Now approaching age 76, Leonard Cohen has announced what is ominously being billed as his "final four North American dates." Thankfully, the context appears to just be for his current world tour, which began in 2008 and saw the iconic performer play three-hour marathon concerts to packed arenas and venues everywhere; however, Cohen himself did hint at retirement several times along the tour path. Even when his career was in full swing, Cohen often took an excessively long time between albums and tours as he pursued other interests and he would drop out of the public eye for years at a clip.

That said, Cohen does plan to return to the studio in 2011, so we'll keep our fingers crossed that he'll grace the next generation with his awesome stage presence and his impeccable performances. But, for now, there will only be four more chances to see him in concert, in North America, and they are all at intimate 3,000-seat venues.

Like their infamous jams themselves, Phish have been nothing but a constant flurry of activity since reforming last year. With tickets for Phish's fall tour set to go on-sale this weekend, the band has announced a number of other projects for fans to look forward to and, you know, discuss in online message groups for the next few weeks.

First up, in October, Phish will release 'Coral Sky,' a DVD of their legendary performance at the Coral Sky Amphitheater in West Palm Beach, Fla. from Nov. 2, 1996. A longtime fan favorite, this show is notable for several reasons. The band unofficially expanded to a five-piece as Santana's Karl Perazzo joined in on percussion for the evening. Additionally, Butch Trucks (Allman Brothers Band) sat in on drums for the encore. With these special guests as a catalyst, Phish focused their improvisational experiments that evening on discovering new polyrhythmic spaces within their music. A few nights earlier they covered an entire Talking Heads album, 'Remain in Light,' as part of their annual Halloween tradition, and after having faithfully performed 'Crosseyed and Painless' as part of that spectacle, they used this show to take the song to more exploratory territory.

Artist: KT Tunstall
Video: 'Fade Like a Shadow'
Highlight: "'Fade Like a Shadow' is a song about being haunted by someone who is still alive -- like a dark presence on your shoulder," KT Tunstall tells Spinner. She compliments the hidden video cast orchestrating the flashlights and the fluorescent strobes for the video: "I loved making this vid with the rad, roller-skating ninjas, although I had serious whiplash the next day after all the headbanging." See the head-banging, toe-tapping video below.

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When Spinner recently spoke with Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard about his longtime side project Brad, we couldn't resist asking about the differences between the ways Eddie Vedder and Brad vocalist Shawn Smith approach music. Both bands come from that Northwest grunge tradition, but as we found out, Gossard sees them as quite different.

"How Shawn works, he's very spontaneous," Gossard tells Spinner. "Fifty percent of the time, the first vocal you here is the first vocal he went out and sang. Ed is so into poetry, so into words. He's done things that are very spontaneous, but almost more as an experiment to show that he can do it. It reminds me of him knowing a river really well. He's figured out a path in terms of how his vocal should go. Shawn is the most absolute -- the best of Brad is him experiencing something for the first time and living with the fact that to revisit it and improve on it. Once he falls in love with it, it's done."

It's been 13 years since Interpol formed in New York City and eight since the band's debut, 'Turn on the Bright Lights,' dragged post-punk from the shadows back into the (in their case, red) spotlight. So what if they haven't turned out to be the second coming of Joy Division or the next U2 (although they are opening for them) -- there's nothing wrong with being this generation's Depeche Mode, outlasting the trendy scene they helped spawn, and looking damn good doing it.

Singer Paul Banks, guitarist Daniel Kessler and drummer Sam Fogarino may be down one man since bassist Carlos D. split camp, but with the release of their self-titled fourth album, they're far from down for the count. Drummer Sam Fogarino spoke to Spinner from a Toronto tour stop to ponder the pleasures and perils of being Interpol.

Since Interpol started, what's been the biggest change in the band?

Innocence. It's gone.

All of it? That sounds sad.

Well, with the loss of innocence comes experience and confidence. So, we're a bunch of well-read whores now. [Laughs] The other big thing is that you lose the chips on your shoulder. You realize that a lot of people that were citing Manchester as this Interpol influence, a lot of that was in a good light -- it turned people on to us.

In advance of the Sept. 14 release of 'Hurley,' Weezer are letting fans try before they buy, as the album is currently streaming in its entirety on MySpace. Newly free from a 16-year recording contract with Geffen, 'Hurley' is Weezer's first album in a new deal with punk mainstay Epitaph and comes with expectations that the band has returned to its mid-'90s sound.

So, how does the new material actually fare? 'Hurley' is definitely rawer than the sleek mainstream sound of 'Raditude,' but there's still plenty of chic power pop to go around. Opener and lead single 'Memories' is the record at its best. The track opens with orchestral tuning before blasting into a bouncy, hyper-melodic pop punk number that would be home on the Warped Tour.