Last year Bjork put out easily her most ambitious and dynamic project to date, with the release of the Biophilia. The album, who’s title refers to a love of all living things, is a multimedia project that integrates nature, music, and technology, and offers a companion iPad app, that features “games, music, and editorial content-allowing listeners to explore more deeply the concepts and sounds of each of Biophilia‘s 13 songs.” After debuting an elaborate stage show for the project in England, Bjork has announced that she will bring it to North America for the first time for a 10-show New York City residency this February, that will be split between the New York Hall of Science in Queens (2/3, 6, 9, 12, 15 & 18) and the Roseland Ballroom (2/22, 25 & 28).

According to the New York Times, the Icelandic singer-songwriter’s elaborate stage show features a “24-woman choir, giant Tesla coils and several large custom-built instruments that Bjork and her collaborators invented: a portable pipe organ, four 10-foot pendulums that play harp notes as they swing, a gramophone-like contraption called a “Sharpsichord” and another piece called a “gameleste,” which is a fusion of a celesta and a gamelan”. Tickets for these unique performances will go on-sale via Ticketmaster starting on January 13 at 10 AM.

If you’re not into a night with the Icelandic singer, then maybe you’ll be interested in hitting one of these recently announced tours…

• The Jayhawks: Winter Tour (1/26 – 2/18)
• Rich Robinson: March Tour (3/1 – 3/19)
• Zach Deputy: East Coast Winter Tour (2/3 – 3/3)
• Los Lonely Boys: West Coast Tour (2/10 – 3/7)
• Howlin’ Rain: Winter Tour (2/17 – 3/15)
• Cursive: North American Tour (2/12 – 4/21)
• Allo Darlin’: Early Spring Tour (4/24 – 5/18)
• Fanfarlo: Spring North American Tour (3/5 – 4/17)

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t get Bjork and doubt that I ever will, but her latest video Wanderlust is absolutely stunning to watch. This thing clocks in at over seven and a half minutes long, so block off some time in your busy schedule and give it a watch. Check it out with either the sound on or off, it’s worth it.

There’s a 3D version of this video out there, but since I doubt that most people had a pair of those red and blue lensed specs lying around I thought I’d offer it up to you in standard 2D mode….

• Bjork – Human Behavior (1993)

It was a little over a year ago that music mega corp Live Nation decided to do some re-branding of their venues around the country by slapping the Fillmore tag on them. The first of these venues was the former Irving Plaza, which is now known as the Fillmore New York @ Irving Plaza. While we’ve dug the free apples, vintage concert posters and snazzy new paint job – Music Snobbery has some other thoughts calling it the shittiest venue in the city. Ouch!

• VH1 honors Sub Pop’s 20th birthday with a special video playlist
• Jambase gives us the skinny on the new age of funk and soul bands
• Flex your rock IQ with Rolling Stone’s new weekly Rock Quiz
• Cover Lay Down give us Folked Up Gansta Rap – you’re going to to love it
• The Cornell Sun sticks a pitchfork in P4K
• Popless examines their problem with Southern Rock

Finally, following in the footsteps of their Radiohead and R.E.M. tribute compilations, the fine folks at Stereogum decided to give the same treatment to Bjork with Enjoyed. This edition features the likes of the Liars, Dirty Projectors, and Xiu Xiu covering the Icelandic songstress. What, no Charles Barkley?

Festivals, they’re fucking everywhere these days, so you’d think we would be opposed to any new festies entering the overcrowded fray. For the most part that’s true, but we’d make one exception upon seeing Dean Ween’s latest entry on his Brownie Troop 666 blog. Deaner drops the news that Ween is considering a festival of its own near New Hope towards the end of the summer.

