He's been called everything from balladeer to punk rocker, anti-folker to indie-popper. On his twelfth birthday, he received his first electric guitar and in 1993 started his first punk band, Radish. They broke up in 1999 and Ben Kweller moved to Brooklyn, New York to embark on a solo career.

While Benjamin Curtis' band Secret Machines and twin sisters Alejandra and Claudia Deheza's band On-Air Library! were touring together in 2004, they decided to connect on a music project. By the end of 2006, Curtis and the Deheza sisters had completely disappeared into the band School of Seven Bells.

From Stockholm, Lykke Li is the latest rising star in Swedish pop music. After appearing on Swedish MTV and winning a Swedish Grammy, Lykke Li landed a deal with Atlantic Records. Her debut full-length album, "Youth Novels," was produced with help from Bjorn Yttling, of Peter, Bjorn and John.

After releasing seven albums under several incarnations of their band, The Jayhawks, the duo reunited in 2008 to record the heavily acoustic album, "Ready For The Flood."

P.O.S., the versatile, genre shattering, locally-based musician, otherwise known as Stef Alexander, is once again taking the hip-hop world by storm with his latest release, "Never Better."

Anya Marina has been on the radio for years. Except she was the one playing the music rather than creating it. The former San Diego DJ is on the other side of the microphone now with her delicate song-writing.

It's been over four-and-a-half years since The Hopefuls released their debut "The Fuses Refuse to Burn." Formerly named The Olympic Hopefuls until the Olympic committee protested, they've had more changes than just their name before the release of their new album, "Now Playing at the One-Seat Theater."

With their fourth album "Secret are Sinister" under their belts, Brooklyn indie-rockers Longwave are hoping the release of this album will go better than the last. Challenges like Hurricane Katrina, a record label merger, and a canceled tour plagued the release of their previous album "There's A Fire." After some encouragement, the band decided to record another record.

They met in Brooklyn where the duo of guitarist Tommy Eisner and drummer Linda Beecroft created the bluesy psychedelic folk-rock of Golden Animals. After the release of their first EP in 2006, they moved to southern California for a more laidback atmosphere to write their full-length.

It's natural that the Flaming Lips' new dramatic feature film, Christmas on Mars - conceived by bandleader Wayne Coyne and billed as "a fantastical film freak-out" - should contain all of the psychedelia, drama, humor and hopefulness that fans have come to love about the band's music itself.