Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson (hereafter referred to as MBAR for sanity purposes, yours and mine) is heading out on tour with Suckers and Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers. The nationwide tour includes a stop in Austin for SXSW, where Miles will be playing the Saddle Creek showcase. Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers are also playing several shows.

MBAR is the Brooklyn-based songwriter with a bad boy rep based on his own tales of drinkin’, druggin’, livin’ and lovin’. KEXP called his work “multi-instrumentational, introspective, and very personal,” while Spinner pulled his card, describing one of his songs as “the sound of fear.”

Says Kyp Malone of TV on the Radio, “He is in my opinion without a contemporary rival when it comes to story telling.” In fact, the boys of TV on the Radio are like other brothers to MBAR. Not a bad musical family to be in.

Wolfgang Johannes Puck takes no prisoners. Progeny of a pastry chef and ne’er do well of a butcher, he is as notorious for his savvy business dealings as he is for his accolade-strewn decades of whipping up impeccable, celebrity-friendly delights at Spago, Granita and Cut. And not to mention his legendary back-of-the-house hissies when his minions in the kitchen are not stepping up to the grill.

Three 6 Mafia, an Academy-award winning rap group hailing from Memphis, is not comprised of gentleman one would like to trifle with–”It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” after all.

So imagine my consternation upon learning that the Wolf and the Mafia were teaming up to crank out something…edible…for the folks at Spago in Bev Hills. The sunglassed, black hat wearin’, leather clad bad boy musicians descended upon the elderly toque’s kitchen to get schooled in the finer arts of grillin’.

Naturally, a healthy serving of flame-broiled, nicely flambéed chaos ensued. And of course the whole stunt, er, cooking lesson, was scheduled to shamelessly plug run coincidentally around the time the rappers’ new reality cooking show.

But really? There are no words. Check it out below.

The story goes that The Bundles formed when Moldy Peach Kimya Dawson recorded some ditties with comic book artist/musician Jeffrey Lewis in 2001, and by the next year they’d added Jeffrey’s brother/bandmate Jack Lewis and Anders Griffen. But they were all rising musicians independent of each other, and they split ways to tour with their respective projects over the next several years. (Maybe you’ve heard Kimya’s contribution to “Juno” once or twice).

But alas, they re-Bundled in 2009 and finally recorded a proper full-length, due out March 9 via K Records. “Klutter” is a jangly (no really, it jangles), fast-paced, upbeat track from the band, great for listening to when you need a little wintertime boost; spring is on the way.

Download track: The Bundles – “Klutter”

Hole–the multi-platinum group fronted by Courtney Love and featuring new members–is set to play tonight in London. The band will play a short set at the Proud Galleries location in Camden, according to NME. The band is also set to play the Shockwaves NME Awards on February 17.

The band’s upcoming full-length, Nobody’s Daughter, is slated for an early 2010 release. The album has reportedly been in the works for over five years, and marks the band’s first album since 1998′s Celebrity Skin.

Former bassist Melissa Auf der Maur provided backing vocals for Nobody’s Daughter,  though she and founding guitarist Eric Erlandson have both criticized a Hole reunion without longtime members. Love tweeted last year “Hole is MY Band MY name and MY Tradmark.” [sic]

If you (like me) find yourself ferreting  through an increasingly narrow tunnel of cultural obsessions you’ve cultivated through the years, you’ll understand the latest iteration of my OCD: pairing music with food. Certain very particular flavors simply demand to be serenaded by certain very particular artistes.

My top picks (this week):

Björk and Roquefort cheese: The pungent, wet, moldering, delicate, umami-packed, grassy, sheepy richness of my favorite cheese, cut with tiny razor-sharp pin pricks of flavor-bitchslaps always tastes better with the outré Icelandic princess aggressively wailing, whimpering, simpering, sighing, giggling and shrieking in my tingling ears.

The Decemberists and baby back ribs with a tangy black bean sauce: Classic fare that tastes like America (a zesty, caramel-candy crust enveloping succulent flakes of melting, plump meat topped with a 20-spice, beer infused rootin’ tootin’ fiber-packed sauce) can only be truly appreciated while listening to the accordion and Wurlitzer organ-wielding tall-tale tellers from Portland. “My Mother Was a Chinese Trapeze Artist” indeed.

Brazilian Girls and red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese buttercream and sprinkled with shaved almonds: Deceptively intimidating looking but totally accessible and addictive, these cocoa-packed red velvet cupcakes are lathered with creamy swirls of toe-scrunchingly sweet and lip-puckeringly tangy frosting with reassuringly crunchy, buttery slivers of almond. They’re even more prone to being mauled by my mouth when the tango/chason/reggae/lounge-flecked electro-dance curators the Brazilian Girls are zinging through my ears.

Tim “Sole” Holland–an early member of the hip-hop collective anticon–announced today he is leaving after 11 years. Def Jux’s El-P announced similar news last week. The artist-run label was founded in 1998 by a group of collaborators, including pedestrian, jel, doseone and alias. Odd Nosdam and WHY? soon followed.

“I will continue to work with many of the [anticon.] artists and will always love them as brothers and consider them allies,” the MC said in a statement. “This is a decision to change the way my music will be exploited and adapt to shifting paradigms.”

Sole, back in the U.S. after a two-year stint in Spain, plans to release future work via his own Black Canyon Records and through his website.

Promoter Todd P has joined forces with fellow promoters Yo Garage to create a new all-ages festival in Monterrey, Mexico after SXSW. Andrew W.K., Telepathe, Dan Deacon, Pictureplane, No Age, Toro Y Moi, Das Racist, Fucked Up, Los Fancy Free, Quiero Club and more are confirmed for the event March 20-22. Seventy-five American, Mexican and international bands are slated to play two stages at the Autocinema Las Torres.

Tickets are $30 for the three-day pass and available via PayPal. Lodging and camping options are available on the promoters’ respective websites, as well as international travel information. A passport or passport card is required to enter Mexico. Discount shuttle buses will run three times daily from SXSW.