Earlier this month, We The Kings revealed their new tattoos. Last week, Travis Clark blogged about a Mom who hit on him on Warped Tour. (It happens.) This week, we get a look at a day in the very busy life of We The Kings. Check out Travis’ We The Kings tour blog. And stay tuned for more up-to-the-minute tour diaries, updates, photos (like this one of Travis’ Mini Me!), videos and more from We The Kings on Posted.mtv.com.

I’m back for another Warped Tour Update! So lately a ton of movies have been coming out, so I took it upon me to go on a “man date” with one of my best friends, Josh Franceschi from You Me At Six — haha. We went and saw “Despicable Me” in 3D!!!!! It was one of the better movies I’ve seen in awhile. I absolutely love it. The movie made me want to go adopt a thousand kids

Other than that, I’ve been super busy with the band. Let me give you a day in the life of me:
July 18th
8pm — Played Warped Tour New Jersey
9pm — Hopped into a car service headed to New York City
9:30pm — I completed two Japan phone interviews while en route to the city.
10:30pm — I arrived in NYC and headed straight to the studio where my friend Mike Posner and I remixed one of our songs off of Smile Kid!
July 19th
4am — Left the studio after a successful collaboration and headed towards the hotel for a three-hour nap.
7am — wake up call in the lobby to go to some meetings in the city.
10am — I finished all the meetings and headed to New Jersey to film our music video for “Promise The Stars.”
11am — We started the filming the video.
11pm — finished the 12-hour music video and headed back to the bus.

July 20th
12:30am — I arrived at the bus just on time to drive to Maryland.

Busy, busy, busy!!! Needless to say, I passed out as soon as I put my head on my pillow. See you guys next week!!! laterrrrr

Love,
Trav

Mark Ronson’s new video, “Bang Bang Bang” is pretty much the coolest thing we’ve seen this summer. There is so much going on, so many references, so much weirdness, so much ill imagery, that it’s hard to wrap your head around it.!

Good thing “Bang Bang Bang,” which dropped about a month ago, is also a dope piece of electro hip-hop, with rhymes supplied by Common and Q-Tip, and vocals by MNDR (aka Amanda Warner).

Directed by Warren Fu, the video starts out with fake commercial for a Nutella-looking spread called “Ronson.” Then we jump to a retro talk show where our Japanese host speaks French, and Ronson speaks Japanese. Sure!

The rest of the video is full of intentionally old-school special effects and references to Star Wars, Tron, anime, French New Wave films, and basically everything else that has ever been cool.

Check out the video below. “Bang Bang Bang” is from Record Collection, Ronson’s third solo album, which is due out in September.

Mark Ronson & The Business INTL “Bang Bang Bang” from Warren Fu on Vimeo.

+ Watch Night & Day now.

We The Kings just hit the road for this summer’s Vans Warped Tour, with Motion City Soundtrack, Hey Monday, and Anarbor. And how hard would it rule to see We The Kings play EVERY show of the tour? Well guess what. You can. Kind of. Because MTV is following We The Kings the whole month of July on Posted.mtv.com. We’ll have behind-the-scenes videos, tour blogs, and photos. Basically, we’re inside of their brains. Plus, We The Kings will be answering your fan questions, so leave them in the comments of this post, and We The Kings may answer your most pressing questions. (Note: Please keep it clean. If you want to proposition them, that’s on you, but we’re not getting involved.)

Anyway, stay tuned all month long for exclusive Warped Tour updates from We The Kings, Motion City Soundtrack, Hey Monday, and Anarbor. And check out the latest Kings’ Carriage video, featuring a cameo from Ke$ha!

Grammy-winning French band Phoenix, known for its transcendent lyrics and scholarly themes set to brilliantly lush orchestrations, brought its inimitable brand of aloof-yet-intimate alt-pop to MTV for an exclusive “Unplugged” performance. Set against a strikingly stark, cinematic white backdrop in a New York City studio (the edge of Hell’s Kitchen, to be exact), Phoenix performed an inimitably grand, gripping set to a devoutly rapt audience.

