As Thursday lurches towards an end, naturally thoughts turn to starting the weekend early. Rather than another tired trip to the pub, we can't think of a better way to do so than with minimal techno at the ICA. Ghostly International's Matthew Dear performs there tonight with his full band, Matthew Dear's Big Hands. Though we cannot personally attest to the size of Dear's hands, we do know that they are as equally nimble......

This Sunday, rap fans will pay their respect to late hip-hop producer J-Dilla at Cargo in Shoreditch. DJs including Shortee Blitz, Marc Mac and DJ Spin Doctor will be bumping favourites from Dilla's back catalogue in an event held to honour his life and legacy. Born James Yancey, and also known as Jay Dee, Dilla was the "producer's producer": feted by the likes of Kanye and Pharrell, he was one of the most influential......

SFist worried over drugstore chain Walgreens celebration of Black History Month.Gothamist was surprised that apparently New York City is the fourth most miserable city in the country, after Detroit, Stockton, CA, and Flint, MI.Shanghaiist finds out what the Chinese think of Hilary and Obama.It was with a healthy amount of schadenfreude that Phillyist reported that former Eagle, and now Cowboy (ew), Terrell Owens owes the Eagles a significant wad of cash.Torontoist is two weeks......

After numerous appearances on the Continent, as well as performances at such legendary festivals as MUTEK and Detroit's Electronic Music Festival, we were beginning to think perhaps we smelled bad. Why else wouldn't Gui Boratto come to visit our lovely island? Thankfully we no longer need to be concerned about our possibly poor hygiene, for the kind souls at Allez-Allez have once again teamed with the Kompakt label, this time to bring the Brazilian......

With the sun barely deigning to grace us with its presence this summer, the only refuge of those wishing to break a sweat is the club (or the gym or the tube, but two those places are each as unpleasant as the other). To ensure that we get the maximum possible perspiration per pound, Vice Magazine's Club Do It! and 7 Year Glitch have imported Detroit's master of ghettotech, DJ Assault to headline their......

Though it hasn't been that well publicised, everyone's favourite electro indie kids Hot Chip had a new album out on Monday. It's called "DJ Kicks" and is a compilation that: "takes the listener on a sublime journey through the dusty crevices of Hot Chip’s 10-legged record collection it manages to take in wonky electro-pop, Detroit techno, off-kilter house, hip hop, mellifluous drum’n’bass, R’n’B, blues, jazz and Joe Jackson without ever sounding contrived or hackneyed.......

Listening to the radio on St. George's Day (last Monday in case you missed it) we heard various proposals for a national anthem for England, something that could be sung at Twickenham to counter the emotion of "Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau" or played at the unveiling of a putative English Parliament. This set us wondering if, given the prominence of London in international affairs and the prospect of the 2012 Olympics in particular, our......

Book signings are not one of our favourite things. Queue for half an hour – bored – considering what you’ll say to the author; panic, say something platitudinous, receive a banal reply, gratefully accept a misspelled dedication in an illegible hand; go home and gloat to unimpressed flat mates. On Thursday, this lethargic PR-as-event format gets a novel respray. Freedom Press, Whitechapel, plays host to Hugo Martinez, compiler of Graffiti NYC. You won’t have......

All Londonist Sport's Christmases have come at once. It is being reported that today the NFL, the world's premier professional league of football American-style, is about to announce that a game will be played between the Miami Dolphins and the New York Giants at the soon-to-be-completed Wembley Stadium some time in the autumn. "Oh yes," we hear you murmur. "We remember that sort of thing from the late eighties and early nineties." Well, yes......

Is it petty to point out stupid errors on the major news sites like the BBC? Quick answer: Yes. Slightly longer answer: Yes, but let's do it anyway because it's fun. This piece from the Beeb site today is a bit of a filler article on Ewan McGregor's artistic preprations for his role in the forthcoming West End production of Guys and Dolls. If you want to get the inside knowledge on Euan's tonsils......

So we've all seen the stories that Ewan McGregor's going to play Sky Masterson in the Michael Grandage's upcoming production of Guys and Dolls at the Donmar. And we all know that the theatre companies have to pull in big Hollywood names these days to try and get bums on seats and coppers in coffers. But, if we're honest, we might admit to being a bit celebritied out...a bit jaded by all the Madonnas and......