• The new independent film Dean Quixote is an indie-rock love letter, with an appearance by Dayton, Ohio's Guided by Voices and a tastefully selected soundtrack. Just released on the spinART Records label, it features the band's "If We Wait" alongside Olivia Tremor Control, Beachwood Sparks, The Minders, Bevis Frond, Bettie Serveert, and Orchestra Fantastique, a new side project from Robert Schneider of The Apples in Stereo.
• I let out a holler and a hoot over the smashing success of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack at the 35th annual Country Music Association Awards in Nashville, as the set won best album and single for "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" by the Soggy Bottom Boys featuring vocalist Dan Tyminski.
• Painfully poignant as today's headlines bring us closer to adopting a Robocop reality, I beg of everyone to stop and listen to a simple question: "What's Going On?" A star-studded re-mix CD posing Marvin Gaye's soulful question has just hit store shelves, a puff of hope and harmony from the lips of the next generation to keep the dream of brotherhood afloat.
• Blast those little window-soapin' goblins with a sonic slap of the original monsters of rock, The Misfits, as the band is finally releasing its rare Mars Attacks! demo sessions just in time for Hallow's Eve. On Tuesday, the Roadrunner Records label is spitting out this 19-track collection of odd nuggets from 1996 through 2001, entitled Cuts from the Crypt.
• This Tuesday, the master musicians of four-string funk show up as guest players on the new Gov't Mule album, The Deep End Volume 1. The record, on the ATO label, marks the band's first studio recordings since the death last year of founding bassist Allen Woody.
• The Kinks are the recipient of Sub Pop Records' upcoming tribute set, entitled Give The People What They Want, on November 6. The 19-track collection features a Sup Pop super-stable of participants, including C-Average's spin on "Revenge," Mark Lanegan's take on "Nothin' in the World Can Stop Me Worryin' 'bout That Girl," The Murder City Devils' splash of "Alcohol," Mudhoney's turn on "Who Will Be the Next in Line," and Heather Duby's version of "The Way Love Used to Be.
• My favorite new CD of the moment is When Cupid Meets Psyche by the enigmatically monikered (The Real) Tuesday Weld. Just picturing the actress Tuesday Weld in Thief with James Caan or Sex Kittens in College is enough to make me tingle warmly all over, but this newly released Kindercore Records CD isn't reaching back into 1960s and 1970s iconology; it takes a much deeper time trip into the 1920s and 1930s big-band swing of your grandfather's 78 RPM records with modern-day loops and electronic beats.
• This coming Monday, October 1, the TNT cable channel will broadcast the much-anticipated John Lennon tribute concert live from New York City's Radio City Music Hall. The event was originally scheduled for this past week, but the horrific events of September 11 put the honor on hold, and it has now emerged with additional artists and renamed Come Together: A Night for John Lennon's Words & Music, Dedicated to New York City & Its People.
• The seminal funk record of the 1980s gets an upgraded reissue this Tuesday. Motown's recent "Deluxe Edition" program is hitting all the bells again, with their introduction of Rick James' Street Songs to a new bounce generation.
• Phish is following Pearl Jam's venture into beating the bootleggers to the punch this coming week as they unveil the Live Phish series on the Elektra label. Five full-length concerts - simply titled 01, 02, 03, 04, and 05 - were selected by the band from the years from 1994 to 2000 and mastered by sound engineer Paul Languedoc.

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