Rolling Stone's Ten Artists to Watch Saigon - "The first time I fired a gun, I shot this dog who was always barking at me," says Saigon, a Brooklyn native who bounced between the city and upstate New York as a youth. "I was thirteen." Four years and two (human) shootings later, he was sentenced to six years in prison on a first-degree-assault charge. Once inside he began to turn his life around: "I hadn't read a book since, like, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. But I got addicted to them."
Wolf Parade - The title of the Wolf Parade's album, Apologies to the Queen Mary, refers to the band's destructive stay on the passenger liner in Long Beach, California, during last year's All Tomorrow's Parties festival. The band attempted to summon the spirit of Winston Churchill: "We ended up kicking in a door and coming upon the Winston Churchill Honorary Ballroom," says effects whiz Hadji Bakara. "I ended up taking the legs off this antique table and inscribing a Ouiji board with a buck knife, but Winston didn't manifest himself. The hotel manager said, 'We've had Led Zeppelin, Guns n' Roses, the Sex Pistols all party on this boat, but we've never had to kick anyone off. And now I am kicking you off."
James Blunt - A lady-killing U.K. singer-songwriter who's more than a pretty face. In the late Nineties, Blunt served four years in the British army, which dispatched him on a peacekeeping mission to Kosovo, posted him as sentry at the queen mother's coffin and had him ride a horse around London during the queen's jubilee, wearing an ornate helmet with a white plume and a sword. "It was a ridiculous costume," he says. "I was a tourist attraction." In 2002, Blunt traded his horse for a deal with Elton John's management company -- and got his big break opening for John on his 2004 tour of soccer stadiums in the U.K.
The Magic Numbers - WHO Two brother-sister pairs who have been winning over audiences since they formed in an English high school three years ago. Friends Sean Gannon (drums) and Romeo Stodart (guitar, lead vocals) invited their sisters Angela and Michele (percussion and bass, respectively) into their fledgling band after other members kept quitting.
The Go! Team - Despite the "team" in their name, Brighton, England's the Go! Team sprung from the mind of one man -- thirty-year-old Ian Parton. Melding homemade beats with samples from his encyclopedic record collection, Parton's bedroom project served as a pleasant diversion from his day job as a TV documentarian.
SiA - HOW SHE GREETS AN INTERVIEWER CALLING FROM THE U.S. "Do you want to listen to me doing a wee, or do you want to call back in three minutes?"
WHAT SHE SAYS THREE MINUTES LATER "Let me give my hands a quick wash. I'm only doing that because you're listening."
Damian Marley - Twenty-seven-year-old offspring of Bob Marley, whose irresistible single "Welcome to Jamrock" -- which combines Damian's dancehall toasting with crackly samples and old-school guitar -- has become a sleeper hit of the summer, crossing over to hip-hop and pop fans.
Yummy Bingham - The best props she has gotten so far: "People in my neighborhood will call me and say, 'They were playing your music in the Foot Locker!' "
Giant Drag - Did we mention Hardy's bent sense of humor? The chorus of the single "Kevin Is Gay" consists solely of the word "meow," and the grinding "YFLMD" stands for "You fuck like my dad." "Sometimes people take me seriously," Hardy says, adding, "They think I'm a real asshole."
Matt Pond PA - You could call it emo for grown-ups: sweetly somber baroque pop with a persistent jangle and bleeding heart that ought to appeal to fans of the Shins and Death Cab for Cutie. Small wonder, then, that Pond's cover of Oasis' "Champagne Supernova" earned a slot as background music on The O.C.
