Fred Flare, an online boutique for all things cutesy, hosted a next BIG thing contest, and Austinite Jennifer Danielle Perkins — of Naughty Secretary Club fame — is one of the 27 winners. Jennifer submitted a bangin' DIY charm bracelet kit (see right). Project Runway winner Jay McCarroll is also a winner — although based on the looks of his bowling bag, this might be a step down for him. Rare magazine is hosting......

Modest Mouse – We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank From the opening moments of WWDBTSES—god, even the acronym’s a mouthful—it's apparent that Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock has become a capital-R Rock Star, perhaps the oddest one since David Byrne: track one, “March Into The Sea,” finds the newly-svelte songwriter frothing and howling from word one. The man hasn't lost his knack for colorful illustrations of human nature, tossing off wry observations like......

We're having a yard sale today so I can raise a little extra spending money before I head down to Austin next week (I'm already doing well, and I've been calculating how many crunchy chicken cones I can now buy at the festival). But I thought I should run inside between customers to give you your daily dose of ACL previews. Remember you can check out the full list of previews on my ACL......

Even as the stores sport back to school sales (which depress us, even now), summer lingers on your friends the -ists. This week's collection of links provides some of the best, worst, and oddest bits of summer fun. So, bring your laptop up onto the roof, make yourself an umbrella drink or ten, and enjoy this week's choice posts from across the Gothamist network. Torontoist (where it's 75 degrees F as of this writing)......

Breaking News on the SXSW circuit: We just got word that Perry Farrell just dropped in to Uncut's party at Mean Eyed Cat. The front man for Jane's Additction played ONE SONG, jumped back in an SUV and was whisked away. One song? That's Rock Star. We didn't get confirmation on the song played, so if you feel like being a little SXSW gossip, let us know. *There has been some grumblings that Jane's......

Rags-to-riches success stories are few and far between these days, particularly the sort punctuated with "dot com" and "latest buzz" - two phrases that cropped up seemingly everywhere you turned only a few years ago. Which is why we're thrilled to announce that our former editor, one-time publishing mogul, general tech impresario and self-proclaimed Internet Rock Star has accomplished what none of us dared to imagine. Ladies and gentlemen, Ben Brown sold out to......