Baltimore label fifty* just released an awesome noise-dance album by Meth Dad via Bandcamp. Download it now for as much or as little as you want to pay. You can also download some other stuff by the Murfreesboro, Tennessee band via its MySpace page.

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In case you didn’t know, artisanal ice cream is so last year; gourmet popsicles are the new epicurean treat for summer. But Las Paletas in Nashville, Tennessee has been wise to this trend all along.

For several years, Las Paletas has been Nashville’s best-kept secret, quietly turning out Latin American-inspired ice pops from a modest storefront without so much as a sign to indicate its presence. Despite the lack of pretence, exotic knock-out flavors are listed daily on an old-school chalkboard under two headings; creamy paletas and fruity paletas. From these two varieties, you will find such flavours as chocolate wasabi, pineapple chili, Mexican caramel, hibiscus, and avocado. If these flavours delight your palate, forget the cone and try a paleta.

Kimberly Dawn Recordings, an artist-run micro-label out of Tennessee, designed the artwork for an EP off Endless Endless Endless’ self-released album, Black Talisman. For just $4, you get to own a numbered CDR (edition of fifty hand-stamped, with an attached laser etched talisman) and listen to the dreamy, ‘post-noise’ music comprised of guitars, vocals, and a Gameboy.

The band writes: ‘This is music for (and from) pretzel rods and Miller highlife’. I don’t know exactly what that means, but I think I like it.  Check out Endless Endless Endless for a chill evening on February 10th in the lounge at New York’s Dixon Place.

Magic Wands are a burgeoning young duo playing some really fun music these days, and the most recent remix of Warrior sounds especially sweet to my ears this week. Uh, maybe because I just saw them live the other night, and they exceeded the expectations of an opening act. We love it when that happens. Don’t we?

Chris and Dexy have their roots in Nashville, Tennessee but seem keen to take their sound as far as it’ll take them. Granted they have a bit of that ’80s flare going on — dare we call it a trend — it’s not too surprising to see that they have some real British appeal as of this last tour in the U.K. The upside to this is that the sound is totally susceptible to some pretty great remixing. Like stuff that really makes you want to get up and get down.

Draped in a charming rustic veneer, the Meow Cottage at the Old Marshall House in Franklin, Tennessee, is a self-contained cottage situated on the grounds of a sprawling — and quite beautiful — B&B. On a nice day, with the sun shining down and the trees in full bloom, it all looks — from the outside at least — like a childhood fairytale — elegant and enchanting — framed by a small pond to one side and an expanse of well-manicured grass to the other. Oh, and there’s a pool too. It was, unfortunately, ‘temporarily’ out of service during our stay. But it looked tempting enough, especially with a fierce Nashville sun pounding down relentlessly during the middle of the day. Such is life. And such is life in Franklin, where the mornings are interrupted only by the gentle purr of a wayward kitten (it is the Meow house after all) and the somewhat subdued rush of Nashville, the country music capital of the world, is just a short Garth Brooks song away. But back to the Cottage itself. It really is like a miniature doll house for adults. Even the trimmings – the furniture, the blinds, and the crockery – seem small. Yet they’re not. It’s merely a trick on the eye. And like many things in Franklin, you need to look well beneath the surface to get a real sense for what’s going on. For daytime discoveries and inner-city detoxing, the Meow Cottage was a wonderfully serene base from which to conduct our Franklin and Nashville explorations. [photo by Alison Whittington]

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