"I love Kanye but my cheese production is way down," says one desperate Craigslister, who probably should've considered that before buying a Coachella ticket in the first place. Still, it's probably more of a bargain than the scalpers trying to sell tickets for quadruple digits. Let us know if you see any more oddball Coachella offers as we continue the countdown to Indio. 

-- David Greenwald

Photo: Great Craigslist ad or greatest Craigslist ad? Credit: Craigslist

"THEY AIN'T WANT US AT THE FESTIVALS NOW WE WILL RUN THEM!" Kanye West tweeted on Wednesday. Looks like he's right: despite some noise from the haters, the 2011 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival has sold out, according to the event's website.

It's been barely over a week since the lineup, led by West, Kings of Leon and Arcade Fire, was announced, the quickest sell-out we can remember for the yearly desert bash. Did you get your tickets? 

-- David Greenwald

Photo: Coachella 2011 flier.

Microbes invade Coachella! A pretty amazing piece of filmmaking, though also an unfortunate reminder that pretty much the entire population of Southern California managed to sneak in to the music and art festival on the first two days this spring. [Via LAist]

-- David Greenwald

Why is Sweden producing most of the liveliest pop music on the planet?

There's the Hives' garagey grandeur, Dungen's psychedelic folk, the digital tundra-treks of Efterklang and the indie-rock bang of the Shout Out Louds. Sweden is exploding with pop music. Thanks to the country's extensive social welfare system, which includes provision for healthcare and even financial support for students attending music schools, unbridled creativity has the space to thrive.

Still, opportunities don't magically appear on a silver platter. The story's still the same for young bands the world over: If you want to make it, you have to work it. Even in Sweden, new groups such as Little Dragon have to hustle to survive.

The band's new "Machine Dreams"  is a slice of electronicized eclectica whose eccentric marriage of R&B,  classic soul and dance hall is a futuristic flight from the pumping pop of  its critically praised eponymous debut released in 2007. Little Dragon's healthy album sales and quickly ballooning fan base increased when fan David  Sitek of TV on the Radio invited the band to open shows on his 2009 U.S. dates; getting the track "Twice" played on "Grey's Anatomy" didn't hurt, either.

The Gothenburg-based Dragon started like a lot of struggling young artists, primarily concerned with keeping a roof over their heads in order to nurture their art.

"We'd been doing all kinds of stuff, anything so we could pay our rent," singer Yukimi Nagano says. "Any job we could get, from selling strawberries on the street to working in cafes, driving taxis. We would work any kind of job that wouldn't take up too much of our time, so the rest of the time we could be making music."

In Sweden, students can receive a periodic wage from the government during their studies; students who need help to finance their studies also receive assistance. Nagano and keyboardist Hakan Wirenstrand had made several attempts at gaining entrance to music schools, though neither was accepted.

"We tried out for the music universities," Nagano says, "but it was sort of an option in order to not have to work outside jobs; if you're in music university in Sweden, you can dedicate all your time to doing what you like -- it's like encouragement to do what you want."

While Sweden's increasingly overburdened welfare system has made opportunities for school support slimmer, it is there for a fortunate few, but even they still need to work to make ends meet.

"I have a lot of friends who are musicians in Gothenburg who get state funding for their creative work, but besides that they take any gig they can get," Nagano says. "In our case, it was working, like, five jobs just to pay the rent, but at the same time working as little as possible."

Yet work, work, work the band did, pushing its first album with an intensive touring campaign aided by viral waves of fan support.

"We did everything from all the album covers to promoting the shows," Nagano says. "It was definitely word of mouth, people talking to us after the shows and then spreading the word to their friends."

Little Dragon's appearance at Coachella (where it will perform with Gorillaz as well as playing its own set) is like a dream to Nagano, a dream she's worked hard to see come true. And if by chance all that roadwork takes a toll on her health, she needn't worry: As tax-paying citizens of Sweden, she and her bandmates have health insurance that will fully cover their needs, even in exotic locales like the USA. 

