These several years out on the sea/Made me empty, cold, and clear/Pour yourself into me.

Here are two videos for two great songs. Pitchfork's Forkcasted them, so you've probably already seen them. Still, they're so good they belong here on the Smudge.

Okkervil River - A Girl In Port (solo acoustic) (PFork link here)


The Pipettes - Because It's Not Love (But It's Still A Feeling)

Maritime - Live on Fair Game, 11-29-2007

Faith Salie's Fair Game has been so good this year, and the live in-studio performances, like this brilliant acoustic show from Maritime, have been among the best of the year, as reliable as KEXP, KCRW, WOXY, and Minnesota Public Radio's The Current. Performances like this one made this a better year.

Maritime - Live on Fair Game (11-29-2007) (mp3s):

We Don't Think We Know
Holes For Thumbsized Birds
Hours That You Keep

Own Heresy & the Hotel Choir

Dig. Everything I Do Gonna Be Funky.

In about 3 weeks, join me in making this a New Year's resolution for 2008:

O'Donel Levy - Everything I Do Gonna Be Funky (mp3)

Well, maybe not everything. But we'll do things like this:

Milton Howard - Funky Shing-A-Ling (mp3)

And if we work up a little too much sweat, the perfect cure: a little bit more.

Alvin Cash - Funky Washing Machine (mp3)


From Superfly Soul, Vol. 2: The Return of the Hustlers

Kevin Drew Does Fair Game

Broken Social Scene's Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning played a stripped-down live in-studio set for Faith Salie's Fair Game this week, in support of Kevin's new solo album, Spirit If... Hold off on publishing your best-of-2007 list if you haven't heard it yet.

Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning - Live on Fair Game (11-28-2007) (mp3s):

Have A Life
Age Of Consent
Safety Bricks

Own Broken Social Scene Presents: Kevin Drew Spirit If...

A Night At Club Baobab

Close your eyes, turn your heat way up, put on your headphones, play this loud, and there you are, at a lively club in Dakar, Senegal, your worries forced out of your mind by the rhythms of Orchestra Baobab, entranced by the dancers squeezing every bit of joy out of life that they can. All is perfect. A cold brew is appropriate at this time. Don't come back until the music stops.

Orchestra Baobab - Kelen ati leen (mp3)
Orchestra Baobab - Jin ma jin ma (mp3)
Orchestra Baobab - Wango (mp3)

You just might need A Night at Club Baobab

Marnie Stern, Live on KVRX, 3-15-2007

Marnie Stern was a darling of both critics and mp3 blogs for an instant earlier this year, and then...and then there was other stuff, I suppose. Amazing how much is forgotten from March to November in the blogosphere, or from March to April, for that matter. A moment come and gone, like a world class shredder's semiquaver hammer-on.

Allow me to redirect your infinitesimal attention span to Stern, whose performance at the KVRX studio went, I think, largely unnoticed. According to KVRX.org, "Marnie Stern came with an iPod with tracks for everything but guitar and vocal. Zach Hill plays the drums and JR Thompson plays the bass in the tracks." Frenetic, chaotic, dazzling, and unrestrained.

Marnie Stern - Live at KVRX, 3-15-2007 (mp3s):

Grapefruit
Vibrational Match

Own In Advance of the Broken Arm

Outskirts of Deep City

At some point, Numero is going to find its classic soul vault empty. The deep, deep well that they pull track after track of compelling, charming, and consistently competent soul music will one day run dry. Thankfully, that hasn't happened with the release of their newest collection, Eccentric Soul: Outskirts of Deep City. The Rollers erase any worries with the opening track, Knocking On The Wrong Door (mp3), with a Jacksonesque vocal melody backed with bass, keys, guitar, and drums working together smoothly to create a mood that convinces you that the singer is in an adolescent playground kind of love. How does this gem got lost somewhere in the dustbin? Then there's Helene Smith's What's In The Lovin' (mp3), which opens with horn triads, leading into a pulsing guitar line, like something that Beck might have sampled from heavily for Midnight Vultures. And Betty Wright's Mr. Lucky, which starts with a gunshot, and after hearing her passionately belt out a few lines, you know she would pull that trigger.

How much more of this stuff can there be to draw from? Let's hope the rediscovery process has just begun, and that every time we grow tiresome of the same old stuff that makes up the Hype Machine's "Most Blogged" list, we're treated to an Eccentric Soul comp, or a Grand Bahama Goombay, or a Good God! A Gospel Funk Hymnal, right around the corner.

Thurston Moore - Live Acoustic on KEXP 10-24-2007

More live Thurston Moore, this time from October, in the KEXP studio, before his show at Neumos in Seattle. I know, a lot of Thurston lately, but this one is so unplugged, it's damn near third-world.

Thurston Moore - Live on KEXP (10-24-2007) (mp3s):

Silver>Blue
The Shape Is In A Trance
Frozen GTR
Fri/End

Trees Outside the Academy makes a great stocking stuffer for little rockers everywhere.

The Pipettes, Live on NPR 11-13-2007

Here's an NPR Video Session of The Pipettes playing Pull Shapes live in-studio on Nov 13th.

