John Lydon has denied allegations that racism was a part of an altercation with Kele Okereke. But a backstage incident at Barcelona's Summercase festival last Saturday led to the Bloc Party frontman winding up on the ground with facial bruising and a split lip.

Okereke – a Liverpudlian born to Nigerian parents – claimed Monday that he was assaulted by three members of Rotten's entourage and told, "Your problem is your black attitude." According to Okereke, the man also known as Johnny Rotten became "intimidating and aggressive" when Okereke asked if he would ever re-form his dormant band, Public Image Ltd.

Responding late Monday, the Sex Pistols frontman suggested Okereke started the fight and is using the racist allegation to drum up publicity. "I feel very sorry for a man that needs to lie about what was a perfect evening," Lydon said in a formal statement. "The trouble was brought to us, resulting in those causing the trouble being physically removed by festival security.

"We are in the middle of a wonderful tour. After 30 years we are achieving a true unity in our audience," he added. "They are multi-varied, all ages, all races, creeds and colors. When you are at a festival with bands who are jealous fools, lies and confusion usually follow.

"Grow up and learn to be a true man," Lydon snapped. "When you have achieved as much as I have, come back and talk to me. It's a shame the wonderful world of the media is riddled with nonsense like this."

• M.I.A. will launch a North American tour, set to kick off with her appearance at this year's Coachella Festival on April 26 in Indio, California. The London artist will bookend the trek with a performance at Bonnaroo on June 14 in Manchester, Tennessee.

• Singer Sean Levert, son of O'Jays singer Eddie Levert and brother of late singer Gerald Levert, died Sunday night after a medical emergency in a Cleveland, Ohio jail. He was 39.

• Rage Against the Machine, Metallica and the Killers will headline this year's Reading and Leeds Festivals. The event, which will also feature performances by Queens of the Stone Age, MGMT, Bloc Party and the Raconteurs, takes place August 22-24.

Before the Interface ramps up the new year with brand-new episode, we've got another batch of highlights from 2007. Last week, we introduced Part One of our year-end wrap up, and have since culled together a second batch of first-rate performances, including Tegan and Sara, Bloc Party, and a stunning rendition of David Bowie's 'Starman' by of Montreal.

Meanwhile, subscribe to the show and dig through the Interface archive to catch every last peformance. Keep reading to download the highlights edition podcast, and stay tuned from new performances from the likes of Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings and the New Pornographers in 2008.

R.E.M. have titled their forthcoming album -- the follow-up to 2004's 'Around the Sun' -- 'Accelerate.' The recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees teamed with producer Jacknife Lee (Snow Patrol, Bloc Party) for their 14th effort, due in April.

"Let me tell you a secret," frontman Michael Stipe said at a December 6 charity auction in New York. "We have a great f---ing record in the bag. It's a big change."

Among the final cuts are 'I'm Gonna DJ,' 'Mr. Richards' and 'Staring Down the Barrel of Middle Distance.' Another new tune, 'Until the Day Is Done,' debuted on 'Anderson Cooper 360' in October. That song served soundtrack to the network's 'Planet in Peril' series.

This year we brought you more than 60 rockin' live shows from all over the map. And for the last third of the year, we're celebrating 3x3 with a hat-trick of the absolute best performances from 2007. First up, Cold War Kids brought their A-game to the Bowery Ballroom in New York City. Next, the exquisite Neko Case sang her heart out in Austin, Texas. Lastly, British new-wave rockers Bloc Party impressed the crowd at their hometown show in London.

Want more 3x3? We've got 69 more performances for you to watch.

For the next two weeks, Kele Okereke and his British dance-infused rock combo Bloc Party, will continue their tour across the U.S. Though the four-piece hit the studio to lay down ideas for their third album, just before their current jaunt, Okereke told Spinner that he's happy to be back on the road in the States. For starters, while he may be spending quite a bit of time on an 18-wheeler, his creativity will roll on. "I'm always brimming with inspiration when I'm on the road," he said. "It's a great time to be reflective and to put stuff into yourself. I enjoy it a lot. You just have to use your time wisely."

Time management means Bloc Party will be using sound checks to write new tunes, but don't expect all of the group's next record to come from this Yankey trot. "At the end of the American tour, we'll have some new ideas from new places, but already I have a fairly good idea, of what I want [the songs on the new record to be]," he said.

Bloc Party's second record, 'A Weekend In the City,' had a lot to do with growing up, going out and a xenophobic post-London-Bombings Britain. The next installment will explore somewhere a bit different. "I think with this third record, its very much going to be a record about interior spaces," he said. "If 'Weekend In the City' was me complaining about going out and getting f---ed up, I think this is going to be a very intimate record about staying in and discovering aspects of yourself. And not in a grown-up, Coldplay/Snow Patrol way."

Tens of thousands of music fans will flock to Austin, Texas, this weekend for the annual Austin City Limits music festival. On the bill are some of music's heaviest hitters, including Bob Dylan, the Killers, Bjork, Lucinda Williams, Wilco, Joss Stone, Bloc Party and many more. Country chart-topper Jack Ingram is also a regular at the festival, which is only fitting, as he calls Austin his home. Ingram sat down with Spinner to give us a little travel advice for the big weekend. In his own words, these are the top five things you must do while in the Live Music Capital of the World.