You can watch all of Phoenix’s “MTV Unplugged” performance this Monday, June 21. And don’t miss a video sneak peek of Phoenix’s “Unplugged” performance this Friday, June 18.

Until then, check out Phoenix’s set list and photos from its “MTV Unplugged” taping, and watch its incredible “1901″ video.

Phoenix “MTV Unplugged” Set List
“Lisztomania”
“1901″
“Long Distance Call”
“Rome”
“Playground Love”
“Armistice”

I mean, how else do you get Selma Blair, Elijah Wood and Lemmy Kilmister from Motorhead to star in your music video? And how else do you make said music video look like it cost millions of dollars?

Their “Full Of Regret” video, directed by the Diamond Bros., is like an action-packed noir film. Everybody’s in some pretty ace classic automobiles, Selma Blair puts on a wig, Lemmy seems unsatisfied with a couple of different people, Elijah Wood takes his time to put on a hitman suit and members of Danko Jones are interrogated by a cop rocking an eye patch.

It’s one-part “Sabotage,” one-part Guy Ritchie, one-part Quentin Tarantino — and it’s pretty much a blast from start to finish.

“Full Of Regret” is on Danko Jones’ Below The Belt album, out now.

Like any candy or confection, mashups are to be ingested responsibly; pig out on ‘em and you’re liable to get pretty sick of the taste. But if you save them for a special occasion (it is Cinco de Mayo, after all), they can really brighten your day.

Which is a roundabout way of saying: Look, everyone! A mashup of Drake and John Mellencamp (spotted via Pigeons & Planes). Take the instrumental for Mellencamp’s classic “Jack & Diane,” (from back when he had the cool or dorky fake middle name “Cougar”) and the vocal from Drake’s recent club anthem “Over,” and you got yourself some juxtaposed joy.

The mashup comes courtesy of White Panda, who previously caught our ear with their mix of Owl City and Yung Joc (“Fireflies Going Down“).

+ Listen to White Panda’s “Drake & Diane (Drake vs. John Mellencamp)” (NSFW!)

Behold, Justin Bieber’s “Runaway Love,” chopped and screwed. For the uninitiated, chopping and screwing a song — which was popularized by the late DJ Screw — involves slowing it down to bring out the hypnotic, hazy qualities. Pair it with a black light and a Highlighter, and you pretty much go through the looking glass.

Some genius on the Internet decided to chop and screw Bieber’s “Runaway Love,” adding the bonus of a looped visual of Justin doing some jazz-hands action in slow-mo, making him look like an animated Hindu god or something. Total miracle.

Watch in awe, folks.

So with all that in mind we thought it would be best to sit down with Travie and have him give us the lay of what’s going on in Travieland, as it were. In the below interview clips you’ll hear all about the sound of Lazarus and meaning behind the album title. But most importantly, McCoy discusses his infatuation with the ’80s pop-soul duo, Hall & Oates.

Dude really likes Hall & Oates. Like, he has the Private Eyes album cover tattooed on his hands. That’s dedication.

Check out our brand-new interviews with Travie McCoy below. And get tickets to the Too Fast For Love tour. Select dates from this tour will also be mtvU Movies and Music Festival dates leading up to the big show airing June 6 at 9/8c on MTV.

Modest Mouse
July 1 – Broomfield, CO @ 1st Bank Center
July 2 – Royal Oak, MI @ Royal Oak Theater
July 6 – Kansas City, MO @ Crossroads
July 9 – Santa Fe, NM @ Paolo Soleri Amphitheatre
July 12 – Sioux Falls, ND @ Ramkota Exhibit Hall
July 13 – Fargo, ND @ Hub at the Venue
July 14 – Minneapolis, MN @ The Orpheum Theatre
July 16 – Chicago, IL @ Pitchfork Music Festival
July 17 – St. Louis, MO @ Pageant Theatre
July 18 – Knoxville, TN @ The Valarium
July 19 – Asheville, NC @ The Orange Peel
July 20 – Charleston, SC @ Music Farm
July 22 – Montclair, NJ @ Wellmont Theatre
July 23 – Brooklyn, NY @ Williamsburg Waterfront
July 25 – Boston, MA @ House of Blues

