· Slick Rick, Vampire Weekend, Mates of State, and Kurt Cobain's favorite songwriter Daniel Johnston are among the acts playing Philly’s second-ever Popped! fest.

· Clay Aiken is debuting his new album on QVC next Monday. Clayniacs are sooo thankful!

· How did we miss this? Pour one out for Robert Reed of Trouble Funk, who helped make the DC go-go scene.

· A former MTV exec is coming out with a book on homosexuality and the hip-hop industry -- as in, how everyone's too terrified to come out.

So on Friday night, the folks at Lollapalooza were good enough to give us a sneak peek at their lineup for 2008. They even included the Totalitarian Art-y poster you see accompanying this blog entry. The basic understanding was that we were to wait on releasing the full lineup until we received the okay from them (that's called an "embargo" in the news business … or whatever it is we do). And that is where things got completely effed.

See, this morning we published an interview with Lollapalooza mastermind Perry Farrell, who was none too happy with Chicago Sun-Times music critic Jim DeRogatis for leaking the Lolla headliners in a story he wrote on Friday. So during the course of our chat, Farrell called the famously cantankerous scribe "a stinker … a skunk at the party … Pepe LePew." This so angered DeRogatis that he decided to retaliate and post the entire festival lineup on his blog this morning (so much for that embargo).

Which means that our hand was pretty much forced. So, with all decorum thrown out the window, here's the full list of artists performing at Lollapalooza 2008 after the jump....

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The summer music festival circuit in the US is definitely hitting a fatigue moment, what with every little town organizing their own festivals and a handful of artists that seem to slut it up and play every single one. Which makes Lollapalooza, at least at this point, somewhat the victor. They seemed to have aggregated ALL the festival sluts into one place.

The lineup for the festival, to take place August 1-3 in Chicago, was supposed to be released to the media on Monday morning, but the headliners leaked last night, courtesy the Chicago Sun-Times. Even our cynical selves are impressed by the headliners: Radiohead, Kanye West, Rage Against The Machine, Nine Inch Nails, Wilco and Gnarls Barkley.

Also on the bill for the three-day fest: The Raconteurs, Broken Social Scene, Blues Traveler, Mates of State, Bloc Party, Cat Power, Stephen Malkmus, the Black Keys, Girl Talk, Grizzly Bear, Kid Sister, the Cool Kids, the Office, and the Go! Team.

We can confirm all of these acts.

Advance tickets are still available for $190 at www.lollapalooza.com

The full lineup is still sequestered, and we'll have that for you on Monday, and over the weekend, we might possibly have festival organizer Perry Farrell weighing in on the whole thing.

Stay tuned.

Many of us in the Newsroom love music festivals. From Coachella to Bonnaroo to Lollapalooza (these would all make fantastic Scrabble words), we think listening to good music out loud, in the open air is great. And it also makes us think about summer, which is always good. Some of us even remember Woodstock - both times (Hi, Kurt!). We have not been to the Sasquatch Festival in Gorge, Washington. But we hear good things. MAYBE THIS IS THE YEAR!

The lineup was announced for the Memorial Day weekend festival and features headliners R.E.M., The Cure, Death Cab For Cutie and the Flaming Lips doing a special "UFO" show. Full lineup after the jump:

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In addition to their appearance at this year’s Coachella Festival on April 25, the Verve will also be playing two other U.S. dates – one in Sin City, and the other in the Big Apple. The band plays Las Vegas’ Pearl Concert Theater at the Palms on April 26, and New York’s WaMu Theater at MSG on April 28 and April 29.

Faith No More’s Mike Patton has teamed up with Dan the Automator to form a new project called Crudo. While little is known about the band or its sound, Crudo will be making their live debut during the Sasquatch! Music Festival in Seattle in late May.

After the jump, more news on Radiohead, All Points West, Rocket From the Crypt, Kittie and Michael Jackson. For serious.

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