Playlist

I'll bet you thought that T-Pain already had a new album out, with his "featured" status on so many top songs and all. And all of his nominations at the BET awards. And how he's in every video. But, no ....

The 23-year-old from Tallahassee, Fla., (yeah, some civic pride is in my words; after all, I went to college there and worked there and still fondly think of there) announced a new release season for his long-awaited (?) album, Th33 Ringz: Fall 2008. Isn't it great how nebulous that is?

Anyhoo, it seems he's calling in a bunch of favors. Guests on the album include Kanye West, Chris Brown, Ludacris and Lil Wayne, most of whom had big, bigger, biggest hits with the ubiquitous singer-producer.

Just an FYI for you commenters out there ... the blog has now gone to automatic comment approval. This means that we'll no longer say "tell us what you think!" only to get around to approving what you think six hours or two days later. Hopefully this will grease the wheels of discussion further and make the blog mo' funnuh. We still have an f-bomb filter, however. Not that we have to worry about that, since you're a classy crowd and all. But you might want to keep that in mind when Mario expresses his usual love for Carrie Underwood, heh heh.

Sterling Americana songstress Emmylou Harris has canceled her concert Tuesday night at Majestic Theatre due to a death in the family. The show, which was to feature Buddy Miller as her opening act, was part of her tour to promote All I Intended to Be, her latest critically lauded CD. Ticket refunds can be obtained at point of purchase.

Photo: Emmylou Harris at Fort Worth's Bass Hall in 2004 (Juan Garcia/DMN).

On the indie/alt-rap/experimental pop artist's 2005 disc, You and Yer Good Ideas, there's a track called "Gaston Ave," as in Dallas' fair eclectic avenue to the northeast of downtown. The lyrics are pretty abstract, so it's not like there's a big shout-out to Astro's east side homies on it or anything else very Gaston-y. But Quick's local music man Hunter Hauk told me that when he interviewed Astronautalis (real name: Andy Bothwell) back in the day, the artist told him about how he used to live in the Gaston area, and about how he'd walk to Lakewood Landing and such. Hmm.

The Florida native has shown some love for his old hood by making his new CD, Pomegranate, here in Dallas. Hunter writes a bit about the CD here. Check out "Gaston Ave" and other tracks on the artist's Myspace page.

(Photo: Astronautalis in China, courtesy of his Myspace page)

Coheed and Cambria is coming to Dallas tonight with Russian Circles and Secret Machine at the House of Blues and I am going to be there.

I have never seen them live but I hear they are incredible and Claudio Sanchez' giant hair is reason enough to attend.

Come back Monday and tell us what you thought of the show.