We had essentially forgotten that My Bloody Valentine even was reuniting, figuring that nobody in our tax bracket would ever be able to see it. But if this clip that's been making the rounds from their Fuji Fest performance last month doesn't quite get us totally pumped to see the show, we're at least now up to "intrigued."

Our colleague (and XTC fan) David Bernstein is blogging -- and Twittering -- live from Denver for the duration of the Democratic National Convention. A few minutes ago he txt'd an update while walking past an official DNC merch booth that was blaring XTC's 1992 track "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead," which David correctly remembers as "a song about a JFK-like pol who gets killed."

In lieu of a review of Metallica's throwbackish new single, which has bitterly divided staff opinion, we'd been amusing ourselves by making up (a la the New Yorker's caption contest) snarky new song titles suggested by this photo -- an image by which we are universally horrified. Feel free to add your own in the comments, but note that the following are taken:

These guys are weird

Skeletal Lamping, Of Montreal's follow-up to last year's outstanding Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, made its way on to the internet today, and it's a worthy follow-up that may even outpace its celebrated predecessor.

The actual sound of Skeletal Lamping is pretty comparable to Hissing Fauna

DOWNLOAD: Mighty Mighty Bosstones, "Shoppin' for a Friend" [mp3]

If you were around in 1978, it’s possible you could’ve bought Unnatural Axe’s legendary seven-inch "They Saved Hitler’s Brain' out of the bin at Newbury Comics, then gone to see Richie Parsons’s obnoxiously loud (or loudly obnoxious?) OG punk band tear the Police a new asshole at the Rat

As always, you can get first dibs on weekly ticket onsales straight to your mobile phone by texting HOTTIX to 22122. Standard txt-msg rates apply.

KAKI KING
October 10 at the Paradise, Boston | $15 | On sale this Thursday, August 21, at noon

ASOBI SEKSU
October 18 at T.T. the Bear’s Place, Cambridge | $10 | On sale Friday at 10 am | www.

Jen and Andy Guthrie of Band in Boston: “Five Local Songs We’d Love to Play in Rock Band”

1_The Soft Drugs, “Let It Be”
2_The Self Righteous Brothers, “Electric Boogaloo”
3_Apollo Sunshine, “Brotherhood of Death”
4_Viva Viva, “Valentine”
5_Township, “Highway”

Band in Boston curated a series of shows at P.A.’s Lounge that runs through this Saturday.

DOWNLOAD: The Broken River Prophet, "Alec's Vision" [mp3]

The Broken River Prophet have come a long way since 1994 — without ever leaving Allston. Adam Brilla (of Lockgroove, Tiny Amps, Shenzou 5, and the Seana Carmody Band) imagined an evolving exploration of country, psych, and folk musics, but it’s not likely he foresaw the panorama of sounds that’s ensued.

>>If you haven't already, check out our photo gallery from last night's show. Yes, it was that good.

Sure, we sent a "reviewer" to the Radiohead show last night -- WILL SPITZ went with the traditional pen and reporters' notebook, having won a last-minue inter-office Sumo match for the right to write the Final Word on the World's Most Important Band. The rest of us, being big interweb dorks and even bigger Radiohead geeks, took our cellphones and txt-chatted straight to our Twitter page during the whole show, thereby making us into total assholes. But look, someone's gotta lead the new-media revolution, right? What are you gonna do, read what the Herald wrote? Or skim our fanboyish, Twitterific play-by-play, NOW UPDATED WITH YOUTUBE CLIPS? Exaaaactly. Here's how it went down according to OTD, MEGAN BELL (who was seeing her third Radiohead show in less than a week!), and CAITLIN CURRAN. Read on after the jump!

Going to Radiohead tonight? Got a Twitter account? Follow us on www.twitter.com/bostonphoenix, then reply to our live-tweets with shocking praise, OMGs, stoned epiphanies, etc. We'll post best @bostonphoenix tweets tomorrow morning at www.phx.com/onthedownload, along with shitloads of photos by our ace shutterbug Carina.

Ever been hugged too hard? It’s a bit like listening to the BESTIES, purveyors of either the bristliest indie pop ever sprung from Brooklyn or the most adorable punk rock. Their songs — poppy paeans to lost time, lost loves, and lost lofts — threaten to be devoured by their own cuteness, but the Besties have dueling penchants for volume and bombast, and the result is more whee! than twee.

Joel Roston of Big Bear and Don’t Ever Lie to Anyone: “Songs I've Totally Annihilated at Karaoke”

1_Oasis, “Don’t Look Back in Anger”
2_Kate Bush, “Running Up That Hill”
3_Billy Joel, “The Longest Time”
4_Liz Phair, “Supernova”
5_The Beatles, “Oh! Darling"

Don’t Ever Lie to Anyone play upstairs at the Middle East on Friday.

Part 1 of 2: Melvins at the Paradise, August 9, 2008

K. Bonami shot some clandestine vid of the epic Melvins gig at the Paradise over the weekend. Clickage above, and one more after the jump. Also, if you haven't already, we highly suggest reading the interview we did this week with King Buzzo's wife, Mackie: clearly, indie-metal fans, someone needs to put together a reality show. The Osbornes, anyone?

 
The last time Dan Deacon came to MassArt, it looked like this.

Dan Shea's had this one on his calendar for a while, but we didn't quite understand the gravity of the situation until we got a press release explaining exactly what DAN DEACON has planned for the "Baltimore Round Robin" tour, which kicks off at Boston's MassArt in October. It's not simply that Deacon has assembled a lineup of more than 20 of Baltimore's finest bands and multimedia artists to perform over the course of two nights -- from Beach House and Jana Hunter to the Deathset and of course Deacon his own bad self. Sure, the content is fantastic. But the format is some waaaaaaay next-level shit. We'll let them explain it, because you'd never believe it coming from us -- read on after the jump --> 

We've been anticipating/dreading the leak of the new METALLICA single for weeks -- god, it can't be any worse than St. Anger, can it? -- and we can't say that we're heartened by the fact that the band is rolling out its American tour dates several weeks BEFORE the release of their new Death Magnetic. Metallica live is always sort of a no-brainer, but you can't help wonder whether they're gonna try to get fans to buy tix before the single comes out and spoils everyone's enthusiasm.