“Don’t believe the hype,” Public Enemy warned us way back in 1988, and as on their eerily prescient “Cold Lampin’ With Flavor” which made the surprising case for Flava Flave’s longevity, they were right, of course. And hype, by definition, should always be suspect. From the moment Vampire Weekend, the quirky New York quartet began making the blog rounds and collecting the sort of adjectives that pointed their way toward them becoming The Next Big Thing, we, as a music community, needed to take a breath, sit down, and just relax. Losing our shit about inventive New York rock debuts are just going to result in another band like The Strokes, and we all know where that got us. more ›

Swedish pirates turn the tables on Big Media! Arrr! Iranian Prez Ahmadinejad speaking at Columbia University today. Myanmar: Buddhist monks stage largest anti-government demonstrations in 20 years. $100 laptop to hit market in North America this fall. The White House switches its strategy on having peace talks with "evil" countries. The Governator is calling for a boycott of firms who do business with Iran. Study: Less sleep = more dreams... more ›

The age-old question: more ›

"At the end of touring on a record, you're just so sick of all your songs, and you don't have any prospects for new ones, so it feels like you're in limbo. Even though that's when all your success comes, for us it's like ... old news, and we just wanted to move on and get started on something else..." more ›

New York City indie rockers The Walkmen made it big with 2004's Bows and Arrows, an aggressive, exuberant, and borderline-theatrical production that ended up on tons of year-end "best of" lists. Over the past two years, the guys have gone through some big changes: the Harlem building housing their personal recording studio, dubbed Marcata (where B&A was born), was bought out by Columbia University, in the school's ever-accelerating expansion north of Morningside Heights. After... more ›

• As if we needed to be more aware of the pain, this week is National Headache Awareness Week. A whole week dedicated to being completely aware of that pounding, that vice grip on your head. We propose a National Let's-Get-Drunk Week (no, that's not every week!) so we can really justify those headaches.
• A man in Kiev was not protected by God when he jumped in to the lion's cage at the zoo.
• Brian Hart, a student at UT, was awarded the largest monetary prize given to a student for his fiction writing.
• News Bits Update: funny muffins aren't so funny anymore. Two high school seniors were merely pulling off the requisite "senior prank" when they dropped off those magical pastries. The boys are being charged with several counts of assault.
• Today is June 6, 2006, or 666. We wish we could say see you in Hell, but we're not going to the party, because we imagine the beer would be pretty warm.
• Scientists and astronomers have discovered a new group of objects in outer space that they're calling Planemo's. They're not quite stars and not quite planets but they're thought to be a precursor to planet formation.
• You bump know bump the bump cars bump that bump get all souped up and thump so loud your heartbeat changes? Well, folks in Sydney have an interesting solution. Who else would have thought of Barry Manilow?
• Gambling gets old when you're always betting on cards, die and horses. The pending massive Hurricane season is one of the many new and original things you can place your wager on online. We aren't sure what the law says here, but we never told you to put a couple bucks on Florida for us.
• Ahhhh to be a woman. According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University, women get stoned and drunk more easily than men. We'll ignore the addiction part for now- we like to be cheap dates.
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