The possibilities are endless, though we envision a lineup full of the band’s friends and side projects including Bustle In Your Hedgerow, The Moistboyz, Chris Harford & the Band of Changes and Amandla. Right now Deaner is just looking to gauge interest in BrownStock, so be sure to send him a line through his blog to urge him to make this a reality. Now let’s check out what else is happening this week:

• Delayed Again: Metallica’s new album will probably be released around the same time as Chinese Democracy (coming soon!)
• We’re not batshit crazy after all: Justice NO LONGER headlining MSG
• Dominant Ticketmaster prepares for battle with Live Nation
• Gothamist interviews John Linnell of They Might Be Giants
• Stereogum’s OldStand looks at Spin Magazine’s April 1993 issue
• Glide speaks with singer/songwriter Matt Nathanson about his latest album
• Grateful Dead: The Next Generation — Grahame Lesh hopes to take his band, Crystal City, to the next level
• Has anyone gotten more press this month than The Whigs?
• Australia’s Big Day Out festival started strong, thanks to terrific performances by Rage, Bjork, Arcade Fire and others

Finally, The Daily Swarm points us to SF Weekly’s list of Top 10 Beards in Modern Music. Great list, but how can you miss Iron and Wine’s Sam Beam?

Medeski Martin and Wood have targeted a new audience, seeing as how most of the hip hipsters moved on to The Bad Plus. This album’s for your kids: Let’s Go Everywhere will be released on Little Monster Records on November 20th. You can stream a couple of the tunes now on Little Monster’s website. We’ve long said, if children can really “get” any band, it’s obviously Medeski Martin and Wood.

• Oxford American Mag tackles the blogosphere’s merciless Hype Machine
• Stevie Wonder will play MSG: November 17th, be there [via the_rick]
• Those cheeky bastards: Radiohead is making sure In Rainbows won’t wind up on Oink by releasing the tracks at 160kbps
• RockCorps is an innovative program that rewards teens who volunteer with free concert tickets
• Bjork is returning to the States in December for another batch of dates
• Hits From The Blog introduces us to the music of Malajube
• George Harrison’s solo albums are now available on iTunes
• Ian Rogers of Yahoo! preaches the gospel about what customers want when they download music
• Sting tops the list of Blender’s Worst Lyricists…in other Police news, Andy Summers thinks recording a new album is the next logical step
• YesButNoButYes brings us the top 10 Ronnie Wood videos

And, lastly, Liffy from Kitsch Dork has some good things to say about the Dr. Dog/Apollo Sunshine tour, and considering they’re two of our favorite new bands, we thought we’d direct some traffic that way. Enjoy your Wednesday…

Australia’s toilets may or may not flush counterclockwise, but one thing is certain: While we’re freezing our nips off in January and February, the Aussies and Kiwis will be enjoying the traveling summertime festival known as Big Day Out. The initial lineup came out today, and it’s solid to quite solid: Rage Against The Machine, Bjork, Arcade Fire, Battles, LCD Soundsystem, Billy Bragg and many more will play the six-day, six-city festival. Vacation down under, anyone? [More]

Austin, Texas may very well be the greatest city in the world. I can’t speak to the city’s infrastructure, its public transportation, its race relations, its garbage pick-up or its political competency, but when there’s unrelated piles of vomit splashed all over famed 6th Street at closing time, you get my vote. That’s a city that knows how to deliver that glorious metaphorical reacharound.

Oh, yes, the city also hosts the best-organized festival out there, bar none. Austin City Limits today kicked off three sunny days of solid performances, the musicians and the weather each hot-as-fuck in their own right. On Day One we managed to catch at least two songs if not the whole set of 16 different acts, enjoying eight straight hours of pure, unadulterated audio sodomy before heading back to the madness of 6th Street (and my buddy’s bachelor party). And the real crazy part? I still feel like I missed everything. Craisins.

Photo by Danfun

Day One may have not have been the best of the three days on paper, but I’m finding it incredibly difficult to picture a better or brighter day than the one that just kicked my exhausted ass all around Zilker Park. Del McCoury and His Talented Sperm — three-fifths of the band shares the surname — ushered in a day of shit-eating grins, and the afternoon and evening that unfolded will be tough to top.

