​Next weekend, various stripes of music nerds (critics, academics, people who just like to think a lot) will descend on New York for the EMP Pop Conference, an annual mind-meld of pro and amateur musicologists that's taking place in our fair city for the first time. The conference, sponsored by the Seattle rock and roll museum the Experience Music Project (and this year co-sponsored by NYU's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, where I teach), is this year themed around the intersection between urbanity and music, and the weekend has an opening panel starring Angelique Kidjo, Esperanza Spalding, Santigold, and Das Racist's Heems and a closing talk about crate-digging with ?uestlove. In between are a slew of papers and panels that include a roundtable on mixtape culture featuring SOTC alums Zach Baron and Ryan Dombal, a look at the LA rave station MARS-FM by Michaelangelo Matos, and Jon Caramanica talking to GZA about Liquid Swords.

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​This week the late-night yuk/yakfest The Colbert Report has had all musically inclined guests, with performances by Bon Iver, Florence + The Machine, and Talib Kweli; last night the host took his turn when he handled vocal duties on "Charlene II: I'm Over You," a collaboration with the Jack White-shepherded goth-garage quartet The Black Belles. In a slick bit of tv/retail/Summer Friday synergy, Colbert and White will sell the single (on tri-colored vinyl!) when Third Man Records' record store on wheels parks itself at The Lot at The High Line, located at W. 30th St. and 10th Ave., later this morning. "The Rolling Record Store opens at 11 and the jams get kicked out soon after," according to Third Man, so get cracking. (Those of you who can't get to the west side in time can also buy the single online.) Clip of "Charlene II" after the jump.

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​Well this is outstanding. Both the Black Keys and Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig showed up on Colbert last night to argue about who's gotten their music in more commercials. Koenig: "Are you challenging us to a sell-out-off?" Black Keys' Dan Auerbach: "Bring it on, Cape Cod!" Colbert: "Clearly you have both equally whored out your music!" Somehow the "musicians trying to be comedians" woodenness of it all only makes it funnier. This is Colbert's best bit in months; watch below (both bands show up around 4:30), and lament only that there was no way to get Pomplamoose involved.

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"The idea was to have a visual identity before the band even started, before the music started. It kind of worked because people would be like, 'Dude, what is this? What is No Age?'"

Radiohead's Colin Greenwood wearing the No Age "Classic" in January 2008

Dean Spunt's first band was a punk-rock outfit called the Gromits. He was 13 and he sang. His mom had just become a partner in a family silkscreening business, so for fun, he made Gromits' T-shirts with a photocopier and sold them at school. After years of messing around with that machine, piecing together fake show flyers and reprinting punk cassette covers, the drummer became something of a designer, despite having no formal education. ("Using PhotoShop is really kind of difficult for me, but with the photocopy machine, I'm like an Olympic swimmer.") So when he and guitarist Randy Randall formed No Age, Spunt's first order of business was to create a strong visual identity. What he came up with was vertical text, built with a font he can't remember exactly (though it's probably one of the Gothics), in a rainbow blend. That logo has since become something of a DIY meme, popping up everywhere from Colin Greenwood's torso to The New York Times Book Review.

In honor of No Age's excellent new Everything in Between released today, we spoke with Spunt about the band's visual identity and that now-iconic rainbow logo. "I never get to talk about this," he said, genuinely seeming pretty stoked. "No one really knows."

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