1. Eat Mexican food: There are tons of great Tex-Mex joints in Austin. One that comes to mind is downtown near the [Austin City Limits] festival -- it's called El Sol y la Luna. It's fantastic. And just up the street from there is Guero's, where all the star sightings are ... Matthew McConaughey goes there a lot.

2. Take a dip: Barton Springs is connected to the park where ACL is. It's a natural, spring-fed pool that stays really cold but incredibly refreshing. Girls sunbathe there topless! Old hippies are there swimming, college kids are hanging out and ... did I mention college girls are sunbathing there [laughs]? It's just a great place. It's vintage Austin.

Last week, Angels and Airwaves' Tom DeLonge recounted to Spinner the story of how Bloc Party had been an inspiration to him as he and his bandmates prepped their debut, 'We Don't Need to Whisper.' Earlier this week, prior to leaving for the U.S. for their latest tour, Bloc Party frontman Kele Okereke responded to the news.

"It's really nice to hear that," Okereke told Spinner while on a break at a U.K. recording studio. "It's really nice to hear that he's responding to our music in a similar way."

Though he admits he hasn't heard the Angels and Airwaves debut, Okereke said that he took the chance to check out DeLonge's new-ish band at last month's Leeds festival, following the two frontmens' first ever meeting. "I watched them play and I thought they did some really kind of epic soundscapes," he enthused.

Angels & Airwaves, the art-friendly, engaging rock ensemble fronted by Tom DeLonge will head home from the U.K., to play at the Del Mar Fairgrounds in their native San Diego. The stop will give the four piece not only a welcome homecoming after several weeks in Europe, but a chance to begin the final preparations for their October 23-due second album, 'I: Empire.'

Their European trip wasn't all hard work and slogging it out on stages to inebriated U.K. crowds. Last Sunday at Britain's Leeds festival, Spinner caught A&A frontman Tom DeLonge, meeting a real inspiration of his backstage -- Bloc Party frontman Kele Okereke.

"I know Russell [Lissack], the guitar player, and I'm a huge fan of Bloc Party so I met Kele today for the first time," DeLonge recounts to Spinner shortly after his frontman-to-frontman introduction. "Our bands are both kind of part of the modern movement, I guess, so it makes sense that we talk. It seems to me we're both fans of each other, so it seems like a great time to hang out and get to know each other."

British troupe Art Brut recently rocked our Interface studio with cheeky lyrics and buzzing guitar riffs in tow. But that wasn't the only buzzing going on. Cue the then 'Harry Potter' mania. Brut frontman Eddie Argos shared a story about a run in with Mr. Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe, who happens to be a huge fan of the band and vise versa. "We signed an album [for him] and we had things for him to sign," Argos told Spinner. "I wish he was eighteen so he could go drinking with us, but he is too famous to be our friend ... and he's not old enough to drink."

Download the band's four song performance and listen to them rant about Bloc Party beef, Beth Ditto and Art Brut college courses in the interview.

Artist: The Cribs
Song: 'Men's Needs' (CSS Remix)
Album: 'Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever'

Sounds Like: CSS, Bloc Party

Download: 'Men's Needs' (CSS Remix) by The Cribs (MP3)

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Celebrities often battle with the paparazzi, but Bloc Party frontman Kele Okereke has a more civil solution. He gives them biscuits.

When the acclaimed English dance-rockers came into our studio for a rare acoustic performance, Okereke let us in on his tabloid trauma. "I still get the paparazzi outside my door," he told Spinner. "I know them all by name now and sometimes I bring them biscuits and things. It's not worth getting angry or hostile." Keep reading to download the entire podcast including a special bare-bones performance.

Artist: Smoosh
Song: 'This Modern Love' (Bloc Party Cover) (Live)
Sounds Like: Smoosh covering Bloc Party

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The ripples of the first wave of punk rock are still being heard four generations later. In this episode of 3x3, we've got the nu-wave of punk -- or what we've decided to call post-post-punk. Each of the 3 bands in this edition showcases the different paths the genre has taken.

We start things off with English neo-New Wave quartet Bloc Party burning down the house with its decade-straddling angular art punk in front of a hometown crowd. Then over to Jesse Malin, the former pre-teen hardcore punk from NYC belting it out at an in-store gig in Fords, N.J. In the 3rd spot we offer up D.C.-born, Brooklyn-based band French Kicks displaying its combination of punk fervor and mod-style melodicism at a show in Los Angeles.

If you haven't been plugged into 3x3, we've got 42 different performances for you to watch, ranging from David Bowie's latest obsession, TV on the Radio, to the our favorite irresistible soul sister, Amy Winehouse.

London trio the Noisettes are certainly in the running for this month's title of "The Hardest Working Band in Indie Rock." For starters, they recently flew back from Coachella only to embark almost immediately on a series of U.K. dates. And guitarist Dan Smith is using the little time he has before last night's gig in Southeast England, to multi-task -- downing pints and taking a series of spirited questions from Spinner, like which celeb hanger-ons he collected at the recent California music festival.

"It was kind of funny because the whole backstage area was like a trailer park for celebrities," Smith says. "I met Amy Winehouse and Jarvis Cocker, who was literally across the way from us. I like hanging backstage and watching how those kinds of stars behave."