So read on after the jump for a full recap of the day’s events, complete with an extensive photo gallery from Danfun and myself…

Our corporate papa Glide Magazine is giving away a pair of tickets to the inaugural Echo Project in Atlanta on October 12th – 14th. It’s comforting to see a festival that isn’t scared to book pretty much all of the big-time jambands as part of a well-rounded rock lineup. Phil Lesh leads a stellar roster that includes The Flaming Lips and Les Claypool among the many artists that give the festie some variety. So check out that first link and score yourself some free ducats.

• Blind Melon announces their first tour since the death of Shannon Hoon
• What Deaner Was Talkin’ About: Dean Ween speaks
• Genesis’ North American tour (that begins tonight) will be the last
• Amy Winehouse talks shit about rehab
• Bob Dylan is about to be the most overexposed man in music
• Ky-Mani Marley will open Van Halen’s tour
• Roger Daltrey has some harsh words for Pete Doherty
• Los Lobos will join John Mellencamp’s tour of the heartland
• Bruce Springsteen tickets haven’t even gone on sale yet, but they are already fetching huge premiums from brokers
• Bjork adds tour dates to her schedule and prepares a live(ish) album
• A.V. Club lists 15 Masters of Onstage Banter [via Mintz]

It’s been a whirlwind four-day post-Labor Day week for us, so let us all share in the shit we missed by leaving a comment below…you’ll feel better about things.

Want free tickets and press access to any show you want this summer? Do you like to write about and take pictures at concerts? If you answered yes to those questions, check out Billboard’s Mobile Beat contest.

Billboard is teaming up with LG to offer the winners press passes to any concert they want and a heady camera phone. In exchange they promise to post their photos and a brief review of each performance they attend. Two winners will be picked from every major metropolitan area. Simply create a photo montage of your own photos and write a 100-word essay on why you want to be a Billboard blogger. Check out the Mobile Beat web site for more information or to enter the contest.

We hope someone from our audience wins — we don’t want bunch of emo kids filing dour rants on why Dashboard Confessional has sold out.

We got plenty of links this week, so let’s get down to business:

• Prince to play a seven week residency in Los Angeles?!?!
• The Smashing Pumpkins returned to the stage last night with new band members and a varied setlist
• The American Babies are featured on Cold Turkey 611
• The lineup for the Monolith Festival at Red Rocks is out
• Ray White will be Zappa Plays Zappa’s special guest this summer
• Where did this amazing footage of Bjork’s entire Coachella set come from? [via Large Hearted Boy]
• The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Squeeze – Part One
• Lefsetz Letter takes on the $3,000 concert series
• Two great David Lee Roth-era Van Halen Bootlegs from The Roadhouse
• Burning Oak profiles Friday’s Summer Camp festival performers
• Sirius is launching a Grateful Dead channel — the Dead also continue to kick down serious jams through the Taper’s Section
• Leftover Salmon’s 2007 lineup includes Jeff Sipe
• Richard Thompson is touring the country this summer
• Watch the first episode of Flight of the Conchords, a Tenacious D-esque new comedy that debuts in June on HBO
• Velvet Revolver is teaming up with Alice In Chains for a August – October tour
• Stewart Copeland wants the Police to change up their setlist
• Michael Franti found out how the inmates at San Quentin prison were feelin’
• The confirmed schedule for Central Park SummerStage is out
• Syd Barrett had quite a bit of loot stashed before his death

As always, please let us know if we missed anything below….

Michael Franti and Spearhead will be playing a special show for the prisoners at San Quentin on May 19. Hopefully Franti won’t get shanked by an inmate who gets asked “How you feelin’?” one time too many times. Franti also gets heady points for recently visiting and performing for wounded soldiers at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. Kudos bar. Elsewhere from the interweb:

