Around The Blogs: Julian Casablancas, Peter Gabriel and Syracuse shows.

This month's SPIN Magazine is must have just for the Julian Casablancas interview they managed to nail down. Sure, the former Strokes' lead singer probably just granted it to promote his new solo album (because, everyone knows, it'll be forever until the band agrees to be out an album together), but he says some provocative things.

When asked about his original vision for The Strokes, "I realize now, my idea was always to take undergroundish, cool music and make it mainstream. That was my goal, and we haven't achieved it. We got to the top of the underground, but we never got as big as Green Day or Creed or any of the bands we were supposed to be replacing in 2001. So, in my mind, here's still a step to take." Via SPIN Online

+ There's some great news for indie rock lovers otherwise. Google just announced they are going to begin implementing a music-specific search (partnering with a few other companies including Lala and MySpace Music). On their official Google blog they explain, "Now, when you enter a music-related query -- like the name of a song, artist or album -- your search results will include links to an audio preview of those songs provided by our music search partners MySpace (which just acquired iLike) or Lala" Via BrooklynVegan

+ This is too cool to ignore. Peter Gabriel is releasing an album entirely of covers ("Scratch My Back") in 2010. He'll do the typical, paying homage to groups like The Kinks or David Bowie. However, Gabriel also plans on sampling from more recent acts like Arcade Fire, Radiohead and Bon Iver. Can't you totally picture this man singing "Idioteque?" Via NME.com

+ Finally, there are some show booking challenges going on in Syracuse right now. The first, TMobile has launched a contest for universities to show the most Weezer love in exchange for a free show from the band (similar to Death Cab for Cutie doing this last year). I don't know how much Weezer love exists in the land of Orange (after all, we're one of the few Crayola original 8's to not be featured on a Weezer album cover), but a Facebook group has already popped up to rally support.

Second, Syracuse is really overbooking this Nov. 17 date. University Union just announced their next Bandersnatch show will happen on that date featuring The Academy Is... The Wescott Theater has Minus The Bear booked that night for awhile now too.  The Black Communications Society even started promoting Harry Belefonte (you know, "Day-O" and "Jump In The Line") coming to talk about his TV, music and theater career that evening. Decisions, decisions....

(Though to be fair, there's only one decision in my mind that evening. His likeness is now on the syr.edu homepage and his last name rhymes with pass.)

Syracuse University via kwout