Emo-rappers Gym Class Heroes have taken up shop in a small Los Angeles studio to record their as-yet-untitled follow-up to 2006's As Cruel as School Children, set for release sometime this summer. Speaking with Rolling Stone, the band’s MC, Travis McCoy, says he’s fueled recording sessions on a drink he’s coined the Travalanche (a syrupy combination of merlot and Sprite) and, apparently, the Food Network.

“The band has been in the small studio, located behind a Koreatown barbershop, for a week,” Rolling Stone reports. “The big-screen TV is permanently tuned to the Food Network, with the band members hoping for a glimpse of sexy Italian host Giada De Laurentiis between takes.”

Maybe it should be no surprise the crew is composed of foodies, considering it's smash single is called “Cupid’s Chokehold / Breakfast in America” (the second half of that title comes from the Supertramp song they sample), in which McCoy gushes when his girlfriend cooks him pancakes.

More Gym Class Heroes can be heard on their MySpace page.

The New York Times’ ArtsBeat blog has posted a video of Rachael Ray’s SXSW event. The Ray-curated gig not only showcased a few bands—including her hubby’s group the Cringe, Danish duo the Raveonettes, San Francisco’s Scissors for Lefty, and Canadian groups Holy F--- and the Stills—but also some good grub. For the party, Ray cooked up what she calls “stellar sliders” (seven-layers!) and a bean-and-guacamole version of it for the veggies.

After ensuring a few showgoers got their fill of the burgers, Ray explains why she threw an event during indie rock’s biggest fest: “I married a man who has an indie band, and I’m a pretty good cook. Austin is all about good music and good food, so why not?”

Chicago’s the Hush Sound are following up their 2006 debut today with another bouncy pop confection, Goodbye Blues. And next month the keyboard-heavy quartet head out with Decaydance/Fueled By Ramen labelmates Panic At the Disco, at which point you might see siren Greta Salpeter fueling her band’s road trip on raw foods. “Food tastes the best to me when it is in its most natural state—as raw as possible,” Salpeter tells me. “It is easy to add raw foods into my diet when the recipes are simple, fast and delicious.”

So what is the singer cooking—or rather, not cooking—up? Sweets! Besides a raw banana cream pie, one of Salpeter’s favorite desserts is a chocolate smoothie concocted with an unexpected choice of fruit. “While it may seem strange to put avocado in a chocolate smoothie, the texture of a ripe one makes the smoothie incredibly creamy and rich,” she says. “Avocado takes on the flavor of whatever you blend it with, so the chocolate and nut milk are still the main tastes.”

More from the Hush Sound can be heard on their MySpace page.

Any band that descends upon Austin for the annual all-out fest SXSW will tell you that sure, the music is nice, but the BBQ is killer. Here, Oakland’s the Matches, who just released A Band in Hope this week and have embarked upon a mega tour behind it, share with us their best in BBQ bites from Austin mainstays Stubb’s and Ironworks. If you ask drummer Matt Whalen which of the two spots he preferred, Ironworks wins in a landslide of sauce and Texas-sized sweet tea.

Here is the band at Stubb’s, where Whalen says they scarfed down “better-than-decent pulled pork with its accompanying mediocre BBQ sauce,” made better when washed down with sweet tea.

At Ironworks, the Matches overhear other SXSW-goers discussing “how awesome Vampire Weekend is” while coming to a favorable realization about the President. “We waited for a relatively short 20 minutes to get in to Ironworks, which is known as a favorite of good ol’ George W," Whalen says. "The food was so good that I ate too much and almost collapsed in a BBQ coma [ed note: there is photographic evidence of this below] while playing our second show of the day later that night. Lesson learned. George W. does know one thing: Where to get good BBQ in Austin.”

But for the vegetarians in Austin, as Rachael Ray can attest, there’re fewer options. Singer Shawn Harris tells me about his mission to “to discover if Texas BBQ is not just for the carnivores.” Was he successful? Totally! But we can’t print how happy he was about a spot called Mother’s, which is located off the beaten 6th St. path. “The menu featured Mother’s special: BBQ tofu baked in a tamari peanut marinade and topped with a house BBQ sauce served with sage mashed potatoes and black eyed peas--for less than ten dollars! Video was shot of the meal, which was later found to be mostly unusable due to a smattering of expletives throughout, such as ‘F***! This is the Sh**!’ Humans and farm animals applaud.”

Chicago-via-Omaha melodic indie rockers Head of Femur just dropped their latest full-length, Great Plains (Greydey Records), and will begin touring behind it in May. While their tunes will work on any stage (the quartet has previously toured with bands like Architecture in Helsinki and Wilco), they’re perfect for the backyard—who wouldn’t love grilling to the resplendent saxophone and chipper double claps teeming on new track “Jetway Junior"? And these guys happen to fancy themselves grilling enthusiasts, too! The band spent much of its last tour camping between gigs and cooking over the Coleman, grilling up the “Femur Burger” (no, the recipe doesn’t require that bone in your thigh). They tossed the following ingredients in a bowl, mixed it up in no particular order, and threw it on the grill. The result? “A delicious and unique burger,” they said. With Head of Femur, you’ve got the soundtrack to and recipe for your first BBQ of the season.

Head of Femur’s burger recipe (for six) combines:

2lbs Lean Ground Beef
Worcestershire Sauce
1 diced onion
5-6 cloves of garlic (diced)
BBQ sauce (Sweet Baby Rays)
1/2 cup honey (makes everything stick together for a solid burger)
1 tbsp Italian seasoning
Salt and paper for seasoning to your liking
Pinch cumin and curry powder

More from Head of Femur can be heard on their MySpace page.

The only thing that’s really newly seasonal this time of year, FoodNetwork.com’s lead editor has told me, is the egg. Good thing for us Pittsburgh’s Life in Bed, who showcase interlocking guitar melodrama on the just-released Passed and Presents, has shared its recipe on where best to enjoy early-spring’s best foodstuff--in a setting not all that different than the band’s name! The next time you don’t want to get out from under the covers, find someone to make you Life in Bed’s Pittsburgh-Style Breakfast in Bed Egg + Potato Omelet Sandwich.

Serves 4:
• hot sauce
• 8 slices soft Italian bread
• 6 large eggs
• 2 cups diced new potatoes
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 4 slices swiss cheese
• 2 cups vinaigrette coleslaw
• 1 tomato, sliced
• 2 tbsp butter
• 3 tbsp milk
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1/8 tsp sea salt
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

In a large non stick skillet melt butter. Add potatoes and onions. Cook 10-15 minutes until tender, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, beat together eggs, milk, salt, parsley and pepper. Pour over potatoes. Once eggs begin to set, fold them in half, omelet-style. When the omelet is set, move it to a cutting board and cut into 4 portions. To assemble sandwich, place omelet portion onto a slice of bread, top with Swiss cheese, coleslaw, tomato and hot sauce.

Doylestown, PA’s Peasant--a folkie who pens pretty bedroom ballads on his latest effort, On the Ground--has uncovered some sushi secrets. Peasant (ne Damien Derose) visited Manhattan’s Soy, one of his favorite spots in the Lower East Side, where the restaurant’s owner revealed that sushi is hardly about the rice. “When we put vinegar into the rice it becomes sushi rice,” she said. “It’s not actually about the grain, it’s about the vinegar.” Derose’s favorite choice at Soy is the spicy tuna bowl, and he’s learned what’s in that dish’s secret sauce. You’ll have to watch the video to find out!

More Peasant can be heard on his MySpace page.