Jessica Dobson (Beck, Spoon, Yeah Yeah Yeahs) is working with The Shins on their new album, Port of Morrow.

Also of importance, her band Deep Sea Diver is putting out History Speaks later this month. While you’re waiting, you can listen to a new track from the album, You Go Running.

Poor ?uestlove. Dude looks bored enough to fall over at any moment. Then again, Spoon can do that to a person sometimes.

I initially wasn’t too surprised by the 2010 lineup of Louisville’s Forecastle Festival. You know, the usual summer festival fodder. The Flaming Lips. Spoon. Lucero. Ted Leo. Cap’n Jazz… wait, huh wha?!?!

That’s right, we’re getting one of three reunion shows Cap’n Jazz recently added to its itinerary. Huzzah!

Something about this video makes Spoon look like the most uninteresting band around. Luckily, we know it’s not true, since that distinction belongs to Animal Collective.

We’ve got a mixed bag release week for you.

We’ve got new ones from Spoon, Eels (their second in a year’s time), Editors, Cold War Kids (an EP originally released on iTunes only; review forthcoming), RJD2 and Motion City Soundtrack. And a bunch of heavy stuff I don’t know much about that you all should fill me in on. I’m embarassingly behind.

:: A Hero A Fake, Let Oceans Lie (Victory)

:: Aziz Ansari, Intimate Moments For A Sensual Evening (Comedy Central)

:: Barton Carroll, Together You & I (Skybucket)

:: Cold War Kids, Behave Yourself EP (Downtown)

:: Dawn Landes, Sweet Heart Rodeo (Cooking Vinyl)

:: Devolved, Calculated (Prosthetic)

:: Dinowalrus, % (Kanine)

:: Editors, In this Light and On This Evening (Fader)

:: Eels, End Times (Vagrant)

:: Elastic No-No Band, Fustercluck!!! (Weemayk Music)

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:: Apparently Sir Paul McCartney doesn’t think he’s as important as the rest of England does.

:: I guess Zooey Deschanel is dampening the newlywed romance time enough to get a new She & Him album done.

:: Here’s a great photo of Magrudergrind going nuts from BrooklynVegan.

:: Neon Indian remixed Grizzly Bear. Hipster overload. Head ready to explode.

:: New Spoon single is out today.

:: Billboard’s Glenn Peoples is wondering what it’ll take to provide a sustainable model for ad-supported music. That’s something I’m wondering, too. Then again, who isn’t these days?

Aside from the obvious big ones (Thursday, Morrissey, Trail of Dead, M. Ward, The Appleseed Cast, etc.), there are a few intriguing releases out today that might be flying a bit under the radar.

Neal Casal, second in command behind Ryan Adams in The Cardinals, has his new one out. Amazon says it’s an import, so maybe it’s not actually out yet or it came out a while ago. Either way, Casal is a solid songwriter that will scratch that alt.country itch.

Protected: Massive Samples collects the original songs that Massive Attack has sampled over the years.

Dark Was the Night is a two-disc comp to raise money for AIDS relief. It includes original tracks by pretty much everyone awesome: Iron & Wine, Bon Iver, Grizzly Bear, Sufjan Stevens, Spoon, Arcade Fire… you get the picture. Definitely worth checking out.

:: Abe Vigoda, Reviver EP (PPM)

:: The Acorn, Heron Act (Paper Bag)

:: Alela Diane, To Be Still (Rough Trade)

:: …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, The Century of Self (Richter Scale)

:: The Appleseed Cast, Sagarmatha (The Militia Group)

:: Arise and Ruin, Night Storms Hail Fire (Victory)

:: Asobi Seksu, Hush (Polyvinyl)

:: Audrye Sessions, Audrye Sessions EP (Black Seal)

:: Bang Camaro, Bang Camaro (8th Impression)

:: Beirut / Realpeople, March of the Zapotec / Holland (Pompeii / Ba Da Bing)

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The fine folks at Merge are hopping on the “boost our miserable sales by slashing prices” bandwagon engendered by Black Friday this year. If you head over to the Merge store between now and Jan. 5, you can get 20% off full-length CDs and LPs.

Now before you start stuffing every Robert Pollard, Neutral Milk Hotel and Dinosaur Jr. album you can get into your cart — here’s the catch. Only 2008 releases are eligible for the discount.

Yeah, when I read that part, it made me sad, too. But take heart, in addition to the new albums from She & Him, Destroyer and The Rosebuds, the list includes reissues from Spoon, The Magnetic Fields and Polvo.

Since the Buzzgrinder staff is so lazy, we’ve turned over operations to our friend Jacob Merritt, drummer of Pomegranates, for the day.

I love pop music, and Shapiro is certainly capable of creating it. I have someone who can second that: John Mark Painter (Ben Folds Five, Sixpence None the Richer), who saw the potential and approached the band about recording their full length. Shapiro has a couple snappy EPs to hold us over until Painter puts the final coat on the LP.

RIYL: Ben Folds Five, The Lovin’ Spoonful, Queen, Spoon

Since the Buzzgrinder staff is so lazy, we’ve turned over operations to our friend Jacob Merritt, drummer of Pomegranates, for the day.

It seems like a lot of folks, myself included, have such a tendency to focus so much on music coming out today (or tomorrow) that we often ignore artists from the past that are influencing our soon-to-be-found favorites. There’s nothing wrong with appreciating today’s musical happenings, but I think we need to step back and give some respect to our musical forefathers — many of whom are still creating very impressive music.

Plus, you may be able to dazzle that cutie in the used vinyl section. Being able to say “Oh I noticed you were checking out Fleet Foxes, perhaps you might enjoy Crosby, Stills & Nash” sounds a lot more well-versed than “Oh I noticed you were checking out Death Cab for Cutie, perhaps you might enjoy Jimmy Eat World.”

Here are a few bands and older artists they claim as influences: More »