The Editors (Epic) move up two positions this week to make a stunning debut at #1 barely beating Stockholm’s Shout Out Louds by a handful of spins. The UK capo-wearing foursome also made a splash this week on the Mediaguide Albums chart moving up slightly from #3 to #2 off the strength of their full-length release, An End Has A Start (Out 7/17 in the US). Meanwhile, The Shout Out Louds also tear things up this week keeping Our Ill Wills in The Top 5 on the Albums chart with strong support from KCRW Los Angeles, XETR San Diego, WKQX Chicago, KITS San Francisco & KROX Austin… Pretty strong. And they won’t go away…. Papa Roach jump from the bowels of the chart to the Top 10 with overwhelming stupidity for single, “Forever” off of their El Tonal/Geffen full-length release, The Paramour Sessions. Some nice returns this week as The Straylight Run jump back in the Top 20 after falling to #21 last week & Sea Wolf get bumped from #41 to #18 off of everyone’s favorite track, “You’re A Wolf” Lastly, congrats to The Winter Sounds who remain in the Top 20 after a month on the charts.

Record Of The Week: St. Vincent

Lismore “Tremelo” – Jersey city is in the house! Lismore is currently touring in support of their self-released 2007 EP, All That You Are which includes the track “Sunrise Girl Says” that you can hear on their myspace player. “hypnotic vocals swirl around airy samples and funky drum beats. This disc transitions smoothly from lo-fi electronica to sultry torch songs.” -- Hustler (Michelle McCarthy) One of hhA!’s favorite Lismore tracks, “Tremolo” appears on an earlier release, We Could Connect Or We Could Not. Listen Here.

Bat For Lashes “What’s A Girl To Do” – A director friend of mine (J. Silver) called me late last night and said he saw a music video that really inspired him by a Brighton band called Bat For Lashes. It looks like the band released Fur And Gold, which features the single, “What’s A Girl To Do” on Echo/She Bear in 2006 and is now signed through Parlophone Recordings in the UK. I’m feeling this. The band will be playing in the states shortly. “...a never ending story of fantastic dreams and heartbreaking reality. The chapters unfold with a sense of wonder and slow, powerfully evoked drama. Bat For Lashes inhabit a magical kingdom you wont want to leave” 5/5 The Guardian. Watch Here.

With every up there is a down, with every smile there is a frown, with every reception there is a send, with every beginning there is an end. I'll pause so you can wipe the tears from your eyes, or at least make the sad smiley face like so- : (

The above is my ode to a fantastic blog that is no more. Hello Gina. was quite a fantastic blog in its time. At the end of last year Gina called it quits and threw in the blogging towel, hung up her fingers so to speak, err not. Regardless, it is still very much a blog worth mentioning for browsing purposes. Funny enough, this blog is STILL more on top of what's hot than most "music blogs", and it hasn't even been updated since December 30, 2006. This is a testament to how great it truly was. Enough of the sob story, get to clicking and send Gina some love, and tell her we sent you! I'll leave you off with some of Gina's famous last words... "After a long absence, I've decided to throw in the towel here at the old Hello Gina. Over a year of blogging made me a very happy girl, but other demands are calling now, for the sake of school and my health. So I'm leaving this blog up for browsing purposes: to fan the flames of some past (and present) musical crushes. Please visit the good friends and writers lurking in the sidebar....May this blog be a fond memory for all who ever read."

Guillermo De La Barreda

hhA!: What is Pulse 8 and what do you do exactly?

G: “PulseEight is the rebel child of Groove Addicts. It was born out of all the requests we were having for ‘sound-a-likes’ and all the jobs that ended upgoing with a licensed song by a band. 10-15 years ago licensing an established act was very unique (and expensive!). Nowadays, discovering the new cool bands and songs is what people want... Which incidentally also comes in cheaper and with less headaches than licensing Madonna for example. Nobody really wants to deal with a major label! So I spent most of my day listening to music, talking to bands, managers, indie labels/publishers, ad and tv people... and going to shows! I also have a sales and A&R team that helps me tremendously. It's a lot of work.”

hhA!: What is your company's ethos?

G: “Find great people who make great music and help them out.”

hhA!: What are some of your most well known placements to date?

G: “I'm certainly most proud of having licensed "Mister Sister" by LA's The Tender Box on a Chevy commercial. I think those guys are great and have a real chance to break thru. I love their songs. We also licensed UK's Infadels' "Can't Get Enough" on a Pontiac commercial which was good fun too. Last year we worked on a spot campaign for OneTouch. We recorded new tracks with Patti LaBelle, Jose Feliciano and... B.B. King! Last but not least, I wanted to mention two songs by songwriter Rob Grad (former Kik Tracee and Superfine) I just placed on a documentary called Walking On Dead Fish by Franklin Martin.”

hhA!: Is there a particular genre of music that you prefer to place?

G: “A good song is a good song is a good song. There are many reasons why people would license a song: it sounds like somebody else you can't afford, it really has a "visual" quality to it, the mood and/or the lyrics fit perfectly with the images, it's by a hot band and I'm a name whore... But to me, if it's good and grabs me by the balls that¹s all that matters. It may not be sync friendly, but I'll find an outlet for it. I just say to myself that somewhere, somehow I gotta make it work.”

hhA!: Advice to bands that are submitting music to your company?

G: “All I ask for is that it is presented in an organized manner. Having a referral is great help, but I always get to all the music I get sent, so don¹t' worry. I just need their contact info and the track titles somewhere other than on the actual CD. Kinda hard to read while it's playing. A bio is always great, too. Links to MySpace and their own websites are cool for me to get their vibe, but not to listen to. I much rather have a CD that I can take in the car and home with me. Check our MySpace site: http://www.myspace.com/pulseeight or our temp website: http://www.pulse8music.com/ for contact info and all that.”