1. Jeff of Jefitoblog has a really wonderful Friday mixtape series going on every week. I missed the one from Friday before last, but I’m still listening to the first two, and the most recent is surely good, as it features Stars, Buckingham Nicks, Aretha Franklin & Steely Dan. Also, it’s Jefitoblog, and Jeff’s posts are high quality all-around, which is why his blog is a long-time T-Sides favorite.

2. Speaking of favorites, Ear Farm knows where it’s at. I’m completely jealous of Matt’s ingenuity when it comes to weekly features. His 8+ feature is almost always some of the best music writing out there, and his weekly review of the Elbo.ws Top 10 tracks is something I wish I had come up with myself. In this week’s Elbo.ws Top 10 review, I completely agree with his views on Ben Kweller (his music has always seemed just so young and silly to me, and not in a good way), Tom Waits (the idea of him is often better than his execution, although, thanks to Jefitoblog’s weekly “Idiot’s Guide To…” feature on Tom Waits awhile back, he’s grown on me quite a lot) and Beck (I just don’t seem to like him as much as everyone else does).

3. I’m sorry, but I completely don’t understand the Voxtrot hype anymore. I still like the songs I liked when I posted about them back in spring, but their new song on Gorilla vs. Bear sounds like a mix of those songs. They seem like a one-trick pony, if you ask me.

4. I’ve been talking about and listening to Sunny Day Real Estate a lot lately, and I think it was the world’s way of telling me that Jeremy Enigk has a solo album coming out. It will be hard not to compare his solo stuff to SDRE, but it sounds like it will be worth a listening shot. There are a couple songs up on his myspace page for your perusal…

5. Gerard Vs. Bear. Just go there.