Last week, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid broke his ribs and his face in a mysterious "exercise accident." Now, Harry Reid is speaking out on what the hell happened. We still don't get it.

Holy hell, this is harrowing. This past weekend, Delorean, an electronic-pop act from Barcelona, performed at the Mexican installment of the Mutek Festival and on Monday morning, they were still at their Mexico City hotel when an emergency call came in, urging them to vacate the premises due to a shootout. They complied—and were taken hostage.

Mark Covino and Jeff Howlett's documentary, out on Friday, is simply titled A Band Called Death. It provides a thorough biography of an under-appreciated protopunk garage band that existed on the cusp of punk. They were called Death, obviously. The Detroit band, founded in 1971 by three brothers—David Hackney (guitar), Dannis Hackney (drums) and Bobby Hackney (bass, vocals)—was disbanded in 1977, but managed to record an album's worth of songs in demo sessions. When the band was rediscovered by record collectors, punk obsessives, and underground DJs in the 2000s, the Hackneys were hailed as visionaries.

Back in June, when Amanda Palmer got $1.2 million via Kickstarter to support her new album and tour, the Dresden Dolls singer set a new record for music projects on the fundraising site. The average successful music Kickstarter asks for and receives about $5,000. Palmer asked for $100,000 and then got 12 times that. Naturally, she was thrilled, but now she's being asked to better explain what she's doing with all that money, and she's become a poster child for Kickstarter's accountability problems in the process.

The members of Here We Go Magic were driving in Ohio and picked up a hitchhiker. The hitchhiker was director John Waters. Here is their story, as told by guitarist Michael Bloch in an email his record label forwarded to us:

Long, long ago (the 1970s), in a faraway and strange land (the 1970s), there existed a tiny anarchistic tribe called the Sex Pistols. Though noted mainly for their music, they also dabbled in the visual arts—decorating their London cave dwellings with whimsical pictures called "graffiti."

The '90s indie sensation R.E.M., who you haven't thought about since Automatic for the People, has officially broken up. Oh thank God. They had gotten to be like a novelist who lived too long and wrote all these crappy books that sullied the reputation of their sterling early works.

The music festival component of South by Southwest kicks off this Wednesday in Austin, where record company people, media, sponsors, and probably Bill Murray will spend the following four days in delirious pursuit of the event's hottest commodity: buzz.

Of the 2,000 or so bands scheduled to perform, a handful have spent the past few months steadily accumulating blog and word-of-mouth hype. Making a good impression here will be an important early step in their ascent (after that, it goes: song placement in Virgin Mobile commercial, appearance on next Twilight soundtrack, Kanye West sample/collaboration). So in honor of the year—but really because it was so hard to narrow it down to ten—here are 11 essential buzz bands playing at SXSW 2011.

Indie band The White Stripes formally announced their breakup today. People in 2003 are very upset.

Now that OK Go's music videos have become synonymous with huge, viral hits; the pressure heightens with each new offering. This one's a documentary of the band's 8.5-mile parade through Los Angeles, spelling their name in the city's blocks.

"Hard core hip hop" band "Imperial Stars" today struck upon the best guerrilla promotion ever when they blocked the jam-packed 101 Freeway in Hollywood in order to perform their hit song Traffic Jam 101 atop their logo-emblazoned panel truck.

Joe, Mika and the gang talk about their favorite bands: Spoon! Of Montreal! Vampire Weekend! They almost keep the ruse going until the end of the clip, when Mika's feigned look of understanding drops and she whispers, "Eminem?"

Break out the Marlboro Reds and warm beer, because Van Halen is back. Right now the original members are "in the studio recording an album with [David Lee] Roth" that should be out next year. Somewhere, Sammy Hagar is crying.

Last July our Hipster of the Decade, blogger Carles, arbitrarily coined a genre known as chillwave or glo-fi. It's now on iTunes, which is as close as possible to an official seal. So what makes a genre?

No, seriously. That, according to the Wall Street Journal, is why Brooklyn is rife with unwieldy monikers. Although, considering the most common band names are lame as all hell, this is probably not a bad thing.

The Joe Biden relative who isn't named after Obama's dog? He is a rock star! He hangs out in the LES and plays in a band and has at least one tattoo!

Hipster Grifter Kari Ferrell sounds really clever until you notice she just re-used a few key lines over and over, via email. Uh, outrage! New email evidence concerns her imaginary beard-based coffee table book:

What do you get when you mix the star power of musical train wreck Axl Rose with the finance-as-a-second-career media appeal of former ballplayer Lenny Dykstra? A Guns N' Roses financial columnist!

Ridiculously braided Guns "N" Roses frontman Axl Rose is destroying our national economy this holiday season through sloth and anger. And, even more, by not selling any freakin records:

In what is sure to be the most consequential piece of legal maneuvering since 50 Cent sued Taco Bell last week, idiot Guns n' Roses frontman Axl Rose had his attorney fire off a scathing letter to the Dr. Pepper corporation regarding the company's recent GnR-related marketing mishaps. It promises to be quite a dustup—rock and roll style!!1! Take, heed, soft drink companies: here's what happens when you try to give out a free soda to everyone in America: