Artist: Gregory Rogove
Video: 'Jackyl'
Highlight: "My mom loves bananas, I love bananas, I can't get enough of them," Gregory Rogove tells Spinner. "Even though they are commonplace fruit, we shouldn't forget that they are a tropical wonder. The video for 'Jackyl' was our foray into stop-motion animation. It was a torturous but ultimately fulfilling process. I miss Monty Python."

Watch Gregory Rogove's 'Jackyl' Video

Acclaimed rock photographer Andrew MacNaughtan -- who worked with several groups including Rush and Barenaked Ladies -- died earlier this week. He was 47. According to the Toronto Star, the photographer suffered a heart attack in California where he was on assignment photographing Rush.

"We're deeply shocked and heartbroken to learn of the sudden passing of our close friend and long-time photographer, Andrew MacNaughtan," the band said on their official site. "He was a very sweet person and a very talented artist. Words cannot describe how much he will be missed. – Geddy, Alex & Neil"

MacNaughtan's own site shows a photo with "Feb. 25 1964 – Jan. 24 2012" below it although some reports indicate he died Wednesday, Jan. 25. Meanwhile, tributes appeared on his Facebook page, including photos of MacNaughtan on location for a photo shoot with Celine Dion.

In House is AOL Music's series in which we welcome artists into our offices to play some music, chat with our staffers and, generally, just hang out. For our latest visit, Spinner sat down with Minneapolis singer and rapper Dessa to discuss her career, her new album with Doomtree, 'No Kings,' and her views on homophobia and feminism in hip-hop.

"It's like a very steep incline on a snowy afternoon with a very strong headwind."

According to Dessa, that's how difficult it is to describe her sound -- a hyper-literate mixture of singing and rapping over both driving beats and a jazz-influenced live band -- to someone who's never heard her before.

"I get the skepticism," the 30-year-old Minneapolis-based artist tells Spinner about people who don't understand her genre-blending style, at least on paper. "A lot of this s--- doesn't sound so cool to talk about. I could spend all day trying to pitch it and I feel like a used car salesman. It just feels gross. I'll give you two of what I think are my best tracks, and then you'll feel it and then we've got our answer."

When Doldrums' Airick Woodhead isn't making ephemeral, drummy collages of noise and video, he's at home in Montreal YouTubing James Brown videos. "There's this one of him giving dance instructions but he's really just high out of his mind," Woodhead, the former lead for Toronto-band Spiral Beach, tells Spinner. The Doldrums' sound -- spastic, otherworldly, and proudly textural, like on the Portishead-sanctioned remix of 'Chase the Tear' -- doesn't immediately recall such normal and inane activities, but Woodhead's an aural magpie who revels in the beauty of happy accidents.

Spinner talked to Doldrums about the music found on his latest six-song EP, 'Empire Sound,' touring, the beauty of imperfection and why Canadian musicians are so unique.

You're just off touring in England and the U.S. How was that?

It was nice in England. People get more excited about Canadian artists over there. I feel like my music makes more sense over there. Maybe it's because the audience lives in an insanely tabloided, saturated culture and my music is just like largely, referential. I don't sample weird obscure shit, and it's most effective for people who might be more attuned.

Calling all musicians! Here is a great, outside-the-box sales technique: Get President Barack Obama to slip in a couple lines of your song during one of his speeches.

Last week, Obama delivered several lines from Al Green's classic 'Let's Stay Together' at a fundraising event in Harlem, and the song has now enjoyed a 490 percent sales increase after the video of the President/crooner went viral. According to Nielsen Soundscan (via Billboard), Green's 1972 classic sold 16,000 digital downloads in the week ending January 22. If only singing about boosting the economy or bettering public education had the same way of "making it rain."

It was the wildest fantasy of music nerds come to life.

James Mercer of the Shins, Colin Meloy of the Decemberists and Corin Tucker formerly of Sleater-Kinney got together recently to form a supergroup called Echo Echo. Unfortunately, the band, not to be confused with the Santa Ana, CA, indie rockers of the same name, didn't play any shows, or actually record any music together. Mostly they just sat around on a couch looking bored in a skit called "Deuce Hotel" for IFC indie comedy program 'Portlandia.'

Mercer says the idea of making music together never actually came up, even though the three were playing the parts of fictional band members.

"We never talked about it," he tells Spinner while doing press in advance of the Shins' fourth album, 'Port of Morrow,' set for release on March 20.