"Sweden has a really good system," she says. "It's not perfect, but they try to make it affordable for everyone. I have health insurance for whatever I need. That's where you want your tax money to go."

--John Payne

Photo of Little Dragon courtesy Life or Death PR.

On April 17, music lovers who live for vinyl will rejoice in the limited-edition bacchanalia of Record Store Day. That's when independent record stores nationwide will offer up a galaxy of exclusive releases in celebration of their anti-big-box business model and the gloriously resurgent LP. The folks behind the big event had the good sense to name Them Crooked Vultures/Queens of the Stone Age front-man (and Palm Desert native) Josh Homme as their official Record Store Day ambassador.

What are your official duties as Record Store Day ambassador?

Homme: Oh, I go from town to town playing pan flute like Zamfir. But really it's an endorsement of your local hub of finding out [what's] going on. There's a place in Coachella, in Palm Desert, called the Record Alley. It's in a mall, but I wouldn't know about anything musically had it not been there. So for me it's about recognizing where you come from but also supporting the cool little indie places. Because frankly, when people say they don't like buying records at Best Buy or Wal-Mart, I'm kinda with you. There's something very anti-cool about that, and I think music has to stay cool.

What's your favorite thing about indie record stores?

What's important is that visceral sense of discovering something, that Easter-egg happiness. To me, it's about vinyl. If something catches the eye, I just buy it. I like not knowing. People say don't judge a book by its cover, but those people usually have a . . . cover.

All of your music has been released on vinyl. Is that something you're adamant about?

To steal a modern word, I like that vinyl is an interactive job. I like that it's over soon and you have to flip it. But I also love the tangible sense of stuff. I mean, what if I want a DayGlo Jimi Hendrix poster? I don't wanna go online to get it.

It's not as fun that way.

One's cool and one's virtual cool. And I mean that in the most literal sense: It's almost cool. Downloading has really thinned the herd for record stores, so where are you gonna go now that's cool? In that respect, Axl Rose was right: Where do we go now?

Them Crooked Vultures play Coachella on Friday.

--J. Bennett.

Photo: John Paul Jones, left, Dave Grohl and Joshua Homme of Them Crooked Vultures are due to perform at Coachella. Homme is also this year's ambassador for the National Record Store Day.

Coachella is the defining music event in Southern California every year -- for fans and local artists alike. The festival has become a kingmaker for striving L.A. bands rounding the corner into national prominence. Recent performances by Silversun Pickups, the Airborne Toxic Event and No Age have been both goodbye kisses to the Echo Park club gantlet and an introduction to an eager mainstream audience. Who will be the local breakout this year? We rate the chances of L.A. artists using the only hierarchy that matters at Coachella: colored wristbands. No under-the-table swapping allowed.

Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros: VIP Pass

The debut album from the sprawling beardo-folk collective, "Up From Below," is almost a year old, but their ecstatic campfire vibe is tailor-made for a festival like this. If there's one occasion for unwashed, emaciated dudes to take their shirts off in public, it's this set. Performs Saturday.

Flying Lotus: All Access Pass

Steven Ellison's fractalized, hypnotic blend of hip-hop beats and jazz virtuosity on "Los Angeles" codified him as probably the most adventurous producer in L.A. right now. The forthcoming "Cosmogramma" is even more rapturously berserk, and he's one of maybe half a dozen people on the planet who makes playing a laptop live look like more fun than being in a band. Performs Saturday.

Local Natives: All Access Pass

"Gorilla Manor" rightfully earned its hype for an omnivorous appetite for woozy folk, pan-global pop and scuzzy guitar rock. But onstage is where the quintet seals the deal: Their three singers really do hit those ethereal harmonies live, and the effect is pretty close to transcendent. Our Magic 8 Ball says this weekend is where the rest of the country finds this out. Performs Sunday.

