Music Notes: Wild Flag Played Letterman; Matisyahu Shaves His Beard; D Generation to Record; More

Here are some tidbits of music news from far and wide:

• Wild Flag made its network TV debut last night, playing "Romance" on Letterman (video below).

•  Trent Reznor "feels at home" with "Dragon Tattoo": the L.A. Times looks at how the Nine Inch Nails frontman fit right in writing the music for one of the year's most anticipated movies.

• Hasidic rap/reggae star Matisyahu shaved off his trademark beard and posted a photo of his cleanly shorn face on Twitter. He explained on his website that he is "reclaiming himself" from the many rules he used to follow, and tells his fans to "Get ready for an amazing year filled with music of rebirth." 

•  D Generation to record new music: before Jesse Malin was a solo singer-songwriter, he was in the punk band D Generation, which reformed to play a few gigs recently. Now it seems they are going to record some new tunes in 2012. I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

• Rolling Stone's recent issue named its 100 greatest guitarists of all time, but the list was, not surprisingly, short on women. Grrrlbeat.com mentions some of the women axe players that RS forgot.

• Visqueen disbands, but Rachel Flotard plays on: I was sad to hear that the band broke up, but was glad to learn that its leader, Bergen County, NJ native Flotard, is already at work with another project, called Cobirds Unite, with singer-songwriter Rusty Willoughby and others (including Barbara Hunter, Visqueen's cello player).

• Google Music vs. Amazon vs. iTunes: a reporter put the three major cloud music players to the test, telling who came out on top and why.

Hear 7 Songs from Trent Reznor's "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" Soundtrack

You can now listen to seven songs from Trent Reznor's new soundtrack to the movie "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"—and download six of them free. As Paste Magazine noted Friday, the six-song free sampler is available in exchange for signing up for Reznor's e-mail list at NullCo.com.

You can also view the film's trailer there and pre-order several versions of the album (which drops Dec. 9th).


Movie trailer for "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," starring Daniel Craig.

The seventh "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" song is one that you can't download (yet), but it's a tune you'll want to hear: the full version of Reznor's version of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song," featuring vocals by Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The stream comes from Seattle radio station The End 107.7 and is a great version, the only downside being that it clocks in at only three minutes.

Reznor and Ross offered a similar free sampler download for their soundtrack to "The Social Network"(I signed up for that offer too, and can attest that it's a low-volume mailing list).

The versions of the soundtrack for "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"available from Reznor's website are: CD (three discs) for $14, digital version for $12, and HD digital for $14 (choice of Apple lossless or FLAC). And then there's the $300 deluxe version: six vinyl disks, a book package with a metal cover, a poster, and an "Exclusive custom 8GB metal razor blade USB pendant, inspired by Lisbeth's razor blade necklace." Oh, and the deluxe set is signed by Reznor and Ross.

The full "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" soundtrack features 39 tracks, though it's hard to tell how many of these are full songs and how many are just brief musical interludes.