A few more musical nuggets to toss your way....

The L.A. band Rock Kills Kid shows a lot of promise on its Are You Nervous? album, particularly in the catchy rocker Paralyzed. Look and listen right here.

Pearl Jam's World Wide Suicide is still rocking the airwaves even as the band tries pushing the excellent Life Wasted into the marketplace. Catch a live version of Suicide from their impressive VH1 Storytellers special, further evidence of Pearl Jam's stage clout.

The Raconteurs, the side project that White Stripes leader Jack White formed with Brendan Benson and other pals, have a rather droll video out for Steady, As She Goes. It's a soap box car scenario featuring a cameo by Paul Reubens.

With Ken unavailable to impose parameters, I'm winging the weekly playlist, which is going to be an audio/visual ricochet considering my dubious technical skills and the lack of a proper template. So what follows is a hodgepodge of sights and sounds assembled to distract, amuse and perhaps confound you.

Last week, I wrote a story about the resurgence of anti-war tunes, and one of the more clever entries this year is Todd Snider's You Got Away With It (A Tale of Two Fraternity Brothers) from his upcoming The Devil You Know album, out Aug. 8. The song is a hilarious skewering of Dubya, who is never mentioned by name. Highly recommended, but I'm having trouble finding it online. Duh, OK, first example of cyber disability. But you can hear Snider talk about Fraternity with his pal, country singer Patty Griffin, here and here.

In fairness, and for balance, and to thwart any hate mailers, may I suggest that the red-white-and-bluesy types sample a new pro-troops tune that is gaining momentum with military radio listeners. It's Forever Free by the Bob Polding Band.

India Arie's Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship, the new No. 1 album in Billboard, is another soulful batch of self-empowerment anthems and spiritually oriented mantras. Take a gander at the old-fashioned, slow-edit, feel-good video for Little Things.

Just Like the Fambly Cat by indie-rock outfit Grandaddy is a fairly groovy album, and so is the quaint little ditty, Elevate Myself. The animated video is kinda fun too. The band's on tour, in case you're interested in a truly animated version of the music.

This week's playlist isn't exactly right down the center of the mainstream (what would that be these days -- a mix of Beyonce, Chili Peppers and Yung Joc?). But there's a new mini-movement of bands taking a new approach toward rocking up traditional folk ballads -- the kind of stuff that half of Dylan's early repertoire, from Masters of War to Hard Rain's Gonna Fall, is based on. The songs are usually British/Scottish/Irish/Welsh in origin, sometimes filtered through versions evolved by American colonists, usually in the Appalachian regions.

Ethnomusicology aside, the point is that this stuff is thrilling in a way matched by almost no other music when it's done right -- mesmerizing minor chords, weird tales, haunting vocals and rock rhythms. With apologies to brilliant artists such as Steeleye Span, Pentangle and Trees (all of whom are worth investigating), the group that perfected the style in the late '60s was the British band Fairport Convention, when Richard Thompson was their lead guitarist and the late, superbly gifted Sandy Denny was their singer. (Unhalfbricking and Liege and Lief are the albums to get.)

Two current acts are reviving the style from different angles. The Eighteenth Day of May are a British unit reinvigorating the Fairport model. Crooked Still is a Massachusetts act working from a basic bluegrass blueprint but adding a cello drone that adds an entire new layer of gravity and depth. Playlist and more info follow.

Last Thursday we featured a Bonnaroo playlist from Brian Mansfield. This week it's not so thematic: It's 10 songs that really stood out to me in recent random listening, songs I'd recommend downloading or hearing in your favorite fashion in the hopes that you'll really like 'em too. Clips provided.

1. Slash from Guns N' Roses/I See Hawks in L.A.: Nothing like a good story song, and this is quite a tale: the saga of dueling Slashes appearing at rival L.A. parties in trendy Beachwood Canyon, with plenty of deliberate guitar cliches leading into an epic faceoff to determine which Slash is the imposter. And if you're wondering where this fine alt-country/rock band comes up with this stuff, I'm told it's based on a real incident. Album: California Country.

Rest of the list follows.

One of the regular features planned for the Listen Up blog is playlists, from me and other USA TODAY critics, to run on Thursdays. Since the Bonnaroo festival starts tonight in Manchester, Tenn., it seems logical to run a list of songs by acts appearing at the four-day shindig. It's compiled for your enjoyment by Brian Mansfield, who will be live on the scene.

> Marah, The Demon of White Sadness

> Dios (Malos), I Want It All

> The Rockwells, Knot of Tension

> Steel Train, I Want You Back

> Mike Doughty, 27 Jennifers

> Electric Eel Shock, Scream for Me (Single Edit)

> Cat Power, The Greatest

> Bela Fleck & The Flecktones, Poindexter (Alternate Deleted Version)

> The Wood Brothers, One More Day

> Blues Traveler, Sun and the Storm

> Oysterhead, Mr. Oysterhead

> Brothers Past, Get Away Somehow>Year of the Horse>Can You Keep a Secret