And now for some links that caught my eye today…

Musician-Authors:

• Patti Smith is following up her National Book Award-winning memoir, Just Kids, by writing a detective novel and recording a new LP inspired by Saint Francis of Assisi, the home of Dylan Thomas, and Mikhail Bulgakov’s 1967 novel The Master and Margarita.
• Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke is working on a book, possibly an “erotic memoir detailing [his] experiences with groupies.”
• Steve Earle is releasing a new T-Bone Burnett-produced album and novel of the same name: I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive.
• Jolie Holland wrote an essay for Poetry Magazine on poetry and music.

New Songs/Videos:

• Cass McCombs debuted the opening track off his forthcoming album, Wit’s End. Hear “County Line” here.
• Sleigh Bells premiered their bloody “Rill Rill” video.
• No Age unveiled director Patrick Daughters’ take on “Fever Dreaming.”
• The Go! Team dropped 3 videos and a new song, “Chimp in a Toga.”

Great read alert, folks: The summer “Festival Issue” of Five Dials — featuring a new poem by Ryan Adams, a short story by Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke, thoughts on touring by Arcade Fire’s Sarah Neufeld, Raymond Pettibon’s artwork, an essay by LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy, and much more — is now available as a free download via the literary magazine’s publisher, Hamish Hamilton.

Though I admittedly jumped ahead to Adams’ “The Wind-up,” which touches on his oft-discussed subjects of stage fright and being born with a relentless muse, Murphy’s reflections on writing “Losing My Edge” for LCD Soundsystem’s 2002 debut also grabbed my attention as they are wonderfully eloquent, revealing, and at times humorous. One funny pull-quote: “If you put a million twenty-two-year-olds behind typewriters, they’d come up with [“Losing My Edge”] eventually, or perhaps they’d just come up with Twilight.”

Grab the free (15.2 MB) PDF copy here.

Earlier this month, we announced that the debut solo album from Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke, The Boxer, will be released in June, preceded by the single “Tenderoni.” At that time, Okereke — who has parted with both his former band and last name — hinted that the record would showcase his dance music influences (not to mention he’s cuddling a sampler in the promo pic). Well, the track hit the Internets today, and I’d say this jam will almost certainly be more welcome at dance clubs than rock clubs.

It takes about a minute to get cooking, but the buildup is well-worth the wait. Stream Kele’s “Tenderoni” below (via SKOA):

We mentioned that a new project was in the works for Bloc Party frontman Kele Okereke last fall, and now here it is: Okereke dropped his last name for the release of his first solo album, The Boxer, due out on June 21, NME reports. The record, which was produced primarily by XXXChange, will be preceded by the single “Tenderoni” one week prior to its release.

So will The Boxer sound like Bloc Party? Not exactly: “I’ve said from the beginning I’m into dance,” Okereke told NME in their new issue, “it gets me excited and I think this record is going to go some way to prove that to people, hopefully.”

Check out the tracklist below:

Bloc Party drummer Matt Tong pretty much called it earlier this summer when he said that the band members “definitely need to have a break and gain a bit of perspective on life outside of the band.” Not only that, but Tong seemed to have a hunch that frontman Kele Okereke would be the first to go solo, adding, “Kele is an insatiable workaholic and creating is something he is so connected to so you’ll definitely hear from him again.”

Well, it hasn’t been long since Tong’s quote, which catalyzed a slew of “Bloc Party Breaking Up?” headlines, and, just as he predicted, Okereke is hard at work on a solo album. Producer Hudson Mohawk spilled the beans in an interview with BBC1 (via Strangeglue):