In case you were wondering what impact bands like Radiohead and the Doves have had on up-and-coming American groups, just point your browser to www.turnerjoy.com and check out the three new demos from TURNERJOY, who consistently remain atop our list of favorite unsigned US bands. The Chicago-based group, featured on Excellent Online's own "Intertwined" downloadable album, have been tucked away in the studio for most of 2002, and they've just posted three new demos from the forthcoming new album - and they're fantastic to say the least.

Cellist and singer ISOBEL CAMPBELL has left BELLE AND SEBASTIAN, it was announced today. According to a press statement from the band's official website, Campbell left the band and returned to England mid-way through their recent American tour (and none of us apparantly noticed?!) Campbell's contributions to the band were clearly evident by her vocals, which appeared on a good percentage of the group's recorded materials, including the new album "Storytelling," released this week.

Torr dropped the news that Alfie will be heading out on their first US tour. There's only going to be five dates starting with New Jersey, then New York, Toronto, San Francisco, and finally ending in Los Angeles. The respective venues can be found on our tour page

There's an article over at Salon about how a new startup, FightCloud.com, is selling CD's for only 4.95 (that's the shipping and handling). Now obviously you're not going to find the latest Oasis, Chemical Brothers, or Badly Drawn Boy albums there, but it's important to note that every CD sold is making a profit. Also, according to the article, those independent artists are making twice as much as the major label artists are on CD sales.

Piero runs the Ticket To Ride site and has announced that there will be new Ride material released this year. Click on 'Read More' for the full announcement.

I saw this Wired link over at Slashdot about how Aphex Twin encoded his face into one of his tracks. You can view the images through spectrograph software. As the Wired article explains, there's a software package called MetaSynth where you can scan in an image and create music from it.

Michael sent in a link to Jam! with a recent interview with Sigur Ros. They talk about their followup to 'Agaetis Byrjun' and how it's expected to be completed by the end of this year. It was also nice to hear from Jonsi Birgisson, the lead singer, because he rarely gives interviews.

The Doves, Dieselboy, and Blue Man Group are the latest additions to Moby's Area2 festival. The Doves and Blue Man Group will be added to the main stage while Dieselboy will perform in the dance tent with Carl Cox, John Digweed, DJ Tiesto, the Avalanches, and DJ Dan

Paul Marin sent in a great link to an article on pitchforkmedia.com where they discuss the possibility of a "The Strokes" show. My favorite is, of course, "The Strokes of Hazzard".

This is probably a bit late, but my brother just found the current issue of Magnet (Mar/Apr 2002). Ride's on the cover and they talk about the 'History of Shoegazing'. They have small interviews with Andy Bell (Ride), Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine), Neil Halstead (Slowdive/Mojave 3), Alan Magee and others. It's pretty interesting as they talk about what happened the the followup to MBV's 'Loveless'. Click the 'read more' link to see their list of shoegazing's defining albums.