And here are the songs, which Gwenno, Riotbecki, and Rosay prove to be great throwback girl songs even without their signature dance moves and backing band, and they turn the lyrics "is there a drumbeat/and is the bass sweet" into a silly moment rather than an awkward one.

The Pipettes - Live NPR Video Session, 11-13-2007 (mp3s):

Why Did You Stay?
Pull Shapes

Own the U.S. release, with 2 bonus tracks, of We Are the Pipettes

The Pipettes, Live at Criminal Records, Atlanta

It Hurts To See You Dance So Well:


We Are The Pipettes:

Sharon Jones - Amazing Grace (Live), Plus The Dap Kings

Happy Thanksgiving, and thank all of you for visiting The Smudge, for supporting the artists we feature, and for totally rocking.

Tiny Vipers (Live on Fair Game 11-7-2007)

Jesy Fortino brought her guitar to Faith Salie's Fair Game studio and sang four songs for nerdy public radio listeners like me. This is about as arresting as public radio gets, though. I love it when Faith Salie brings the singer-songwriters into her show, interrupting the lightning-quick Mensa banter and commentary with a meditative folk haze.

Tiny Vipers (Live on Fair Game 11-7-2007)(mp3s):

On This Side
Aron
Issaquah
Shipwreck

Hold Hands Across the Void

Georgie James' Laura Burhenn Plays Radiohead's Karma Police

This happened 3 years ago, at Hotel Cafe.

Arctic Monkeys, Live on KCRW, 11-16-2007

This is a live in-studio performance, taped about a month ago for KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic, and broadcast last Friday. Arctic Monkeys are on their game here, their sound as sharp and jagged as their humor and wit.

Arctic Monkeys, Live on MBE 11-16-2007 (mp3s):

This House Is A Circus
Brianstorm
Teddy Picker
Do Me A Favor
Fluorescent Adolescent
Old Yellow Bricks
If You Were There, Beware
View From The Afternoon
Balaclava
Leave Before The Lights Come On

Own Favourite Worst Nightmare

Georgie James - Live on The Current, 11-12-2007

The Smudge has dedicated I don't know how many posts to D.C.'s pop duo extroardinaire, Georgie James, since April of 2006. My love for them has not waned - I remain a loyal GJ stalker. Here are some songs from a fun, invigorating in-studio performance for Minnesota Public Radio's The Current, broadcast this Monday.

Georgie James - Live On The Current (11-12-2007) (mp3s):

Need Your Needs
Long Week
Look Me Up

Own one of the year's best pop albums, Places.

Arcade Fire, Live on Austin City Limits, PBS Broadcast

If you have a DVR and recorded Arcade Fire's Austin City Limits performance on PBS in HD, you've probably watched it several times already. I know I have. Talk about the passion - seeing and hearing this performance is a near-religious experience, and the birds' eye cam over Win as he sang Rebellion (Lies) in the crowd was just the right shot.

Arcade Fire - Live on Austin City Limits (PBS TV Performance) (mp3s):

Black Mirror
Keep The Car Running
Neighborhood #2 (Laika)
Haiti
Intervention
(Antichrist Television Blues)
Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)
Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)/Rebellion (Lies)
Wake Up

Own Neon Bible

Ryan Adams, Live on KCRW 11-9-2007

Ryan Adams is beyond prolific; he is omnipresent. If I invited him to play in my back yard, I suspect that he might actually come. I'd especially love to hear something like this intimate 12-song set (is that a record?) that he played for KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic last week.

Ryan Adams - Live on KCRW (11-9-2007) (mp3s):

Two
The Sun Also Sets
Once Whatever
Everybody Knows
I Taught Myself How To Grow Old
Sweet Carolina
Stars Go Blue
Come Pick Me Up
Down In A Hole (Alice In Chains)
Morning Becomes Eclectic Ditty
Pearls On A String
How Do You Keep Love Alive

Reward yourself with both of these:
Follow The Lights
Easy Tiger

Thurston Moore on KCRW

I always like to imagine Thurston Moore as a child, taking in sounds the way that a photographer takes in sights. A young prodigy with a "hearing ear," maybe, an innate understanding that every scrape of a knife on a plate, every squealing vacuum belt has its own special potential for aural chaos. On his latest effort, though, he trades the chaos and wild experimentation with contained energy and focus. On Halloween, he played several songs from the album for KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic.

Thurston Moore - Live on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic, 10-31-2007 (mp3s):

Frozen Guitar
The Shape Is In A Trance
Silver Blue
Fri/End
Honest James
Trees Outside The Academy

Own the acclaimed Trees Outside the Academy.

Marilyn Monroe as Sugar Kane

Oxford Sounds Great.

The current issue of Oxford American is the 2007 Music Issue, which I haven't read yet, but it comes with a CD that I've listened to many times - a rich, diverse CD full of southern music, including Daniel Johnston, Thelonious Monk, Eldridge Holmes, David Banner, and other southern artists from all over the musical map.

Here are a few of my favorites from the 26-song treasury:

Sandy Posey - I Take It Back (mp3)
Reverend Charlie Jackson - Morning Train (mp3)
Thelonious Monk - Trinkle, Trinkle (mp3)
Betty Harris - Cry To Me (mp3)