Boston's most notorious rap scoundrel slash actor Slaine - best known theatrically from roles in "The Town" and "Gone Baby Gone" - is set to appear on NBC's "The Cape" tonight at 9pm EST. Unfortunately, the show is getting canceled, and the first season was scaled back from 13 to 10 episodes, so hip-hop fans won't get to check all of the La Coka Nostra and Special Teamz member's performances.

Here's an Oscar-free recap of last night's Boston Accents radio show, which airs live every Sunday night from 8 to 10 p.m., 101.7 on the FM dial and streaming online at wfnx.net. Get local.

THE FATAL FLAW - "Narrow Hours," from the album Narrow Hours. Next show 3/19 @ Great Scott w/Taxpayer, Tiny Animals.

Quick tip of the hat to THE NOISE MAGAZINE, which tonight at the Middle East celebrates three decades of covering rock around Boston (and a few years, in the early- to mid-2000s, of facilitating its stagnation and division by allowing unregistered "guests" to post freely on its vitriolic and hate-filled message board; so it goes).

Tonight the Starlab in Somerville plays host to Philadelphia's M AX NOI MACH (Robert Francisco) and MARK LORD (Christopher Forgues), a Providence noisemaker formerly known as Kites.

Francisco's work touches upon power electronics, industrial noise, and even experimental hip-hop, but he tends to eschew the traditional imagery and content associated with each style.

This week punk and riot grrrl icon POLY STYRENE of X-RAY SPEX revealed she is battling cancer, and her website has issued a statement regarding her fight and treatment:

It comes as a huge shock to all those who know Poly Styrene and X-ray Spex that Poly has been diagnosed with cancer, she is currently undergoing various treatments in her battle with this illness.

We said tweeted on Friday that we'd post some video of the 02.17 Boston Phoenix vs Ryan's Smashing Life gig once we finally sobered up, and by the power of vodka here we are a week later. Thanks to everyone who came out to Great Scott, the RSL crew, and the bands that performed: DIRTY BOMBS (who still really need a press photo), THE CINNAMON FUZZ (who know how to party) and BEARSTRONAUT, the dance-mad headliner that was captured above in groggy Phlipcam glory by recent Phoenix acquisition Sooz.

Last week we were invited to 40 South Street, where Sleepover Shows was shooting BANDITAS for an intimate, three-song session in the two-room Jamaica Plain vintage shop. Check out this week's OUT column on the performance and just what are Sleepover Shows, which was nominated for Best Music Blog in this year's Best of 2011 poll, and check out some hand-held behind-the-scenes phlipcam action above.

Janelle Monáe

On sale Friday, February 25

Hollywood Undead | April 6 at the House of Blues, Boston | $25-$35 | On sale at 10 am via livenation.com

Infamous Stringdusters + Two Man Gentleman Band | May 5 at the Brighton Music Hall, Allston | $15 | On sale at noon via ticketmaster.com

On sale Saturday, Friday 26

If this is truly the year Boston’s early-‘90s indie scene strikes back, it wouldn’t be complete without a new Damon & Naomi track to get lost in while commuting through the city. Joining Sebadoh’s reissue parade and Buffalo Tom’s new album (both with Paradise gigs, March 24 and April 8, respectively) former Galaxie 500 duo DAMON & NAOMI return with their first new material since 2007’s exercise in beautiful misery, Within These Walls.

Kudos to Soundcloud user mjs538, who has condensed a half-century of pop genius into about 45 minutes. The format is simple: five seconds of each song that has held the number one song on the Billboard pop charts, in order. (Hat tip to Salon.)

If you didn't know better, you'd think the Wisconsin labor protests were a marketing ploy to set up the new Dropkicks album. I mean, come on: unionization hasn't been a fashionable populist cause since the '70s. It's one of the reasons people like to poke fun at the Murphys' blue-collar Irish hooliganism: weren't their folk songs and Wobbly balladeerng just a couple of handy anachronisms to hang their drunk-punk anthems on?

Lost in the Who The Fuck Is ARCADE FIRE haze during last week's Grammy's hangover was the odd accusation that somehow the Recording Academy knew The Suburbs was going to win Album of the Year, which is why the Canadian indie kids were asked to close out the awards show with not just one, but two performances, sandwiched around the announcement and acceptance speech.

If Natasha Khan wasn’t busy signing “What’s A Girl To Do” as she rode her bicyle getting her Donnie Darko on in BAT FOR LASHES’ 2007 breakthrough video, she’d instead probably have a Depeche Mode cassette playing through her Walkman headphones. And while we’d first peg Khan as a Violator kind of gal, lending her voice to cover “Strangelove” off Depeche Mode’s 1987 classic Music For The Masses is a stroke of genius by Gucci.

We're not saying AMANDA PALMER is cursed or anything, but she's developing a knack for showing up in far-flung countries that just happen to be smacked with natural disasters while she's on the ground. You may recall that, last April, she managed a harrowing escape from Iceland in the middle of the crazy ash cloud -- though her partner in EVLEYN EVELYN was not solo lucky, and the twins' Euro tour turned into an Amanda solo jaunt.