Nneka - Live on KEXP, 23 Oct 10 (mp3)

Thanks to the internets, there are endless choices of streaming live performances to enjoy, but thanks to the very same internets, the ears can tire from so much noise that sounds so alike. A few months ago, Nneka played an in-studio at KEXP. It stands above the noise.

Nneka - Live on KEXP, 23 Oct 10 (mp3)

Glee Cast (Chris Colfer and Darren Criss) - Baby, It's Cold Outside

Don we now....This is sure to keep those cockles warm. It's time to reconsider your "gayest Christmas songs" rankings (also time to update the holiday playlist!).

Girl Talk - This Is The Remix

And so it is.

Gap Band - Humpin'

'Tis Wednesday.

The White Stripes - Devil's Haircut (Beck)(live video)

I wonder what a limited edition two-tone 45 of this would fetch on eBay.



This also exists. There's no video, but who'd have thought...YouTube can actually be good for the imagination.

Menomena - WNYC In-Studio Performance 10-4-2010

Also, stream or download an extra song performed off-air, at WNYC.

Menomena - WNYC In-Studio Performance 10-4-2010 (mp3)

Don't Think Twice, It's All Right - Free Dylan Demo

From the forthcoming Witmark Demos, today only, on Amazon.com. Download it here.

The Witmark Demos will be released on CD and in a vinyl box set, along with The Original Mono Recordings, on October 19th. Also, if you preorder from the
Dylan store on Amazon, you get a bonus live CD.

Heretics - Echoes (Klaxons cover)

The UK's Heretics are unsigned, but my spidey-sense tells me they won't be for long.

Klaxons - 9-20-2010 at Bowery Electric, Live Acoustic

I haven't considered how pretty Klaxons' 'Echoes' would sound sonically stripped. Here it is, live, with a few other tunes and interview.

'Surfing the Void,' by the way, holds up all the way through.

Male Bonding Live Brooklyn

Male Bonding explodes, as Male Bonding tends to do.

PREMIERE: White Sea - Mountaineer

Morgan Kibby of M83 is White Sea, and she reassures you in this musical dreamscape that it's all just a teen dream. Too bad we're not teens anymore.



PREMIERE: White Sea - Mountaineer

Cara Salimando - Your Ex-Lover Is Dead (Stars cover)

Cara is really young, but she's still convincing. I believe her.

The English Beat, Live from Bumbershoot on KEXP, 9-6-2010

I'll Take You There, I Confess, Save It For Later, Never You Done That, Tenderness, Mirror In the Bathroom. 40 minutes that you need, trust me. via KEXP.

The English Beat, Live from Bumbershoot on KEXP, 9-6-2010 (mp3)

Sonic Youth 930 Club 1988. Seriously.

Ridiculous.

Cat Power, Nude As The News (Live Vid with Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley on drums)

As posted a few moments ago on Sonic Youth's Faceboook Wall.



"Nude as the News" is from What Would the Community Think(1996)

Joanna Newsom, Live at Sixth and I Synagogue, 23 March

Joanna Newsom recently played at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, and you can listen to and download the entire performance from NPR's Live Concerts.

Her new album is Have One on Me.

Jonsi - Live on MPR's The Current.

DEFINITELY check out this live in-studio by Jonsi for 89.3's The Current. Wherever you are, or whatever you are doing, it is just the thing.

He performed "Stars in Stillwater," "Go Do," and "Around Us." Headphones absolutely required.

Order Go.

Arcade Fire: Suburbs/Month of May single (vinyl) out June 1, available for pre-order

I just pre-ordered my copy of Suburbs/Month of May
on Amazon.com.

Arcade Fire Status Update: "Finishing up pressing our new 12""

Arcade Fire Howdy y'all - Just finishing up pressing our new 12". Should be in stores in the next couple of weeks. God willing.
Good luck with finals.


See you this summer!

AF

http://amzn.to/amaq3p

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Ramona Falls - Too Little Too Late (video)

"Russia," the second video from Ramona Falls' debut album, Intuit.

You just have to know when to let go.

Owen Pallett In Concert From Webster Hall

Full stream up on NPR.org. The encore closes with Mariah Carey's "Fantasy."

Beach House, Live on The Current, 4-6-2010

The duo performs Norway, Real Love, and Ten Mile Stereo. In the interview, they discuss the songwriting process, album people versus singles people, the virtues of the "slow burn," and song sequencing.

Teen Dream [CD + DVD] is still among the best albums of the year so far.

Electric Owls - A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off (Magnetic Fields)

Here's a rare look at Electric Owls, who covered a Magnetic Fields classic recently. Electric Owls, The Comas' Andy Herod's current project, have been showing up here and there, but there is no tour schedule, and their page on the Vagrant site is gone. Let's hope they stick around for a while. Ain't Too Bright was great stuff, and Andy is captivating live.

