Some links for your week-end:

• We went to see ISLANDS last night at the Grog Shop. Big ol’ band. The sound wasn’t great, the singer needed a haircut, and the violin players looked like Martin Yip, but it was a good show. Great bass player. Get two tracks not on the new album: “Abominable Snow” [MP3] and “Flesh” [MP3]
• David Byrne on packaging and music.
• I got my In Persuation Nation fan kit in the mail from Riverhead this week. Check out the new goodies on George’s site: “I Can Speak!” [MP3] and “In Persuasion Nation” [MP3] read by him.  ALSO: Here’s our man on Studio 360 this week.
• Imagine no religion.
• James Kochalka is reading Etgar Keret’s new one.
• Tom on “Deal or No Deal?”
• Backwards City turns two, and Newpages has a review that says for a lit journal, it’s “a different kind of read…[one that] knows how to laugh.” I have good news about those folks on the way…