I don’t recall ever having seen a video that made me like a song less, but leave it to a band with a terrible name to find and exploit that untapped spot in my brain.
Even so, it’s a fantastic song. John in the Morning has been playing this song every day for the past four days, and he was right when he tweeted:
holy mother baby jesus on a cracker, “colours” from Grouplove?!?!?!? I’m freaking out. Its perfect. (sic)
Head. Explode.
Not so keen on the music — it’s not bad, but that’s not the story here. Just watch.
Directed by Cyriak Harris. Music by Eskmo.
One of the strangest videos I’ve ever seen. Good song, though. It’s the title track from Destroyer’s upcoming release “Kaputt,” out on January 25.
New video for fast-rising Seattle hip-hop star Macklemore. The man sure knows how to pull at the home-town heartstrings.
New Noah and the Whale song, “L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.,” from their forthcoming album Last Night On Earth, which comes out March 8th. That chorus just sticks to you, like peanut butter.
Once you read my next post, #20 on the Musical Bacon Calendar (to appear above, shortly), you’ll know why I’m posting an Allman Brothers video from 1982 here. Hot damn. Those guys weren’t much to look at, but that’s some amazing guitar playing.
Introducing Campfire OK, Seattle’s next big thing™. This is a live-performance video for “Strange Like We Are” (filmed by Christian Sorensen Hansen at KEXP’s studios). The band’s debut album, also called Strange Like We Are comes out in February. Look for it on next year’s Musical Bacon Calendar.
One of the stranger things I’ve seen in a long while: Hot Chip, with the Bonnie “Prince” Billy version of “I Feel Better.” Not sure how I feel about any of it, but had to share it regardless.
Yellow Ostrich is the brainchild of Alex Schaaf, out of New York City. Most of the music he’s made over the last couple years is created entirely by himself. And did I mention that you can download it all for free? But slip him a few bucks for the effort — support good people making good music!
/via @loserboy
Chills. Those solos. My god.
Dire Straits - “Sultans Of Swing” (OGWT; Recorded: Jan. 1978; Broadcast: May ‘78)
Gold. Taped two weeks before they started recording their first record—a full nine months before it was released.
Featuring variations on not one, but two, of my favorite guitar solos.
The man pulls-off like a mofo.
Trust me, this guy is amazing. John O, aka Diamond Rings, opened for Perfume Genius when I saw him play at the Crocodile recently, and he blew my mind. Read the review I wrote about the show to learn more about him, and keep your eyes/ears out for Diamond Rings’ debut album, out on Oct. 25. It‘s going to be HUGE.
/via @BrittneyBush
A rather long video that you don’t need to watch, but should bring yourself to put on in the background and listen to as you go about your day.
I just saw Frightened Rabbit for the second time last week, and the video above was recorded between those two sets. Neither time I saw them did they perform The National’s “Fake Empire” (47:40) or the Hold Steady’s “Southtown Girls” (1:06:23), but both of those covers make it well worth the price of admission to watch this awesome video.
Enjoy.
The Siouxsie Sioux resurgence continues with this somewhat disturbing video from Brighton’s Esben and the Witch. Directed by Peter King and David Procter at The Agenda Collective, we’re presented with the 3 members of the band, lip-syncing directly into the camera, as some unknown off-camera source slowly pummels them to oblivion.
/via MBV
The Swell Season covers Neutral Milk Hotel for the Onion’s A.V. Club.
They do a good job with “Two-Headed Boy.” No one can do the song justice, but I feel it’s probably quite difficult to screw up covering this song, too. “King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 2” at the end of the video should have been avoided.
What’s more interesting to me is that out of the 25 songs available, “Two-Headed Boy” didn’t get picked until song #22? Why wouldn’t this song have been one of the first ones picked?
Sorry for all the Budweiser crap surrounding the video. Unavoidable.
/via Large Hearted Boy
Jónsi, “Go”
As the lead singer of Iceland’s Sigur Rós, Jónsi has a masterful grasp of how to combine ever-so-quiet lows with impossibly-high crescendos.
His solo album is more high than low, and he’s singing in English more than ever. This video is for the song Go: a fun, excitable, toddler-bouncing-off-the-walls ditty.
/via KEXP
Eef Barzelay from Clem Snide totally nails a cover of Journey’s Faithfully. This song never sounded so good.
/via luckyshirt
I have a feeling in a couple months I’m going to absolutely hate this song, due to it being overplayed by KEXP. And it will most certainly end up in a commercial, perhaps for cell phones, or maybe for cotton. But that’s tomorrow. Today, “Home,” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, is the perfect song.
Another video from Beck’s Record Club cover of Kick. SO good, with St. Vincent (Annie Clark) on lead vocals.
HOLY crap. Jeff Mangum, recorded last night, singing “Oh, Comely.” I really wish I could put my finger on why this album resonates so much better to my ears than any other album ever (no joke). Seeing Jeff perform live is definitely something I hope to do at some point. But I don’t live in NY, and it’s not as if he’s out touring or recording any new material. So this will have to do. /via MBV
Update: Matt LeMay at MBV captures that indefinable feeling pretty well. There’s also a good review of this show over at Radio Exile And, lastly, I have to say that I am so unbelievably jealous of this tweet.
Love that Beck. In case you haven’t heard, he’s doing a series called “Record Club” where he and friends go into the studio and cover a full album in one day. Their rendition of The Velvet Underground and Nico made my top 31 albums of 2009. I’m sure this new one, INXS’s Kick, will make it onto the 2010 list. That’s St. Vincent, among others, playing with Beck on this one.