Electric Owls - A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off (Magnetic Fields)(mp3)

Senryu - Inklings

Knoxville's Senryu are releasing Inkling on April 13th. Ariel Saldivar, who performed with Polyphonic Spree and Broken Social Scene, sings on this one. Spare-lush-spare is the new loud-quiet-loud, and this title track holds out until about the three minute mark. I'm perfectly happy with the charm and simplicity of its beginning, and the song would be just fine without blooming into sonic multilayers, but I'm not complaining. That minute colors the song jubilant.

Senryu - Inklings (mp3)

Listen to more Senryu here.

Sebastian Blanck feat. Carolyn Polachek - Thunder

This is from Sebastian Blanck's forthcoming Alibi Coast, out June 22nd. The warm fingerpicking signals spring. I has a melancholic brightness, like a firefly in a jar, or the afterimage of a candle. It's one of those songs that begs for similes, and campfires. Sign me up.

Sebastian Blanck "Thunder" feat. Caroline Polachek by rare book room records

St. Vincent - Your Lips Are Red (Live @ Black Cat DC)

Sonic Youth - Pay No Mind (Beck)(youtube stream)

Just a quick reminder. Record Store Day is not forever from now. Time to start scoping future rarities.



And here's a reminder of how MTV used to be, with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore skillfully extracting Beck's deepest philosophies and insights before the Mellow Gold release date.

Charlotte Gainsbourg - Trick Pony (Live on Letterman, 1-22-2010)

Complete with werewolf.

Cowboy Junkies with Vic Chesnutt - Postcard Blues.

R.I.P. Vic Chesnutt. Not everyone noticed on Christmas day, but those of us that did felt it, and maybe even more now that the holiday haze has cleared away. May you float weightlessly and write unconstrained in heaven.

Cowboy Junkies with Vic Chesnutt - Postcard Blues (mp3)

From Cowboy Junkies' Trinity Revisited [CD/DVD].


Vic Chesnutt Store

Dex & Cat, Love Letters.

Chan Marshall sings with Flat Duo Jets' Dex Romweber in this great classic song of longing, "Love Letters," from the Dex Romweber Duo's Ruins of Berlin. It might have been done best by Ketty Lester, see the video below, but the warm tone color in Chan's voice is perfect for yearning.

Dex Romweber Duo, featuring Cat Power - Love Letters (mp3)

Will Kimbrough - Goodnight Moon

Some of the Oxford American magazine's Southern Music compilations are fetching ridiculous sums. I saw one of the comps, I don't remember from which year, for over $120 on Amazon.com. Crazy, since they're free with a $15 subscription. I have several of the compilations, and I get a more mileage out of them than an old rusty pickup. The last song on the 6th CD in the series is a lingering and proper farewell: a musical version of the classic children's book that has been read to you in dim, flickering light.

Will Kimbrough - Goodnight Moon (mp3)

The song is also available on Will Kimbrough's 2000 album, This.

Boy Eats Drum Machine

Hoop + Wire is the forthcoming (early March) release from Boy Eats Drum Machine, the brainchild of Jonny Ragel, the prolific composer from a basement in the landlocked nation of Portland. Here he takes straight progressions, preserves them, and yet disjoints them with stop-and-go syncopated rhythms and echoes. Stumbling hasn't been this charming since They Might Be Giants. Plus, there's something about the solo ethic that makes the music feel personal and real, like a home cooked meal by a grandma versus a chef's specialty prepared by a disciplined team. The critics-be-damned, this is how I like to make my dish mentality. Who doesn't relate to that?

Boy Eats Drum Machine - Hoop & Wire (mp3)

Mp3 Blogging is Therapeutic, And So Is This.

Sometimes I think of music bloggers as warped Seussian Hortons, holding out fuzzy pink flowers to imagined masses, insisting that here, right here on this little pink fuzzy, is something that exists and might enchant you and color your world if you will just have a listen. Meanwhile, the imagined masses seek out the things that they already know and love, too busy to stop at every snotty trunk-gripped flower that is rudely shoved in front of their faces.

So I've been busy with new challenges, neglecting the community of Who-ville, though like the tree that fell in the forest, I didn't really make a noise anyway.

Although my studies are only about to intensify, I still have my own ears, and I can at least try to remind myself that I exist. And so I'm going to start posting again, for no other reason than "It feels good."

Here's a little pink flower with Marie "Queenie" Lyons. She was a soul singer in the 60's, who worked with the great James Brown (R.I.P.), and made one LP and a few 45's. After Soul Fever was released in 1970, she disappeared. But unlike "The Smudge of Ashen Fluff," she made a noise.

Marie "Queenie" Lyons - See And Don't See (mp3)

Also listen to "A Minute of His Good Time" and "We'll Cry Together" on Sir Shambling's Deep Soul Heaven.