August 23, 2012 – A small sampling of the musicians who have been inspired by the Band's Levon Helm will honor the late drummer and vocalist at a special concert dubbed Love for Levon at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on October 3. Since his death in April from cancer, musicians ranging from Bruce Springsteen to Mavis Staples have performed his songs in tribute (listen to 15 of his best tracks here), and Helm's old boss Bob Dylan fondly remembered his "bosom buddy." Now, at Love for Levon, several more will pay their respects. The initial lineup includes My Morning Jacket, Robert Randolph, Mavis Staples, Joe Walsh, Lucinda Williams, John Mayer, Ray LaMontagne, Eric Church, Gregg Allman, Dierks Bentley, Marc Cohn, Patty Griffin, Warren Haynes, John Hiatt, Bruce Hornsby, Jorma Kaukonen, the Levon Helm Band and more.

August 23, 2012 – The Breeders appear to be taking some time off, considering they last toured in 2010, their most recent release was 2009's Fate to Fatal EP and Kim Deal has been touring with some other band she used to play in (who released a live EP this year). But Kelley Deal (who, with her sister, is one of our 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time) has been keeping busy with a new band she formed with Mike Montgomery of indie rockers Ampline called R. Ring, who made their debut in March of last year. Other than pointing out the happenstance that both members live in Daytons in different states (Kelley in Ohio, Montgomery in Kentucky), the band's website claims the group is "at the very least, a stark departure from the music they make in their other bands." Judging from the two songs they recorded at the Texas State Capitol building this past April (posted as videos below), they're mostly right.

August 23, 2012 – Green Day announced yesterday that they will be playing the entirety of their 39-minute pop-punk masterpiece Dookie, which catapulted them out of the Bay Area underground in 1994, at this weekend's Reading Festival in the U.K. The band wasn't even announced as a performer on the festival, which it headlined in 2004, though Billie Joe Armstrong had been reportedly tweeting teasers along the lines of "Hello England! What rhymes with shredding??!!" that have since been deleted, according to the NME.

August 23, 2012 – After over a decade apart, the members of post-hardcore group Quicksand reunited in June for a surprise appearance at record label Revelation's 25th anniversary shows. Apparently it went well enough that they're doing a few more gigs, including an appearance last night on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon (their first time on TV in 17 years!), a couple of upcoming New York gigs and a slot on Fuck Yeah Fest in Los Angeles (all dates below). As the Fallon videos below show, the time off hasn't affected the band's chemistry much. The group performed fan favorites "Omission" and "Fazer" — both off their 1993 debut Slip — and they didn't miss one of their trademark syncopated, scratchy guitar rhythms or piercing moments of noise.

August 22, 2012 – Earlier this year, Foo Fighter Dave Grohl announced he was working on a documentary about California's legendary recording studio Sound City. Over the past 40 years, the studio has birthed records like Neil Young's After the Gold Rush, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, Rage Against the Machine's self-titled debut and something called Nevermind. As seen in the doc's original trailer, it will feature interviews with Tom Petty, Trent Reznor, Krist Novoselic, Butch Vig and about a trillion others. And as revealed in a subsequent trailer, most of those musicians like to remember Sound City by saying, "There's just something about…" the room, the mixing desk and so on. Now his team has begun posting individual videos of some of the artists who have recorded there giving a little more detail than just talking about the intangible qualities of the studio, namely what got them into music.

August 22, 2012 – Count Twisted Sister's Dee Snider among the chorus of musicians who hate Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan, his music taste, and his running mate, Mitt Romney. After learning that Ryan has been using his 1984 hard-rock anthem "We're Not Gonna Take It" for his vice presidential campaign, Snider released a statement saying that he "emphatically denounces" Ryan's use of the song. (Conveniently, his song's title has made life easy for headline writers today.) But Dee, is there anything you and Ryan can agree on?

August 22, 2012 – The organizers behind the CMJ Music Marathon have begun announcing the bands and artists playing the five-day event this fall. Some of the most notable ones announced so far include Wu-Tang's GZA, Gotye collaborator Kimbra, folk bleaters Mountain Goats, indie rockers the Walkmen, grindcore noiseniks Pig Destroyer, ATL rapper Killer Mike, glammy garage rocker King Tuff, electro-popster MNDR, hip-hop firebrand Talib Kweli and dance-music duo the Presets. These artists will perform all over New York City, from October 16 to October 20. The conference will also offer music-industry-focused panel discussions about social media, the current state of A&R and, of course, the obligatory "Surprising Rise of EDM" discussion, among others. For more info on the full event, click here.

August 22, 2012 – First! Thanks in part to a video with Nicki Minaj set in a strip club, a duet with Kanye West and the ability to say his own name repeatedly, rapper 2 Chainz's Based on a T.R.U. Story debuted at No. 1 this week. The record sold 147,000 copies per Nielsen SoundScan, which places the Artist Formerly Known as Tity Boi in the same league as One Direction, whose debut release bowed at No. 1 earlier this year. (Jack White's "debut" did, too, but he's, you know, Jack White.) 2 Chainz's duet with Drake, "No Lie," is also the No. 1 R&B/Hip-Hop song this week. 2 Through 10: Last week's chart-topper, Now! 43, dropped to second place this week (selling 75,000 copies), and, commensurately, Rick Ross' God Forgives, I Don't fell to No. 3 (43,000 copies). Insane Clown Posse's Gathering of the Juggalos and plot to sue the FBI earned them the No.

August 22, 2012 – It is no small coincidence that the same day Justin Bieber confirmed he'll be checking "make a cameo on The Simpsons" off his bucket list, Cheezburger network directed us to this clip of Dan Castellaneta explaining the root of the show's perfection distillation of anguish into a single sound: "D'oh!" It was originally written as "annoyed grunt," for the record. But yes, back to Bieber. In the months since he released Believe, the teen dream seems to be everywhere: in a "spaceship" on the 101, at the butt of Letterman jokes, even at a Phish concert. Yesterday afternoon, Bieber tweeted — and for some reason deleted — "just did a voice over for the SIMPSONS!!!

August 22, 2012 – Over the past three decades, Michael Gira has established himself as underground rock's ace of debasement. From the brutal, self-pugilistic caterwauls of sludgy art-rockers Swans to the brittle, American Gothic doom-folk he recorded with Angels of Light, he strips music down to its harrowing, bare-bones essentials. It's no wonder, then, that his acidic bellowing and post-blues licks resound in the works of industro-rockers like Godflesh and heady metallers like Neurosis as much as experimental folk artists like James Blackshaw and Wooden Wand. Since 1990, he's applied the same principles to running his home-brewed record label Young God, launching the careers of freaky folks like Devendra Banhart and Akron/Family; running his business with a cutthroat, do-it-yourself attitude a good decade before the rest of the internet followed suit.