She may be a bottle blonde with a taut midriff, but Pip Brown is sick of getting pegged as a would-be Britney. "People assume when they see me live for the first time that my drummer wrote all the music," says Brown, a.k.a. Ladyhawke. "If it was a guy standing up there with a guitar singing, nobody would assume he wasn't the writer."

Usually when someone says, "Music should be as free as water," it's safe to assume they don't make music for a living (or pay for water). Charles Hamilton is one exception. Since he signed to Interscope nearly a year ago, the Harlem-bred, stylistically scattershot producer/MC/singer/blogger has put more than 70 tracks online gratis. Label honcho

[INSERT SHEEP-HUMPING JOKE HERE]: No band is an island. But according to Nick Johnston, singer for Auckland, New Zealand's Cut Off Your Hands, it helps to be from one. "Because the country is so isolated," explains the 24-year-old frontman, "our music ends up being very pure.

Arish "King" Khan, 32, describes his current stagewear as "a mix between Cleopatra and Rick James." Just picture a long-limbed, beer-bellied, pencil-mustached Indian Canadian in sequin-belted hot pants, layers of chains, a pouffed black pageboy wig with a gold headband, foam genie shoes, and a gold lamé veil, duck-walking his guitar across the stage.

Before she moved to Los Angeles to concentrate on her career as a musician, Anya Marina spent her days spinning other people's records -- lots of 'em -- at a series of San Diego radio stations. So it's probably safe to assume that she knows what she's talking about when she says she hates singer-songwriter music.

"Pain in the ass!" rasps Michael Angelakos as he struggles to heave a Fender Rhodes keyboard onto the stage of Los Angeles' Henry Fonda Theater. Angelakos, 21, is the benevolent dictator of synth poppers Passion Pit, and his band are soundchecking for their slot opening for French electro sensation Yelle.