If so, you’re probably better poised than we are to win a contest kicking off today. So listen up artists, armchair critics, and wannabe designers: HarperCollins, in collaboration with the Saatchi Gallery, are sponsoring a competition to design a book cover for the forthcoming The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal, Sean Dixon’s debut novel. To all our artsy readers: opportunity knocks (though we’re not making any claims about fame and fortune). The collaboration......

Any Sonic Youth fans in the audience? Thought so... you probably already know about this then, but here's a heads-up for everyone else: Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon steps into uncharted territory in a provocative collaboration with video artist Tony Ousler and filmmaker Phil Morrison. Expect a critique of advertising, automobiles and gender stereotyping, washed down with lashings of noise, SY-style. The band includes glitchy Renaissance man Jim O'Rourke, ex-DNA drum machine diva Ikue......

Londonist saw Nirvana on stage back when Kurt still had a head and never really got what all the fuss was about. All the bands of that period that played better, wrote more interesting songs and managed to resist the temptations of Courtney Love and shotguns have had a much more lasting contribution to the music scene. Sonic Youth outplayed Nirvana simply by plugging in a guitar and recording some feedback so we're a......