Cheap Trick
Apr. 24 – Laughlin, NV @ Aquarius Casino
May 1 – Cary, NC @ Koka Booth Amphitheatre
May 21 – Fredericksburg, VA @ Celebrate Virginia Live
May 22 – Ashburn, VA @ Loudoun Summer Music Festival
June 4 – Orlando, FL @ House of Blues
June 5 – Peachtree City, GA @ Frederick Brown Jr. Amphitheater
July 9 – Columbus, OH @ The LC *
July 10 – Highland Park, IL @ Ravinia *
July 13 – New York, NY @ Radio City Music Hall *
July 14 – Boston, MA @ Bank of America Pavilion *
July 16 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Mann Center *
July 17 – Gilford, NH @ Meadowbrook U.S. Cellular Pavilion *
July 18 – New Brunswick, NJ @ State Theatre *
Aug. 20 – Springfield, IL @ Illinois State Fair **
Aug. 21 – Red Wing, MN @ Treasure Island **
Aug. 27 – Clarkston, MI @ DTE Energy Music Theatre **
Aug. 28 – Kettering, OH @ Fraze Pavilion **
Aug. 29 – Baltimore, MD @ Pier Six Pavilion **
Sept. 3 – Memphis, TN @ Memphis Botanic Garden **
* – with Squeeze
** – with Blondie

Stardeath and White Dwarf
Apr. 15 – Charlottesville, WV @ Charlottesville Pavilion
Apr. 17 – Poughkeepsie, NY @ Mid Hudson Civic Center
Apr. 18 – Ithaca, NY @ Barton Hall
Apr. 19 – Montclair, NJ @ Wellmont Theatre
Apr. 21 – Milwaukee, WI @ Riverside Theatre
Apr. 22 – Bloomington, IN @ Indiana University Auditorium
Apr. 23 – Kansas City, KS @ Sandstone Amphitheater
May 4 – Lawrence, KS @ Jackpot
May 5 – Iowa City, IA @ The Mill
May 6 – Chicago, IL @ Subterranean
May 7 – Indianapolis, IN @ Murphy Art Center
May 8 – Louisville, KY @ Glassworks Rooftop
May 10 – Nashville, TN @ The End
May 11 – Birmingham, AL @ Bottle Tree
May 12 – Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
May 13 – Orlando, FL @ House of Blues
May 14 – St. Augustine, FL @ St. Augustine Amphitheater
May 15 – Tallahassee, FL @ The Engine Room
May 18 – Austin, TX @ Mohawk
May 19 – Houston, TX @ Walter’s on Washington
May 21 – Tulsa, OK @ Cain’s Ballroom
May 22 – Columbia, MO @ Mojo’s
June 11 – Manchester, TN @ Bonnaroo Festival

When Deer Tick released Born on Flag Day last year, they proved they were one of America’s best indie country-rock bands: singer John McCauley delivered sharply observed narratives of blue-collar life (sung in his nicotine-stained rasp) over wild and raw roots-rock tunes. On June 8th, the Providence, Rhode Island crew returns with their third disc, The Black Dirt Sessions — but you can hear the lead-off track “20 Miles” below. Frontman John McCauley tells RS, “I’m much more excited about our new songs than anything else we’ve ever done. They’ve got more balls and are much more rock & roll.”

This spring, Deer Tick will hit the road with Dr. Dog to support the disc, capping the trek with a spot at Lollapalooza. The band has altered its lineup somewhat: guitarist Andrew Tobiassen quit the group and has been replaced by Ian O’Neil, although everyone is still on good terms. “We get drunk and party,” says O’Neil. “I see him every when I’m home.” Post-tour, McCauley will take a break from Deer Tick to focus on a his new group, MG&V, an indie-rock “supergroup” that also features the frontmen from Dawes and Delta Spirit. Their debut will be released later this year.

“20 Miles”

Related Stories:

• Breaking: Deer Tick
• Review: Born on Flag Day