Lots of good stuff, especially the new Elbow track if you missed it.  Plus the clip of Noel talking about how influential the Stone Roeses' Spike Island gig is pretty cool.

In an interview with nymag.com, Julian Casablancas says that the Strokes are working "day and night" on their fourth album.  They were recording their followup to 2006's First Impressions of Earth but had to stop, allegedly because guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. had to go to rehab.  They have two scheduled festival shows, The Isle Of Wight festival and Scotland's RockNess festival), so I imagine that the record will be released to coincide with their summer tour.

Fab did it with Little Joy. Nickolai Fraiture did it with Nickel Eye. Albert Hammond Jr. did it with Albert Hammond Jr. And now after lending his voice to Homme and sneakers and authentic rappers, Strokes figurehead Julian Casablancas is officially and completely stepping out on his own with a debut solo full-length. The set spans eight songs, recorded in NYC, LA, and of course Nebraska, with production assists from Jason Lander and Mike Mogis. We're scraping for details here, so the best we can offer is there are songs titled "River Of Brake Lights," "Glass," and the L.E.S. referencing "Ludlow St." And that this album preview looks like a movie trailer, is anti-drinking, and is more cinematically synth-poppy than you expected. Continue reading Julian Casablancas Goes Solo With The Phrazes For The Young LP... - Source

A new restaurant part-owned by the likes of The Strokes' Julian Casablancas and Mark Ronson opened with a celebrity packed party in Los Angeles last night (October 13). - Source

The Strokes' bassist Nikolai Fraiture has put three songs online from his new project Nickel Eye. - Source

Albert Hammond Jr hints that the band will be back in 2009. Plus, download his new single for free! - Source

All this week we've been celebrating independent record labels and ahead of tonight's look at Rough Trade Records The Strokes tell Xfm why they thought their signing call was a joke. - Source

The model whose backside adorns the British cover of The Strokes' 2001 debut album, 'Is This It', had revealed how the famous image came about.  Source

The Strokes - Room On Fire
Review by Michael F Gill.

Room on Fire?
ROOM on Fire?
Room on FIRE?
FIRE?

So the second Strokes album has come along, and while it is quite similiar to the first album, I can't help but notice my biggest problem with the first album hasn't been corrected : the god-awful, wafer-thin production. There is no backbone to the Strokes music, it simply just doesn't "rock out". It sounds like it is being played out of a rather treble-heavy AM radio. These guitars and drums sound soft and muddy when they should be in your fucking face. I'm not joking when I say Belle & Sebastian have more conviction and "oomph" in their recordings. I don't know how much of a difference the sound is when they play live (although I saw them open for Doves 2 years ago and I was bored silly), but geesh, even Britpop losers like Symposium, Shed 7, and Northern Uproar rock harder then the Strokes. This is a Room on FIRE????

Well, The Strokes are attempting a sophomore album. Long in the works, it appears that 'Room On Fire' is finally set for release on October 21. As was reported ages ago, the band did start working with producer Nigel Godrich (Radiohead) but didn't finish any material with him. Instead, they went back to work with Gordon Raphael who produced their first album. Raphael told Undercover Australia, "There was no pressure at all from outside forces, and all the hard work and crazy long nights we spent working on this thing came only from the bands desire to make sure that every hi hat, Kick drum and note sounded and felt as perfect as possible to fit the message and tone of the song." Hmm... that's strangely the EXACT opposite impression Julian Casablanacas gave a reporter for VH1/MTV News, "Pressure on the band is heavy to avoid the dreaded sophomore slump. The bandmembers are wrangling with their label and with each other over singles, mixes and artwork, because this time expectations are even higher."

Well, whatever... let's just see what the album holds. I'd expect US tour dates to be announced soon as a followup to the forthcoming single "12:51". The band is currently working with Roman Coppola on a video that should be airing on MTV soon.