Fans of Champaign, Illinois’ Headlights should be aware of a new EP that the band have rather quietly released – Keep Your Friends And Loves Close Keep The City You Call Home Closer is a collection of songs recorded at radio and internet sessions over the last little while and is available only on tour and online at Polyvinyl. A couple of the songs are taken from their Daytrotter session from January of this year, one of which you can hear below (The Des Moines Register also talks to Daytrotter’s Sean Moeller). There’s also some WOXY-born tracks and you can hear the session here as well as win copies of the EP.

They’re wrapping up a tour over the next couple days and sadly, this Pollstar listing of a Toronto show in May is untrue. The band is making plans to visit our fair city, however, in late Summer or early Fall so keep an eye out. So in the meantime, read this interview at with the band at Washington Square News and check out their first-ever video for “TV” – equal parts cute (the band is adorable), dangerous (that bike is not made for three!) and strange (what’s going on at the end there?).

MP3: Headlights – “This One”
Video: Headlights – “TV” (YouTube)
MySpace: Headlights

Some reasons to look forward to August – according to The Austin Chronicle, Okkervil River will release their as-yet-untitled new album on August 7 while The New Pornographers’ Challenger has been given a release date of August 21.

Some bits on bands coming through town in the next while:

eye talks to The Postmarks, playing a free show at the Amp’d Mobile Studio on Saturday.

You may have noticed I had a Howling Bells date in my calendar for next Saturday at a venue TBA – that was based on the fact that they were doing a post-Killers tour jaunt up the eastern seaboard and I was told that they wanted to book a Toronto show on that date. But with a week to go, it looks like that’s not going to happen and that the 27th in NYC will be the end of it. Maybe next time they’re on the continent/hemisphere.

Ted Leo talks to The Idaho Statesman, The Salt Lake Tribune and The Denver Post from the road. Leo’s at the Mod Club May 2.

Tickets for Fields’ show at the Amp’d Studio are now available – I’m glad these are early-ish shows because it’ll give me a chance to head up to the El Mocambo after and catch the just-announced Last Town Chorus show that same evening. Not entirely sure I will – that week is shaping up to be a bear – but it’s good to have the option. Fields’ Everything Last Winter is out May 8.

The International Herald Tribune profiles Feist, whose The Reminder is out May 1 and who plays Massey Hall on May 25 and 26.

Filter tells the story of The Rosebuds, who are at the Horseshoe on May 28 with Land Of Talk. It’s like a mini Hot Freaks day two revival! They’ve also got a World Cafe session on NPR available to stream.

The lineup for this year’s NxNE, taking place June 7, 8 and 9, isn’t going to be announced until May 8 but some info is already trickling out. For The Records has gathered up some of the names being bandied about and I can tell you that the lineup at Lee’s Palace on the Saturday will include Los Angeles dream-poppers Great Northern and Chicago’s medallion champions Urge Overkill. I had a copy of Saturation on cassette back in high school. This song was on it.

MP3: Urge Overkill – “Sister Havana”

And you’d best not get too worn out by NxNE because on June 11, Lee’s plays host to a rather odd but still sure to be excellent pairing – The Long Blondes and Nicole Atkins & The Sea. The former are a sassy, co-ed British buzz band whose debut Someone To Drive You Home gets a domestic release June 8 while the latter is a New Jersey native steeped in country and soul who impressed the heck out of me at SxSW. Be there. Tickets are $15, on sale April 25.

Wilco’s Nels Cline pays tribute to the late Kurt Vonnegut in The Age. Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky is out May 15 and they’re at Massey Hall on June 30.

The Telegraph talks to Cat Power, in town with the Dirty Delta Blues Band on July 10 at the Phoenix. Tickets $28.50, on sale Wednesday.

Monsters Are Waiting are opening up for Maximo Park at the Mod Club on July 14! Yay! Our Earthly Pleasures is out May 8.

Brooklynvegan interviews Bjork, whom I hadn’t listened to in a couple years until this weekend when I was reminded of just how weird and wonderful her music is – consider me very excited both for her new record Volta (out May 8 and streaming a track at her MySpace) and to see her at the first day of Virgin Fest on September 8. And as for the day two headliners, Smashing Pumpkins, apparently the interview process went well and the vacancies have been filled because rumour has it that someone named Ginger Reyes will be playing the part of D’arcy Wretzky/Melissa Auf Der Mar and Jeff Schroeder will be trying to make people forget about James Iha. We’ll have to see how this goes.

And finally, the lineup for this year’s Ottawa Bluesfest has been announced and holy smoke. If this took place over the course of a weekend instead of over 11 days, it’d be hands down the destination of the Summer. But even spread out over a week and a half, it’s an embarrassment of riches. Bob Dylan, Sarah Harmer, The White Stripes, George Clinton, Blue Rodeo, Kanye West, Cat Power, Built To Spill and Metric only some of the bigger names on the lineup. It’s crazy. JAM! talks to one of the organizers about getting the lineup together.