MP3s, News and Notes

The Trainwreck Riders, who in addition to having a great band name, have a very well done video for a "holiday" track called "Christmas Blues" - check it out on YouTube and you can listen all you like to the mp3 here.

Aberdeen City is also in the holiday spirit. They've put together their own Christmas diddy "Just Like Christmas," which you can download here, along with what they say is a "never-released late night driving version of 'God is Going To Get Sick of Me'".

Barry Gibb has bought Johnny Cash's old house and has decided he's a country singer. Not sure that disco polyester is actually country...just sayin.

After a year in Memphis, the 6th Annual Ponderosa Stomp music festival returns home to New Orleans.

The Kaiser Chiefs announced a North American tour for 2007 with the first stop at NYC's Roseland Ballroom. Hey, its never too early to begin promotion!

Speaking of early promotion, Grant Lee Phillips will release his latest record, Strangelet, on March 27th for Zoë / Rounder Records. R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck helps out a bit on the project.

Kristin Hersh of Throwing Muses and 50 Ft. Wave fame adds another record to her solo discography with Learn to Sing Like a Star - you can download "In Shock" here.

Brooklyn's Ranier Maria, depsite naming their last record Catastrophe Keeps Us Together, has apparently broken up. I had the please of catching their show and briefly meeting Caithlin and crew this summer in Philadephia. Good band, I hope they stay in music in some form or another.

The American Beauty Project lineup is set and Jen Chapin, Railroad Earth, Jay Farrar and a host of others will celebrate and perform the Dead's American Beauty and Workingman's Dead at a during a free set of shows in NYC on January 20th and 21st.

Pete Doherty reportedly says he misses Carl Barat - but but not for the music. Meanwhile, his lady love Kate Moss may have "banned" Doherty's duets with another woman.