• Genesis has added more dates to their upcoming tour
• A review of Bjork’s recent concert at Radio City Music Hall
• U2 to release a DVD from 1997′s PopMart tour
• Who woulda thunk Rick James and Neil Young had a history together?
• Large Hearted Boy is compiling a list of Coachella Festival downloads
• Bob Weir speaks with Rolling Stone
• Chicago Trib looks at the new trend of bands performing classic albums
• The New York Times defends nostalgia
• A new podcast chock full of Widespread Panic from Everyday Companion
• Some rare The Who MP3s
• Bridgeport is excited to get the Gathering of the Vibes back
• Tool adds a few more late July gigs
• Neddy lists the shows of the week
• Jefitoblog shares a sicky sicky Van Halen show from 1977
• Ace & Co. head to Yankee Stadium for Cinco de Mayo, Jerk-style

And make sure to read on to check out setlists from the weekend — this batch includes Arcade Fire, Gov’t Mule, moe., RAQ, TLG, Umphrey’s and many more…

As expected, the Coachella Festival quickly became the most blogged festival of the season. Rolling Stone had correspondents Brian Hiatt and Rob Sheffield reporting from the field, as well as Ed Droste of Grizzly Bear checking in sporadically. Spinner had full coverage with a team of bloggers onsite. More locally, the OC Register and San Jose’s Mercury News provided constant updates. With all those people on site and the free AT&T webcast, I almost felt like I was there.

But what else is goin’ down? Let’s check in with some non-Coachella news today:

• Bjork speaks with Jon Pareles about her new album
• An appreciation of Lester Bangs, 25 years after his untimely death
• Poison is releasing an album of covers, including a take on David Bowie’s Suffragette City and Marshall Tucker’s Can’t You See
• A review of Widespread Panic at the Wharf
• Shell will sponsor the New Orleans Jazz Fest until 2010 (and the Lovely SuperDee is down in NOLA enjoying this year’s JazzFest as we speak, so make sure to check out her coverage)
• Pete Townshend performs White Light, White Heat with Lou Reed
• Free music from the Grateful Dead and Umphrey’s McGee
• Neddy lists the shows of the week
• Aerosmith before they sold out
• We have two weeks left to SaveNetRadio
• A look at the past and future of Neil Young’s archive releases
• Thanks to Andy Gadiel for turning me onto the Jack Black soundboard

And remember to read on for some of this weekend’s setlists from Bjork, Roger Waters, The Slip, WSP, Gov’t Mule, Disco Biscuits, Yo La Tengo and more…

Finally we’ve come to the end o’ this week, so relax, put your feet up, and we’ll bring the best of the web to you. Feel free to molest these links for all they’re worth like you’re rapper Akon dry humping this 14-year-old fan on stage in Trinidad. We hear teenage Tobagans are pissed it wasn’t them.

• The attendees won’t be the only ones getting drugged when the Rolling Stones come to Belgrade – oh no, not the horses!
• Ahmet Ertegun’s memorial service brought out the big names
• The Ottawa Blues Festival lineup looks amazing
• The Drive-By Truckers’ Paterson Hood on life after Jason Isbell
• The 15 most outrageous claims in pop music history
• Tool, Jim Morrison and Pink Floyd shows are all available for download on the new b.o.o.t.l.e.g. blog
• Brooklyn Vegan interviews Bjork
• More on Live Nation’s decision to go all Fillmore on us
• Styx and Def Leppard will tour together this summer — for real
• Peaches takes Alanis Morrisette’s My Humps parody one step further, unleashing My Dumps on the masses
• HT Friend Richard Gehr reviews rockbackpages.com
• Steve Winwood is slowly but surely putting a tour together
• Re-making old hits to make money
• Rolling Stone to offer a DVD featuring every issue of the famed music mag

The Disco Biscuits have been adding shows to its upcoming tour at a furious pace. The days of three shows in Sayreville followed by two months off seem to be over. Aside from two appearances at High Sierra, the Biscuits didn’t play any shows in Caifornia between 2003 and December of 2006. This summer, though, Cali Bisco fans will get a well-deserved run of six shows in July. The consensus seems to be they’re playing well, so check them out if that’s your thing. 

The Green Apple Music Festival hits Chicago, New York City, and San Francisco this weekend. Ace and I have a full docket of shows planned for the next two nights. Leave us a comment, let us know what shows you are checking out…