The above “hawties” wanted to party. I said, ‘naw gurl, I gotta work.’ So I turned around and took more pictures from the pit on the main stage. Day one of the Boston Phoenix’s Newport Folk Festival experience. Anyway.

Above we see the bassist from O’Death, who looks eerily similar to the late Jay Reatard.

Los Angeles indie-folk dudes Dawes just pulled in a standing ovation, maybe two if you’re being technical, at their show on the Quad stage at Newport Folk Festival. But a greater find was that pretty much every pretty girl here in Newport loves herself some Dawes. Maybe there’s something about that whole Laurel Canyon thing after all.

Checking in from the Newport Folk Festival, where I’m asking the tough questions, like why Dawes brought Kirsten Dunst to Great Scott a few years ago and if anyone recognizes AA Bondy from his days in Verbena. Stay tuned for video interviews with those cats, as well as live footage of O’Death, who have put on the best show of Day 1 so far.

The Phoenix team arrived at 2:55, five minutes before our scheduled interview with A.A. Bondy. None of us knew quite what he looked like, so after wading through a crowd of gangly, flanneled folkies Marrota was fortunate enough to find him. He’s a nice dude, digs festivals. Video to come.

From my periphery during the interview I saw a drummer perched on his throne karate kid style, stalking his high hat ready to strike, across the festival ground in a small covered tent.

Blak Madeen's Sacred Defense was without-a-doubt one of the best discs to drop anywhere last year - not just in Boston (here's the feature that I wrote about them). The album featured the likes of Reks and Lord Jamar - and sick beats through and through - but ultimately prevailed on the strength of Al-J and Yusuf playing off of one another.

Newport Folk Festival 2010 from Mike Anderson on Vimeo.

We guess you know that you've officially made it when a 7-foot-tall basketball legend serenades you at your own performance. It seems like the plague of Bieber Fever that's been infecting everyone from little girls to middle-aged women with a nasty case of sexually-ambiguous genital boils (just kidding, he's a virgin!) has just claimed it's latest victim: Shaquille O'Neal.

^{Salvador Jolly play DIY Fest at Haunted Casino (more photos here)}

If you want something done right, you put on your own music and art fest, alert all your friends using the litany of available social networking avenues, and invite some really rad bands to play the bestest basements around town. That's how the old saying goes, right?

UPDATED RSVP LINK HERE

Royale is becoming the home base for free mega-parties.

While we're still a tad hungover from Passion Pit's romp on Tremont Street a few weeks ago (and in massive debt after taking out all those damn credit cards), you can bet we'll be tipping back a few Amstel Lights this Wednesday, Aug 4 when the Amsterdam Live series gives us a free party featuring previously-in-hiding NYC dance-rock dudes The Rapture

With a rattling echo that conjures a battle cry skittering off the walls of a great Viking hall, Andy Beresky's repeated wounded howl of "War! Swine!" at the 4:20 mark of this eight-minute epic is a sound to behold. Off a Serpent Records split 12-inch with Kentucky metal duo Old Ones, "Warswine" works as a sampler of everything that Beresky's Northampton doom crew BLACK PYRAMID do right -- punishing fretwork and low-end stuttering riff yawns, sure, but also multiple dynamic shifts, fist-pumping vocal-anthem blasts, and chasm-bridging lead breaks that flicker and lick your ear like fire flares bursting out of a gurgling lava trench.

When Twisted Village announced that it was closing it's doors a couple of weeks ago, a massive wave of outrage, sadness and wistful reminiscence followed. It isn't the first of it's ilk to fold and, sadly, it won't be the last (damn the man! won't somebody save the Empire?) So, perhaps, this is the perfect time for the DVD release of "guerrilla filmmaker" Brendan Toller's new documentary, I Need That Record! The 2008 doc, which screened to considerably favorable critical reception at film festivals nationwide, was released on DVD yesterday in stores everywhere.

Forget words — these days, a photograph is worth a thousand reunion rumors.

So when Boston new wave legends the Cars quietly posted the above photo on Facebook two weeks ago, the Internet caught fire with speculation on their first possible show together in 23 years. The image, recently snapped in an unknown local studio, shows surviving members Ric Ocasek and Elliot Easton on guitars, David Robinson behind the drums and keyboardist Greg Hawkes playing bass.

LCD Soundsystem

On sale Thursday, July 29

Blue Scholars | September 15 at the Paradise Rock Club, Boston | $15 | On sale at noon via ticketmaster.com

On sale Friday, July 30

LCD Soundsystem | September 28 at the Orpheum Theatre, Boston | $33.50 | On sale at 10 am via ticketmaster.com