The folks over at ATO Records have released a new Spring Sampler that is now available as a FREE download. The sampler features tracks from Alberta Cross, Alabama Shakes, Lucero, SOJA, Mariachi El Bronx, My Morning Jacket, White Rabbits, Primus and several others.

Featured Track Listing

1. Alberta Cross – Magnolia
2. Alabama Shakes – Hold On
3. Lucero – On My Way Downtown
4. Caitlin Rose – Own Side
5. SOJA – Mentality
6. Mariachi El Bronx – Great Provider
7. My Morning Jacket – Outta My System
8. Lisa Hannigan – Little Bird
9. Dawes – If I Wanted Someone
10. White Rabbits – Temporary
11. Lindsay Fuller – Everything I Ever Had
12. Hey Rosetta! – Welcome
13. WATERS – Mickey Mantle
14. Other Lives – For 12
15. Umphrey’s McGee – Wellwishers
16. Rodrigo Y Gabriela & C.U.B.A. – 11:11
17. Primus – Lee Van Cleef

Download the FREE Spring Sampler from ATO Records here.

A jazz musician by trade, Pastorius was known by other musicians for his intricate solos and ability to make his fretless guitar “sing” in upper registers.

“I loved jazz fusion and branched out from there,” Trujillo says in an interview with USA Today. “But Jaco had an edge that far exceeded his jazz persona. He was funk, he was rock, he was soul. And his whole attitude was punk.” Trujillo continues, “Jaco was my hero growing up.”

According to Pastorius’ biographer Bill Milkowski, “Jaco was the Babe Ruth of the bass.”

Suffering from mental illness and substance abuse, the bass player he died at age of 35 following a violent altercation at a Florida bar.

After receiving never seen before seen footage from the Pastorius family, Trujillo got musicians like Flea, Sting and Carlos Santana to contribute comments to the film, tentatively titled Jaco. With help from director Stephen Kijak, Trujillo hopes to premiere the film at the Toronto Film Festival in September.

Trujillo has his hands full with Metallica hitting the summer festival circuit. With a performance in Portugal tomorrow followed by stops throughout Europe, the band will head south for eight nights in Mexico City.

The piece was written by Steve Pycroft, a composer, drummer and percussionist. Pycroft’s resume includes drumming on The Johnny Cash Story, creating remixes for notable dance artists and recording new material with Plan B.

Nick Pittsinger aka “Varien,” recorded his take on a Skrillex song earlier this year, known as the “Skrillex Orchestral Suite.”

Skrillex is now offering his debut EP, My Name Is Skrillex for free here.

In the very intimate video, the director and friend Derek Bahn captures the subtle, intimate details of the band members including freckles on knuckles, the pulsating drum pedal, fingers plunking out notes on a keyboard, and guitar strumming. All juxtaposed with close-ups of frontman Davey Warsop standing in front of a black abyss.

“[Derek] mentioned that “No Pain (Like This Pain)” was his favorite song, so I asked him if he wanted to try shooting a video for it. It turned out [he] had a whole concept figured out, so we just let him roll with it,” said Warsop in an interview. “A lot of his photography is based on really intimate portraits and I think he wanted to let this theme develop into his first music video.”

“We got the whole thing done in less than 8 hours. Another friend of mine, Johnny Black, told me he was a video editor. Luckily for me, Johnny owed me a favor — so I sent him Derek’s footage, and told him to go nuts. We love how the end product came out!”

In another interview with KROQ/Los Angeles at Coachella, Warsop elaborated even more on the band’s name and how they were offered some shows with Southern California punk rock legends Social Distortion.

“We named it after an old British subculture when kids were going out and dancing to soul and Motown in dance halls in the North of England; it got dubbed Northern Soul, and the Suedeheads were going there,” explained Warsop. “It was kind of little nod to our influence. We never really planned to play Coachella or come this far… We’ve been offered a couple of gigs with Social D. You don’t turn that down do ya.”

Suedehead’s (So) Frantic EP is available now via iTunes.

–Nadia Noir, CBS Radio Los Angeles

Recently, the two have come together to lay down some tracks at White’s Third Man studios for the Blue Single Series. The tracks are a scorching number called “I Just Started Hating Some People Today” and “Blue Randy.”

According to the Third Man Records website, the tracks were recorded in 2011 in Nashville while Beck was working on new material for his next album. Beck conjured up the tracks while on his final day in town at the studio.

Album cover courtesy of Third Man Records

In another quirky Jack White-esque twist, the “Blue Randy” title has inspired Third Man Records to release a limited run of 100 tri-color 7-inches on June 2nd at Randy’s Records in Salt Lake City, Utah. For those diehard fans who can’t make it to the home of the “Greatest Snow On Earth,” 50 of will be randomly inserted in mail orders for the single placed through Third Man’s online store.

The Beck Blue Series single will be released May 28th. Listen to a snippet of “I Just Started Hating Some People Today” and the single b-side called “Blue Randy” at Third Man Records.

Beck to release Third Man Records Single “I Just Started Hating Some People Today”/”Blue Randy” – out May 28th! thirdmanrecords.com/news—
Beck (@beck) May 23, 2012

--Nadia Noir, CBS Radio Los Angeles

“Midnight City” by M83 climbed back to #3, while Grouplove’s “Tongue Tied” held firm at #4.

