This is a few days old, but so worth watching if: A. You’re a Tom Waits fan or B. You like awesome things. I can’t wait for the new record. Also, I can’t believe it’s been seven years since Waits has released an album.

[via About Today]

The most puzzling aspect of this piece is that Peter Murphy listens to Metallica.

My favorite clip from this past weekend’s Reading Festival to surface so far. Love Cocker’s strutting around the stage. [via The Awl]

Fascinating interview and exploration of electronic music pioneer Vince Clarke’s home studio in Portland, Maine. First of all, Maine? Can’t seem to get my head around why the man who founded Depeche Mode, Yaz, and Erasure lives in Maine, but that’s of no importance once you get a peek inside his house. His home studio is a gigantic room full of vintage analog synths, sequencers, and drum machines. It is staggering in its meticulously obsessive completeness. Truly unreal.

Amy Winehouse was found dead in her apartment in London today. She was 27.

Ryan Adams has just finished an acoustic tour of Europe. Upon his return he set up his webcam and let fly a few Vampire Weekend covers. First he dissects “Mansford Roof,” stripping the song from its original buoyant quirkiness and giving it the morose shellacking he gave Oasis’ “Wonderwall.”

His take on Vampire Weekend’s “Oxford Comma” is not quite as arresting, but he still manages to side-step the inherent bounciness and pare it down to its naked essence.

The Get Up Kids cover “Girls And Boys” by Blur

Came into this expecting to hate on it pretty hard, given that it’s 90’s emo stalwarts The Get Up Kids covering Blur and all, but it’s really not terrible. Musically, it holds up, and, if I’m forced to gripe, my only concern is that the vocals lack any of Damon Albarn’s panache. But, again, surprisingly not terrible.