All About Jazz — Singer, songwriter, accordionist, banjoist and more. Mark Growden makes darkly dramatic music in the style of Tom Waits, as well as cagey covers of Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen and gospel tunes. All are rendered with a faint sense of the macab... more info

Guardian Music — According to Metacritic they are. Dave Simpson meets the Texas quartetIn December the US website Metacritic embarked on a campaign to find the "best music of the decade". The site, which aggregates all the reviews it can find of as many albums as pos... more info

Stereogum — Based on past experience, New York's All Tomorrow's Parties has become the festival you buy tickets for lineup-unseen. But for those who need to know, ATP just expanded the lineup of bands for this year's Weekend At Kutsher's: Saturday will includ... more info

Stereogum — Andrew Bird covering "Shake It And Break It" must have brought back Squirrel Nut Zippers memories. Listen to it an 18 more Dixieland covers here. Nice Tom Waits impression, Louis Armstrong. more info

Here Comes The Flood — Take cover! The new Peter Gabriel album Scratch My Back is a mixed bag of golden oldies and modern day artist songs. Mainly orchestral and sometimes radically reworked Gabriel tackles the songs with a mixture of glee and respect. The more subdued s... more info

Guardian Music — When Mercury prizewinners Elbow toured the US, they chose a hugely talented but unknown American singer/songwriter to support them. Now Jesca Hoop has followed them home to Manchester… and it's a musical marriage made in heavenIt's one of those... more info

411 Mania — Pete Doherty still does drugs, new music from Tom Waits, Stephin Merritt and Panda Bear, the Grammys happened, Paul McCartney talks vegetarianism, Etta James is ill, the Girls Girls (not three) tour and a Milli Vanilli movie along with a thought abou... more info

LargeHeartedBoy — Den of Geek spotlights the film career of Tom Waits. A children's book by Bob Dylan will be published this fall. PopMatters interviews Vampire Weekend drummer Chris Tomson. At the Huffington Post, Peter Bognanni makes a case for book soundtracks.... more info

Rolling Stone — Canadian rockers Broken Social Scene’s new, as-yet-untitled album is due May 4th. Members of the group’s extended family, including Feist, Metric’s Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw, and Amy Millan and Evan Cranley of Stars guest. Between sessions in... more info

I Guess I'm Floating — There are some "holidays" that have too much oddball history to ignore, with Groundhog Day ranking near the top of the list when it comes to weird facts and traditions. Aside from the cult of old Pennsylvanian men sporting top hats, there's the utte... more info