First up, the fantastic Hawaii-born, California-based Simone White did an awesome song called "The American War" from her forthcoming album Beekeeping: The Gentle Craft, but for now you can get it on a Kill Rock Stars compilation called The Sound the Hare Heard (eMusic, Amazon). The other noteworthy song on that compilation was from Detroit's Aliccia BB, who did "Best Friend Forever" which will be on her forthcoming album. If Aliccia BB sounds familiar, it's probably because of her involvement with low-fi favorites Slumber Party. I played a remix of their song "Electric Boots" several years ago (on 7/5/04), but today we heard the original version, from the album 3 (iTunes, eMusic, Amazon). Next we heard some new stuff from the Apples in Stereo. They haven't had the best output in a few years, but their new album New Magnetic Wonder (iTunes, eMusic, Amazon) is pretty good. We heard their best song in years "Energy" and another good cut "Play Tough". And finally indie-darling Andrew Bird's new album Armchair Apocrypha (iTunes, Amazon) comes out tomorrow, and while like almost all of his recent stuff I find most of it rather boring, there is one awfully good track called "Heretics". This week's episode features clips from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (which can be seen in full here) and Real Time with Bill Maher (podcast).