This Week on PasteMagazine.com: 8/25-8/29/08

The afternoon is quickly melting away, a holiday weekend is upon us and Torche is blasting into my earholes. Let's get down to business, then, and highlight PasteMagazine.com's recent content...

This week's Band of the Week is Oklahoma outfit The Uglysuit. While I was busy not writing this little feature last week, we highlighted Lykke Li. Both are appropriate ready-for-the-weekend listens.

Reviews ahoy! We're stepping up our reviewing game around these parts, which means you're going to have more things to slap user ratings on. Over the last couple weeks, we've weighed in on The Dandy Warhols, Blues Traveler, CSS, Neil Halstead, Matthew Sweet, Ra Ra Riot, The Verve, Kristoffer Ragnstam, Robyn Hitchcok, The Fiery Furnaces, Love as Laughter, Devon Williams, The Walkmen, Paul Weller, Loudon Wainwright III, Stereolab, Juliana Hatfield, Orchestra Baobab, Frightened Rabbit, Lykke Li, Mogwai and Oxford Collapse. Phew!

In the world of literature, we've touched on new books by Jack Pendarvis, Stefan Fatsis, Paul Auster, Owen King & John McNally, and, last but not least, our very own Paste contributor, Amanda Petrusich.

On the film front, we covered Beautiful Losers, Patti Smith: Dream of Life, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Trouble the Water, The Rocker, Hamlet 2, I Served the King of England and Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Features? Yeah, we got features. In fact, in the last couple of weeks we've encouraged Randy Newman to reflect on some things, examined the college a capella scene, caught up with Fountains of Wayne frontman Adam Schlesinger and all his myriad activities, dug into the music of the future with Osvaldo Golijov, caught up with Calexico about spooky dreams and other stuff, asked some hack writer to tell the life story of Zach Galifianakis, listed and YouTubed our favorite high-school principals from the movies, caught up with Irma Thomas, did the same with Indigo Girl Amy Ray, and unleashed our Best of What's Next (More than 25 up-and-coming artists you ignore at your peril!) on the music-loving world.

Exhausted yet? I know I am. Two more paragraphs...

I couldn't even begin to sum up two weeks' worth of news on the site. Instead, have a look through the archive. If you don't have any Labor Day plans, there is enough there to keep you busy, and it's positively spilling over with the likes of Aaron Sorkin, Michael Jackson, Harry Potter, Cormac McCarthy, Mavis Staples, Hunter S. Thompson and so many more. Sounds like the guest list to the cocktail party of my dreams.

That's all for this week. Have a safe holiday weekend. We won't be updating the site on Monday. Talk soon...

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