1. Linkin Park “Burn It Down”
2. Fun. “We Are Young”
3. M83 “Midnight City”
4. Grouplove “Tongue Tied”
5. Fun. “Some Nights”
6. Gotye feat. Kimbra “Somebody That I Used To Know”
7. The Offspring “Days Go By”
8. Foo Fighters “Walk”
9. Red Hot Chili Peppers “The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie”
10. The Dirty Heads “Spread Too Thin”
11. Cage the Elephant “Shake Me Down”
12. The Black Keys “Gold on the Ceiling”
13. The Naked and Famous “Young Blood”
14. Soundgarden “Live To Rise”
15. “Foster the People “Don’t Stop (Color on the Walls)”
16. Silversun Pickups “Bloody Mary (Nerve Endings)”
17. Metric “Youth Without Youth”
18. “Pennywise “Let Us Hear Your Voice”
19. Imagine Dragons “It’s Time”
20. Neon Trees “Everybody Talks”
21. Jack White “Sixteen Saltines”
22. Of Monsters and Men “Little Talks”
23. Walk the Moon “Anna Sun”
24. Florence + the Machine “No Light, No Light”
25. Coldplay “Paradise”
26. Garbage “Blood for Poppies”
27. Angels & Airwaves “Surrender”
28. AWOLNATION “Not Your Fault”
29. The Shins “Simple Song”
30. The Black Keys “Lonely Boy”
31. Bush “The Sound of Winter”

“The themes of the songs are a lot about playing pretend and so I thought that a movie theater would be a great way to kind of be a visual,” singer Tyler Glenn said. “It started back with the idea for the album being the ability that someone has to escape for two hours in someone else’s life.”

For Picture Show, the band teamed up with producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen, a friend who had recently worked on M83′s latest album. He has an interesting career, having started out doing percussion on Beck’s Mutations and Midnite Vultures albums and playing bass for dozens of artists ranging from Pink to Ladytron to the Dixie Chicks.

Glenn said he liked talking about some of his obscure ’80s pop favorites with Meldal-Johnsen, many of which might be slightly too obscure to remember, save #1 hitters Human League.

Glenn listed Orange Juice, the new wave band lead by Edwyn Collins, who had a solo hit in the ’90s with “A Girl Like You.”

And Glenn lists Heaven 17 as a favorite — the two share a lot of sonic influences.

-Courtney E. Smith, CBS Local

A Theremin salesman at 20 years old in 1954, Bob Moog eventually created the first modular synthesizer in 1963. One year later he began taking orders for his creation.

Modern day bands that are vocal about their love of Moog synthesizers include Franz Ferdinand, MGMT, Passion Pit, Stereolab, Brian Eno, Blur, The Cure, The Cars and Depeche Mode.

In an interview during Moog Fest, appropriately located at the Moog factory in Asheville, North Carolina last November, Anthony Gonzales from M83 explained his fascination with the instrument. “I have a love for vintage synthesizers, and this is how it all started. My love of synthesizers is coming from my childhood. And since this moment, I’m obsessed with synthesizers because it looks beautiful and it has a sound of my childhood memories. I don’t think I can ever get rid of this. The history of the bands that played with Moog… they’re timeless.”

In an interview with Rolling Stone, the Adam Horovitz (Ad-Rock) reflected reflected on Yauch’s uplifting spirit and the group’s belief in his full recovery. “He said, ‘I’m gonna be okay.’ He’s been right about most sh*t so far. So I believe him. You would get swept up in his excitement and positivity.”

Horovitz spoke about the band members’ roles, stating that “Yauch was in charge. “He was smarter, more organized.” “He had that extra drive to see things through. We each had our roles. One of his was the make-it-happen person.”

Horovitz admits it’s been rough since his death, “My wife is like, ‘I want to make sure you’re getting it out.’ But then I’m walking the dog and I’ll start crying on the street.”

Taking place at Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Fairmount Park during Labor Day weekend, September 1st and 2nd, the 28-act show will be akin to a smaller Lollapalooza.

Although only 19 of the acts have been officially announced, the line-up includes one of Pearl Jam’s only scheduled U.S. dates in 2012 and a set by Grammy-award winning dubstep king Skrillex. And, of course, Jay-Z will be one of the headliners.

Other acts include D’Angelo, Odd Future, Afrojack, Calvin Harris, Passion Pit, Santigold, D’Angelo, Miike Snow, Dirty Projectors, X, Janelle Monae, Prince Royce, Rita Ora, the Knocks, Savoy, and the Maybach Music Group featuring Rick Ross, Wale and Meek Mill.

Jigga is curating the festival, which will feature the long-awaited live return of R&B singer D’Angelo and one of Pearl Jam’s only U.S. dates this year. Tickets for the show go on sale on Wednesday and more acts will be announced soon.

“Whenever I enter into a project, I try to hit on some touch points. The first thing is: Is it great?” Jay said in an interview on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. “The second one is: Is it gonna push the culture forward?”

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Jay-Z said he would “absolutely” invite President Obama to perform at the Made in America festival and described the American spirit that is prevalent in Philadelphia, describing it as:

“‘Pull yourself up by the bootstraps,’ the whole, ‘You can make it anywhere’ sort of mentality that our generation really, really put to the forefront, really took it over the top. But yeah, just that sort of embodiment of spirit.”

–Nadia Noir, CBS Radio Los Angeles