Jack White and Alicia Keys

Bond music has always been hit-or-miss. Shirley Bassey’s Goldfinger, Carly Simon’s Nobody Does It Better, Louis Armstrong even contributed his voice (on his last recording before his death) to We Have All The Time In The World . But then did we ever really need Sheena Easton or Madonna’s contributions? Even Chris Cornell failed miserably at this task. The latest: Jack White and Alicia Keys tag-teaming a Bond theme. Check out the radio rip below, leave your two cents in the comments.

Jack White ft Alicia Keys – Another Way To Die

One of my favorite Chicago bands, Office, are preparing to release a new album soon and have posted tracks from teh upcoming work on their myspace site for streaming. Since a recent lineup change and being released form their label, the band’s website has been down, so visit them on myspace or facebook, or read the blog.

Office – Oh My

Jason Moon Wilkins of Blue Eyed Blacks

The SquirrelFood inbox got backlogged last week, and I missed a few emails. One of these had Wrong Thing from Blue Eyed Blacks. In one listen I liked it, and upon reading a bit more, found that frontman/songwriter Jason Moon Wilkins is also one of the co-founders of Next Big Nashville, going on this week. So, besides writing some pretty great music, the guy has also built an incredible music festival & conference? Wow. His latest album, Black Eyed Soul, was produced with Neilson Hubbard, who’s worked with other SF favs Matthew Ryan, Glen Phillips, and Matthew Perryman Jones. The album is set to drop in October on Chicken Ranch Records.

The Next Big Nashville conference & festival started Wednesday, and runs through the weekend. IF you’re in Nashville, and are lucky enough to get a seat, Glen Phillips (Toad The Wet Sproket), Kevin Griffin (Beeter Than Ezra), Dan Wilson (Semisonic), and Daniel Tashian (The Bees) are playing an in-the-round at The Bluebird Cafe tonight at 10 pm. I can only imagine it will be somewhat like a songwriting master class on steroids. Seriously.

Blue Eyed Blacks – Wrong Thing

Today is a BIG day for numerologists- 8/8/08. 8 is a lucky number in Chinese culture, thus the big to-do over the start of the Beijing Olympics today (if you’re not living under a rock, you’ve no doubt heard this already). So, in light of this prosperously engaged date, I’ve put together a rather random little bonus mixtape to celebrate! 8 songs that all fall eighth on their respective albums for this eighth day of the eighth month of 2008.

Tracklisting:
Augustana – Dust
Ben Harper – Put It On Me
Cold War Kids – Hospital Beds
Death Cab For Cutie – Your New Twin Sized Bed
Justin Nozuka – I’m In Peace
Mates Of State – You Are Free
The Republic Tigers – Fight Song
The Ting Tings – We Walk

Download it here while you can!

This week’s image comes from Jeff Kubina.

Rumor and speculation as to whether the recently “leaked” Ben Folds tracks are part of an elaborate joke by the Ben himself. It certainly sounds like Ben here with Regina Spektor, but Andy of General Noise sounds like him too, so whatever. Still, it’s kind of a catchy tune, so I’m posting.

“Ben Folds” ft. “Regina Spektor” - You Don’t Know Me

What do you think? Did Ben Folds have time to record a fake album to release to the net, or is this someone else’s doing, or is it real?