March 7, 2012 – In her newest video, Sharon Van Etten keeps moving. The Sam Zimman-directed clip for "Leonard," off her recent LP Tramp, finds the viewer in the passenger seat as we zoom through what looks like the streets of southern California, only doubled, then quadrupled in a mirror. Funny, she never mentioned to SPIN that kaleidoscopes were one of her favorite things. "Leonard" is a simple non-narrative, yet it's as wholly pleasant as Tramp is.

March 7, 2012 – Fiona Apple has announced the title of her ever-elusive, long-awaited follow-up to 2005's Extraordinary Machine, and yes, true to her style, it is 23 words long. The fourth Fiona Apple record will be called The Idler Wheel is wiser than the Driver of the Screw, and Whipping Cords will serve you more than Ropes will ever do. Yup. Still, it's a whole 61 words more concise than the 84-word title of 1999's When the Pawn... We can't wait to start referring to it as The Idler Wheel Is Doing This to Mock Our Desperation. Fiona has announced two SXSW appearances — where she will be playing songs from this new album — and afterwards, she's embarking on a brief tour to effectively raise fans' blood pressure in anticipation of the record, which still doesn't have a release date, but is probably, kind of, we hope, coming out this spring.

March 7, 2012 – On April 14, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, along with Guns N' Roses, Donovan, and 14 other inductees, will join the ranks of legends (and sorta-legends) in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Guitarist John Frusciante, who left the band in 2009, however, has declined an invitation to participate in the ceremony and the surrounding festivities. In an interview with Billboard, drummer Chad Smith explained that Frusciante, whose eleventh (!) as-yet-untitled solo album is slated for a 2012 release, told the band he didn't feel comfortable coming, which they "totally respect." "It was all good," Smith said, "[John]'s the kind of guy, I think, that once he's finished with something he's just on to the next phase of his life.

March 7, 2012 – It seems Jay-Z had a ball at last year's SXSW, where he made a surprise appearance at Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Music label showcase at a converted power plant in downtown Austin. In fact, he liked it so much that he's just announced he'll be coming back this year — in just five days. In conjunction with American Express, Hov will perform for the "Amex Sync Show" at the recently renovated Austin City Limits theater, and, yes, of course it'll be livestreamed (on Amex's YouTube, Vevo, and a digital billboard on the corner of 6th Street and Red River in Austin). The show goes on March 12 at 7 p.m. CST (that's 8 p.m. EST, 6 p.m. PST), which is during the interactive part of the festival, but will be available on-demand March 13-19. What exactly is Amex promoting down in Austin?

March 7, 2012 – Jail is not always as flipping awesome as Ja Rule once made it seem. Turns out that not even a man's birthday can merit an unauthorized phone interview from behind bars: Ja faced a buzzkill of a disciplinary hearing on Tuesday for a clandestine call he recently received from Renada Romain's Ear Candy Mornings on Sirius XM's Hip Hop Nation. MTV reports that a New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision rep said poor Ja will be serving a week-long work detail for the phoner, but the most interesting part of his punishment is what his publicist has said about the incident.

March 6, 2012 – MTV has spent the past few years trying to remind us they're no longer "Music Television," a campaign that was aided by the fact that the channel and its associated websites haven't been able to play videos from Universal Music Group since August 2010, when the label yanked its clips from Viacom's networks so they could air exclusively on Vevo (UMG is a co-owner of the video service). But now, after two years of no Lady Gaga videos other than MTV-related performances on MTV.com, the two sides have kissed and made up. CNET reports (via Billboard) that the reunion, which seemed to manifest itself live on MTV's sites last Friday (March 2), means big things for both parties, even if you ignore the as-yet-unreleased financial terms of the deal.

March 6, 2012 – Best Coast have finally started talking about their much-anticipated, Jon Brion-produced sophomore album. It's called The Only Place, it's slated to drop May 15 (via Mexican Summer), and it's still repping hard for California via its cover art. Brion's glossy production style — not to mention recording sessions at Capitol Records Studio B — have likely ironed out a bit of the duo's well-known fuzz, and Cosentino says the album is about her, finally (finally) "trying really hard to grow up." And what's a lo-fi album without a billion tour dates to go with it? The band has also mapped out a two-and-a-half-month post-SXSW trek across the U.S. and U.K. to support the record. JEFF the Brotherhood will join them in May and June, while Nashville's equally gritty garage punks Those Darlins will pick up the second leg in July.

March 6, 2012 – Fans who've dreamed of taking guitar lessons from their favorite band might have to go to jail to do it: MC5's Wayne Kramer, who was locked up for two years in the mid-'70s for trying to sell cocaine to undercover cops, has been hard at work with the help of a dream team of his musician friends, volunteering in the American prison system. Jail Guitar Doors (named for the song the Clash wrote in solidarity with Kramer upon his incarceration) was founded more than two years ago, in 2009, but per a new report from the AP (via the Daily Swarm), the nonprofit has achieved exceptional success so far, donating musical instruments to penitentiaries in Nevada, California, and Texas.

March 6, 2012 – Kid Rock may have endorsed Mitt Romney after the presidential candidate used one of his songs at a rally, but Rush Limbaugh hasn't made a fan out of Peter Gabriel. The vitriolic talk show host made the mistake of playing the English musician's "Sledgehammer" during his most recent rant, the one in which he called Georgetown University student and birth control advocate Sandra Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute" for asking for government-funded contraception. When Gabriel learned of the usage, he had his rep issue a statement on his Facebook (via the Hollywood Reporter): Peter was appalled to learn that his music was linked to Rush Limbaugh's extraordinary attack on Sandra Fluke. It is obvious from anyone that knows Peter's work that he would never approve such a use.

March 5, 2012 – If someone wrote yet another Final Destination screenplay, this time set in the Michigan backwoods, Taking Back Sunday's Adam Lazzara's audition would be flawless: the singer was minding his own business, having a cigarette outside a rural studio this Saturday where he and the band were recording, when in a biblically epic gust of wind, a tree toppled over, trapping him and breaking his leg. The tree was too heavy for the rest of the band to lift, so the fire department was called and ended up having to saw the thing to bits. (The tree, not his leg.) It's like Bon Iver cabin-gone-horribly wrong. Once Lazzara's gam was safely casted, naturally the next step was for the band's rep to send some gnarly photos (including a couple that inform fans that Lazzara has grown a massive beard) to TMZ.