The initial lineup for this year’s CMJ Festival was just announced:

DeVotchKa
Surfer Blood
Two Door Cinema Club
School of Seven Bells
Bad Books (feat. Kevin Devine and Manchester Orchestra)
Four Tet
The Drums
Ghostface Killah
Greg Dulli
Helmet
Lissie
Foreign Exchange
Katzenjammer
Kristen Schall & Friends
Dean & Britta
Bayside
Senses Fail
Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit
Salem
The Blow
Small Black
Big Freedia
Dominique Young Unique
Angus & Julia Stone
Frankie and the Heartstrings
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.
Langhorne Slim
“Nightmare,” the current single from Southern California’s Avenged Sevenfold, has climbed to No. 1 at Active Rock Radio in the U.S. this week, marking the first time the band has achieved Number 1 in radio airplay. It has enjoyed airplay at Active Rock, Mainstream, and Modern Rock radio stations across the country and was the No. 1 Rock Song on iTunes in the U.S. and the U.K. in its debut week.
“Nightmare,” is the title track to the band’s highly personal new album, which bowed at No. 1 on Billboard’s album chart and also topped Billboard’s Rock, Hard Rock, and Digital charts. Its No. 1 debut is the band’s highest first-week chart position ever.
Produced by Mike Elizondo (Dr. Dre, Eminem) and mixed by noted engineer Andy Wallace, Nightmare was in the works when the band’s beloved drummer, Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan, passed away. The Los Angeles Times has praised Nightmare’s “elegiac power ballads,” and called it “the band’s most personal effort yet.” USA Today declared, “A7X has as broad a musical palette as any act in metal, with soaring guitar melodies and sorrowful ballads that offset growling metalcore vocals and Metallica-like jackhammer rhythms.”
Avenged Sevenfold are currently out on the road co-headlining the first annual Rockstar Energy Drink UPROAR Festival with Disturbed. Also on the bill are Stone Sour, Halestorm, and Hell Yeah. Please visit www.RockstarUproar.com for tour dates.
Congrats to Neon Trees and Tim Pagnotta on having the #1 song at Alternative Radio this week with the Neon Trees single “Animal”. (Tim produced and co-wrote the song.) “Animal” is also #2 (as of this post) on the iTunes Alternative Singles chart. Do not miss the opportunity to see Neon Trees live with 30 Seconds To Mars this Fall.
Listen to Animal here!
Keytar-wielding synth-pop sensation LIGHTS will hit the road this fall on a nationwide headlining tour. The dates, which come on the heels of her successful international run with Owl City, kick off October 13th in Thunder Bay, ONT and run through November 13th in Buffalo, NY. LIGHTS’ debut full-length album The Listening is out now on Sire Records.
Twenty three year-old singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist LIGHTS crafts sparkling, otherworldly electro-pop that has already garnered her over 24 million plays on MySpace, a #1 hit in Canada and the 2009 JUNO for New Artist of the Year. LIGHTS was selected as an inaugural artist for MySpace’s Introducing program, and she starred in her own short-form motion-comic series Audio Quest: A Captain LIGHTS Adventure, which aired on MTV and MTV.com. Rolling Stone called LIGHTS a “retro new wave…keytar-rocking pixie,” and the Toronto Star praised her as “the very epitome of D.I.Y. pin-up cool.” She was recently featured on an episode of MTV’s hit reality program “The City,” and performed on several dates of this summer’s Lilith Fair.
LIGHTS also recently released a solo acoustic EP entitled LIGHTS.ACOUSTIC. The stripped-down collection of songs includes “River,” “February Air” and “Saviour” off The Listening, as well as a cover of Rancid’s “Fall Back Down” and a never before recorded track “Romance Is…” During its debut week on iTunes, the EP grabbed the #1 spot in Canada, and cracked the Top 10 in the USA.
Visit www.IAMLIGHTS.com to hear LIGHTS.
LIGHTS headlining tour dates are as follows:
Oct 13 – Crocks – Thunder Bay, ONT
Oct 15 – Burton Cummings – Winnipeg, MB
Oct 16 – Odeon Events Centre – Saskatoon, SK
Oct 17 – MacEwan Ballroom – Calgary, AB
Oct 18 – Edmonton Event Centre – Edmonton, AB
Oct 20 – Vogue Theater – Vancouver, BC
Oct 22 – Berbati’s Pan – Portland, OR
Oct 23 – El Corazon – Seattle, WA
Oct 25 – Slim’s – San Francisco, CA
Oct 26 – El Rey – Los Angeles, CA
Oct 27 – The Underground – Mesa, AZ
Oct 29 – Propher Bar – Dallas, TX
Oct 30 – Emo’s – Austin, TX
Oct 31 – Warehouse Live – Houston, TX
Nov 02 – Backbooth – Orlando., FL
Nov 03 – Masquerade – Atlana, GA
Nov 04 – Rockettown – Nashville, TN
Nov 05 – Lincoln Hall – Chicago, IL
Nov 06 – Eagle Theater – Pontiac, MI
Nov 07 – Musica – Akron, OH
Nov 09 – Middle East – Boston, MA
Nov 10 – Bowery Ballroom – New York, NY
Nov 11 –Ottobar – Baltimore, MD
Nov 12 – North Star Bar – Philadelphia, PA
Nov 13 – Mohawk Place – Buffalo, NY

(Photo credit: Klaus Thymann)
After putting a flying dog on the cover of ‘Raditude,’ Weezer are one-upping themselves for their upcoming eighth LP, ‘Hurley.’ This time ’round, they’re forsaking an airborne animal for a celebrity: actor Jorge Garcia, aka Hurley from ‘Lost.’ As Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo tells Spinner, the album’s name came easily once they settled on the photo.

“We struggled super hard trying to come up with an album title, trying to find some kind of phrase that summed up the whole aesthetic behind the album: ‘Heavy Mental,’ ‘Smaller Than Life,’” Cuomo says. “I was coming up with all kinds of stuff, but ultimately, we just went with some random word that doesn’t really have anything to do with anything. I just loved this photo of Jorge Garcia — it just had this amazing vibe. We didn’t want to do a fourth self-titled record and we knew people would refer to it as ‘the Hurley record’ even if we left it without that title, so we just called it ‘Hurley.’ No words are on the cover because all we wanted was his amazing face.”
Unfortunately for ‘Lost’ fanatics, the album doesn’t feature any songs inspired by the hit show. In fact, Cuomo didn’t even watch it until meeting Garcia (he’s still watching the series, so don’t spoil the finale for him). “I only made it through season two, so I was really nervous hanging out with Hurley/Jorge recently, because I didn’t want to hear something about how it all resolves, or overhear anyone else talking about it,” he says. “I really like the show though.”
‘Hurley’ is due out Sept. 14 via Epitaph Records, marking the first time Weezer have released an album on an indie label. Check out the first single, ‘Memories,’ below.

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The new Twilight Saga soundtrack and movie Eclipse. The top secret track listing is slowly being revealed today, hour by hour via myspace.com artists on the soundtrack include Muse, Vampire Weekend, Beck & Bat For Lashes, The Bravery and Metric.
The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack will be available June 8th. A PRE-ORDER is now available. Eclipse will be released in theaters world wide on June 30th.
The Killers countdown on their site was leading up to the announcement of Brandon Flowers’ solo album.