Iglu & Hartly: Over-21 Wristband (maybe)

The frat-rap band's singer Jarvis Anderson got naked and fought a hotel security guard at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. We're siding with the guard on this one. Performs Friday.

Mayer Hawthorne: Side Stage

The Stones Throw soul man has one of the most idiosyncratic voices in local pop -- a winking, elastic falsetto that's at times very much like Al Green, and at others like someone doing very great Al Green karaoke. Fortunately, he's got rakish-nerd charisma out the ears, and the material from his latest record, "A Strange Arrangement," is smoky and funky in a vintage way that Justin Timberlake's dad might appreciate. Performs Sunday.

The Glitch Mob: All Access Pass

The perennial procrastinators of Low End Theory, this electro trio is finally getting around to releasing its debut album, "Drink the Sea." But lo, they've ditched the coked-up quick-cuts of their remixes for a meditative, atmospheric sprawl that's gloomy on the heart but still inviting on the hips. Performs Sunday.

The Soft Pack: VIP Pass

The surf-scrim quartet, recent transplants from San Diego, have by and large shaken the whole "formerly-the-Muslims" thing, and their self-titled album of misanthropic garage punk is as zeitgeisty as it gets right now. Will it prove durable in two years? Maybe not, but their set is a great opportunity to swing by the "Legalize It!" petition tent to make friends before pushing to the front. Performs Sunday.

--August Brown

Photo of Flying Lotus AKA Steve Ellison by Axel Koester for the Los Angeles Times.

The plan was to rock the mike, not cause an identity crisis.

In 2008, when Jay-Z was named as a headlining act for Britain's fiercely rock-centric Glastonbury Festival -- a first for any hip-hop performer, let alone one of rap's epochal superstars -- the island nation erupted in furious debate. They're giving a rapper domain over one of rock's elite events? Critics derided the decision as "a disaster" and "tragic," assailing Glastonbury itself as "contaminated."

To Jay (birth name: Shawn Corey Carter), the situation smacked of segregation. "That was the old guard standing in the way, saying, 'This is rock music. This is sacred,' " he said, seated in his wood-lined corner office, a stone's throw from Times Square. "It was one of those hurdles we had to break down."

B-boy braggadocio is one thing, but a certain performance anxiety set in when the rapper first laid eyes on Glastonbury: nearly a quarter-million festival-goers camped out in a vast tent city surrounding the outdoor venue in the British countryside. Around 70,000 of them -- some openly hostile -- awaited his set. "It felt like we were invading a country," Jay said. Not only did he manage to win over the crowd -- thanks, in part, to his opening number, a cheeky cover of Oasis' biggest hit, "Wonderwall" -- but the artist known variously as Jigga Man and Young Hova in the process established a whole new enterprise. With what he calls his Glastonbury "game-changer," Jay-Z suddenly became the most internationally popular live performer in hip-hop history.

"Jay-Z is more than a rapper," said Ebro Darden, programming director of New York's influential urban radio station Hot 97 FM. "People forget he has a platinum rock album -- the mash-up thing he did with Linkin Park. He has done songs with Chris Martin and performed with Coldplay many times. Then add in [Jay's] high profile and the big intangible: People believe what he's saying in his music. He's authentic."

As a measure of his post-Glastonbury clout, this year Jay will take his show on the road to such top-tier summer music fests as Tennessee's Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival and the Summer Sonic Festival in Japan. And come Friday, Jay-Z arrives as the first straight-up rapper to claim a headlining berth at Coachella. Others have graced the lineup -- Jurassic 5, Kool Keith, MURS, Kanye West and Aesop Rock -- but none have done it at the top of the ticket.

"In hip-hop, there's not many great performers," Jay-Z, 40, said. "I look outside the genre, measuring myself against others. I look at Madonna's production and envy that. . . .  I look at the way U2 can command an audience. Bono's a performer pretty much like I am. He's not a dancer; he's not jumping around. He's having a conversation."

