Live music on T.V. this week: Monday, December 7: NBC: Late Night With Jimmy Fallon: 50 Cent NBC: Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien: Michael McDonald Tuesday, December 8: NBC: Late Night With Jimmy Fallon: Jawbox ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live: Passion Pit CBS: Late Show With David Letterman: Blackroc CBS: Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson: Rosanne Cash Wednesday, December 9: TBS: Lopez Tonight: Morrissey Sundance Channel: Spectacle With Elvis Costello: Bono and the Edge NBC: Tonight Show With...

If His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI hasn't accepted your friend request, don't get mad. He's a busy man! He has to pick which 2Pac track to put on the Music From the Vatican MySpace playlist. OK, not really. But CNN reports that the Music From the Vatican MySpace page has recently posted a playlist of songs that, according to the page itself, "share the aim to reach the heart of good minded people." The playlist includes Fleet Foxes' "He Doesn't Know Why", Muse's "Uprising", and, yes, 2Pac's...

Photo by Eirik Lande The ADD mash-up monster Greg Gillis, known to the world as Girl Talk, made his name with the 2006 album Night Ripper, a marathon of chopped-up pop samples that moved so quickly between songs and genres that we all had to struggle to keep up. On December 8, Illegal Art will issue Night Ripper on vinyl for the first time (180-gram double LPs, that is), so we'll really be able to hear every sonic detail of that Biggie Smalls/Elton John meeting of the minds.

pagebreakFat-walleted, charity-minded Girl Talk fans, take note: Illegal Art will also sell a limited-edition pink vinyl version of that double-LP reissue for $100. The money will go to...

Photo by Ryan Muir

Though Chicago producer Steve Albini has a built up a reputation as something of a grouch over the years, he's no Scrooge. Along with his wife, Heather Whinna, for the past decade, the famed producer and Big Black/Shellac frontman has been distributing more than $100,000 worth of Christmas gifts every year to poor families in the Chicago area.

The funds are raised through the Second City theater's annual benefit event, which over the years has featured performances by such artists as Jeff Tweedy, the Breeders, and Shellac. Albini and Whinna consult letters sent to the post office, addressed to Santa Claus, asking for a Christmas miracle to help...

From Junior Senior's "Move Your Feet" to Pulp's "A Little Soul", great music videos are bursts of sound and vision that leave an indelible impression. Director's Cut is a Pitchfork News feature in which we chat with music video directors about their creations. The men and women behind the camera are often overlooked in today's YouTube era, but this feature aims to highlight their hard work while showcasing the best videos currently linking around the internet. A little behind-the-scenes dirt couldn't hurt, too.

There's a good chance Garth Jennings has directed one of your favorite music videos. From the Eels' carrot-headed 1998 clip for...

Liam Clancy, the last surviving member of the seminal Irish folk band the Clancy Brothers, died on Friday at a Cork hospital at age 74. The balladeer, who Bob Dylan described as “the best ballad singer I’d ever heard in my life,” suffered from incurable pulmonary fibrosis (which also afflicted his...

Muses come in unlikely forms sometimes. Ever since producer Jona Bechtolt split to focus on YACHT, the Portland art-pop act the Blow has been Khaela Maricich's one-woman project, and Maricich has been pretty quiet. But this weekend, Maricich played a show at Miami's Pulse Art Fair, and the whole thing turned out to be a sort of performance art spectacle inspired by forever troubled ex-star Lindsay Lohan.

pagebreakThe Miami New Times reviewed the show. According to the paper, Maricich started the show...

San Francisco is a town of many pleasant associations. To start, there’s sourdough bread, Pier 7, 826 Valencia, the Embarcadero, fog, Keith Hufnagel, Barry McGee, burritos, bridges, hills, bookstores, FTC, Amoeba, and so forth. The list goes on. That’s why it’s particularly exciting that Issue 33 of McSweeney’s Quarterly comes to us in the form of [...]

Examining a Marc Bell drawing is like gaining entry into the mind of a psychotically talented and slightly autistic doodle-machine. It’s art that’s fun to look at but funner to snuggle up with, which is why we’re happy that the Vancouver artist has released a book of comics and artwork on drawn and quarterly. Hot [...]