It's midnight on Manhattan's Lower East Side, and the apple-cheeked guitarist in the baggy tank top doesn't know what's coming. "Yeah, we've got another show in Brooklyn in a couple days," brags Apple Cheeks to Dominic, a skinny blond Englishman in a black leather jacket. It's early summer and the two are standing outside the front door of a small club/bakery called Cake Shop.

You can start drooling now, guitar geeks.

In addition to covering classic albums, Beck has been spending time lately chatting with his famous friends as part of his Irrelevant Topics interview series. A few weeks ago, he got Tom Waits on the horn.

Shortly before Depeche Mode took the stage to close out a frustratingly first damp day of Lollapalooza on Friday, the rain stopped. Too bad, because if any band could've benefited from a dark and stormy night, it was these longtime British merchants of seductive gloom, who put on a solid 17 song set that, while played with passion and heavy on crowd-pleasers, was just short of magical.

Beastie Boys' Adam Yauch, a.k.a. MCA, sent an email blast this morning, Aug. 5, updating his health status following surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his parotid gland, the discovery of which caused the cancellation of the band's scheduled concert appearances behind their recently completed album, Hot Sauce Committee. You can read the email below.

In the four years since Aussie hard rock outfit Wolfmother released its self-titled debut, the trio toured the world, saw its track "Woman" become a Guitar Hero favorite, and, uh-oh, lost two members.