but the band's bassist Flea isn't stopping there. He announced via Twitter yesterday he's finally releasing his first-ever solo record, the one he's been talking about for literally years — and he's going to be doing it, like, now: i am putting out an ep i made by myself in a couple of days. it is obscure arty mostly instrumental music, except when patti smith sings. my ep is called helen burns. all proceeds from my helen burns ep will go towards the silverlake conservatory of music. it will be available for down load at any price you want to pay, it will be a donation to the silverlake conservatory of music. will also be vinyl, which i will autograph, and inside will be a piece of a bass string that i have played in concert 75 dollars for that.

July 18, 2012 – Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney learned their collective starpower wasn't stronger than London's curfew laws on Saturday, when their joint jam at London's Hard Rock Calling festival at Hyde Park was silenced by the venue's engineers ten minutes before the set's intended finish around 11 p.m, abruptly ending their rendition of "Twist and Shout." So last night in Dublin, the Boss finished the gig the way he had originally planned. "Before we were so rudely interrupted…" Springsteen said at the top of his set at RDS (per the BBC) as he flipped on a giant prop power generator switch that looked stolen from Frankenstein's lab. He and the E Street Band then launched into the final minute of "Twist and Shout" — without McCartney — promptly followed by a cover of the Clash's version of "I Fought the Law." E Street's 31-song set ended promptly at 10:50 p.m.

July 17, 2012 – Instead of launching a third weekend of its annual Indio fest, Coachella will take its increasingly wild party to the high seas. Today organizers announced (ahead of its previously scheduled 6 p.m. PDT deadline) via Twitter the inaugural S.S. Coachella, a two-segment "music festival at sea" (or, in layman's terms, a cruise) featuring headliners Pulp, Hot Chip, Yeasayer, and Girl Talk that will sail on the Celebrity Silhouette ship to the Bahamas December 16-19 and then to Jamaica December 19-23. Earlier today, the L.A. Times reported sources "familiar with Goldenvoice's plans" leaked the information ahead of time; an anonymous artist rep said that "the ship looks amazing." Fun fact: by the time the fest tweeted out the announcement, Hipster Runoff was already following the S.S.

July 17, 2012 – After weeks of silence, incarcerated Lamb of God frontman Randy Blythe has finally spoken out in an exclusive interview with a tabloid in the Czech Republic, where he's currently still being held on manslaughter charges after posting bail earlier this month.

July 17, 2012 – After announcing its long list last month, Canada's Polaris Prize jurors have whittled the pool down to ten native acts whose recent albums deserve short-list status for the $30,000 award that commends each year's "best album based solely on artistic merit without regard to sales or genre." When the list was released today, we realized we've weighed in on almost all of them, so consider this a SPIN User's Guide to the 2012 Polaris Prize. The winner will be announced at a ceremony at Toronto's Masonic Temple Concert Hall September 24. Cadence Weapon, Hope in Dirt City: The Alberta rapper struggled to care and so did we. Cold Specks, I Predict a Graceful Expulsion: Someone sort of like Adele but not quite. Drake, Take Care: Drizzy's poor little rich boy schtick landed him at No.

July 17, 2012 – Since the last Death Cab for Cutie record Codes and Keys came out last May, Ben Gibbard has endured a series of significant life changes, like cutting down his drinking and ending his marriage, while also maintaining his marathon-running and sustaining a gigantic, year-long, multi-legged world tour with his band. We may have presumed Gibbard will be chilling out when that tour ends this weekend. That, however, is untrue! This fall, the runner with a questionable playlist will embark upon his first solo album adventure. His debut solo album Former Lives will be released October 16 via Barsuk (October 15 in the U.K./Europe, via City Slang). "It certainly wasn’t a reaction to any sort of dissatisfaction to recording with Death Cab or anything like that," Gibbard tells Stereogum.