Some days are good to just max and relax with your friend Q-Tip or make a folk-influenced brand of vocal jazz that is incredibly pleasing to the masses/your parents. Other days, you’ve got to fight the man. And one of our favorite ways to fight the man: more windows!

We imagine this to be the general mindset of songstress Norah Jones as she navigates her way through a classic Brooklyn brownstone battle. You see, earlier this year, Jones purchases a brownstone home in Brooklyn’s idyllic Cobble Hill for $4.99 million. Now the nieghborhood says her request to add “10 double-hung windows to the side brick wall” goes directly against the architectural spirit of the neighborhood’s predominantly Greek Revival design and that “breaking this precedent is wrong.”

Jones has responded defiantly, as any good man-fighter is wont to do, by writing a kind-spirited e-mail explaining she went through the appropriate request process and is simply trying to keep the neighborhood “beautiful and peaceful.” This may seem like Jones is playing a bit nice. But we’re pretty sure one of the emoticons was startign to get those angry eyebrows. Owned. (Via: Gothamist)

Willie Nelson just never stops working: today, he announced his planned MySpace secret show at his hometown bar in Maui, Hawaii, to coincide with the August 25 release of American Classic, his latest album on Blue Note. Part of the “Secret Show” series put on by MySpace Music, the concert will feature a guest appearance by Band of Horses and will take place at Charley’s Restaurant and Saloon in the town of Paia, located on Maui’s legendary Hana Highway.

American Classic, Nelson’s first album of jazz standards since 1978’s Stardust, features guest appearances by Norah Jones and Diana Krall, and will be streamed on MySpace in its entirety starting on August 22, along with a video on the making of the album which is currently on MySpace Music’s website. Nelson will also be previewing tracks from the album on his SIRIUS satellite radio program.

Though Ryan Adams hasn’t put out a great record in a while, we dig on the fact that he’s become an Americana-fied, big belt buckled version of Bob Pollard—he cranks songs out and more often than not, they do the trick. Meanwhile, Will Sheff of Okkervil River has been on a songwriting tear as of late, having penned enough fireball lyrical turns to make most writers green with envy. Which is why Norah Jones enlisted the two to help co-write her forthcoming full-length alongside longtime collaborator Jesse Harris. Jones, a chanteuse more closely associated with piano bench fare for your Dad, will be playing guitar on this one, a change that might signal some eminent rocking and rolling. She, as some may recall, also helped Adams write “Dear John” for the latter’s 2005 record with his Cardinals, Jacksonville City Nights. Soy lattes will be a’spilling. (via SPIN)