iron & wine

The lineup for for the eighth annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass was recently announced. The festival is set to take place October 3-5, 2008 in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park and will feature many bands that fall under the bluegrass tag, including Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Earl Scruggs, The Del McCoury Band, and Steve Earle & the Bluegrass Dukes. The "Hardly Strictly" part of the line-up offers some interesting additions as well, including indie-folksters Iron & Wine, gypsy-punks Gogol Bordello, pop-hipster Ben Kweller, and across-the-pond transplant Nick Lowe. The best part about this festival - even better than the line-up and location - is its price: FREE!

Check out the full Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival lineup after the jump

The 2008 Austin City Limits Music Festival lineup was released on April 15, 2008. The event, which is set to take place September 26-28 at Zilker Park in Austin, TX, will feature headlining acts Foo Fighters, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, and Beck. Also making appearances at the 7th edition of the festival will be Iron & Wine, Hot Chip, Yonder Mountain String Band, Xavier Rudd and Slightly Stoopid.

Check out the full ACL 2008 lineup after the jump

Friday Radio Bonnaroo, streaming from their site, had a little fun with the online music community. They used their platform to announce clues to this years line-up that is supposed to be released sometime in the very near future (some hint towards February 6th). Eleven different clues were released to the rabid online 'Roo fans, making many message boards go wild. I included my guesses, but feel free to let us know what you think the clues might mean.

Continue reading for the clues

Today came the announcement of this years "long list" for the Shortlist Prize. 54 albums were chosen from this years vast catalog of new music. The Shortlist Prize is awarded to the best album of the year that has not yet received gold certification (500,000 units sold) from the Recording Industry Association of America. The initial list is put together by many notable people in the music industry with this years listmakers including band members and radio personalities. Past years listmakers have included Willie Nelson, Elton John, Trent Reznor, Beck, Dave Matthews, Tom Waits, Iggy Pop, Paul Oakenfold, Spike Jonze, Wayne Coyne and Mos Def. This years list features many of the bigger names in the indie music scene including Wilco, Arcade Fire and Kings Of Leon. It also features some harder acts like Bad Religion and Serj Tankian from System Of A Down. Previous winners include Cat Power, Sufjan Stevens, TV on the Radio and Damien Rice.

Make the jump to read the nominees for the 2007 Shortlist Prize.

bytes

I don't know if this is going to be kosher with my fellow BOTheads, but I'm back for seconds this week. I couldn't help it, dammit. Eggs picked up Iron and Wine's newest album The Shepherd's Dog yesterday, and I just listened to it for the first time today. Three times in a row. The whole album is fantastic - check out Doughnut's Pick this week to hear 'Lovesong of the Buzzard'. But all three times I heard 'Flightless Bird, American Mouth', I literally had to stop what I was doing to focus my full attention on the song. It's an absolutely beautiful waltz, and I don't think there could possibly be a better ending to this stunning album.

bytes

Sam Beam & Iron and Wine's soft-spoken intensities are given a new personality on this track. Roll down all the windows for this one.

--Doughnut

With the exception of Toast, we all felt a little indie this week.

Follow the links below to check out the songs that the BOTheads are diggin' on this week.

Doughnut's Pick: Iron and Wine - Lovesong of the Buzzard
Toast's Pick: Mr. Lif - Get Wise '91 feat. Edan
Eggs' Pick: Panda Bear - Good Girl/Carrots
Cereal's Pick: Les Savy Fav - Patty Lee
Coffee's Pick: Kings of Leon - Milk