To be sure, such platinum-anointed MCs as 50 Cent and Lil Wayne can book arena tours and rock stadiums while never entirely crossing beyond their "urban" core audiences. Eminem remains a huge international draw but has until very recently resisted the lure of the festival stage. And West enraged fans when he headlined Bonnaroo 2008 by refusing to take the stage until just before sunrise.

But as Coachella's founder and operational mastermind Paul Tollett points out, Jay-Z is the only rhyme-spitter in the game today with enough big hits (he's topped the national album chart 11 times in a 15-year career and created many of the most anthemic street bangers of the modern hip-hop era, including "Big Pimpin' " and last year's "Empire State of Mind"), street cred, Twitter-worthy showmanship and mass appeal to connect with the desert festival's discerning audience. Moreover, at a precarious time in the live music biz, organizers are looking to Hovi Baby as a solution.

From Jay's perspective, live performances are vital in a time when music sales continue downward.

"It used to be that making albums was most of what you do and performing was like an afterthought," he said. "But now, it's like 50-50. . . . I may go make an album just so I can go and perform."

In the meantime, there is one trapping of the festival circuit that holds particular resonance for him. It has to do with fans throwing up the "diamond cutter," Jay-Z's trademark hand gesture.

"There's nothing like seeing 100,000 diamonds," said Jay.

In fact, the rapper's use of the diamond gesture resulted in a recent segment on National Public Radio questioning his links to Freemasonry and subversive imagery. Placing himself within the continuum that includes Led Zeppelin, KISS and the Beatles -- acts who have been accused of masking dark, cultish ideas in pop trappings -- Jay-Z's face lighted up with a huge grin.

"Yeah," he exclaimed. "I know I'm a rock star now."

--Chris Lee

Photo: Kevin Winter / Getty Images.

Some things about Coachella are obvious. The headliners deliver, and this year they're particularly pro: rap's Warren Buffett, Jay-Z, and stadium rock saviors Muse, plus the multimedia blitz of Gorillaz. The bill's middle is packed with great stuff that you will miss because you're standing in line to recycle your water bottles. One night, you will happen upon a mostly empty tent and from it will pour music that changes your life. As for specifics, here are four on this year's thick lineup that I wouldn't miss.

Gossip: If you know this band only from singer-provocateur Beth Ditto's many sexy European magazine covers, then you don't know Gossip. Born in Arkansas, nurtured in the Pacific Northwest home of Riot Grrrl, Gossip is as punk as dance-pop gets, and its live shows feel like the Church of the Liberated Female, with Ditto as its voluptuously sweaty, libidinous, defiantly joyful high priestess. Performs Saturday.

Gil Scott-Heron: Sly Stone may get more attention for his Coachella appearance, but Scott-Heron might well deliver a better set. The jazz-blues poet's genius can't just be reduced to the catchphrase "godfather of rap"; what he's doing now, after many years of hard knocks, is more akin to Ralph Ellison than Rakim. His new material hits like a cold snap, another "Winter in America." Performs Friday.

Faith No More: Of course, the Pavement reunion is going to rock. Let's also give what's due to this other landmark band from the golden era of shaggy guitar swagger. Faith No More may be associated with the dubious subgenre of rap-rock, but the group is far more eclectic, crazy and fun than that sad label implies. And psychedelic. And funny! Performs Saturday.

Lucero: In much of the U.S. now, bar-band rock is roots music. The style has been around long enough to make your grandparents' eyes grow misty, and its mongrel nature makes it endlessly adaptable to passions of particular communities. Lucero does bar-band rock, Memphis style, with a twang and a soul and a lot of grit. Performs Friday.

-Ann Powers

Photo credits: Beth Ditto by Tobias Hase/EPA; Gil Scott-Heron by Mischa Richter; Mike Patton of Faith No More by mark Metcalfe/Getty Images; Lucero by Alan Spearman