a year

Wow, it's been almost a year since I posted on this blog...maybe I should start again...

This is my favorite song off Sufjan's new album, his first"real" new record in five years. My daughter Anneliese loves it too.

MP3 Sufjan Stevens - I Walked (from 2010's The Age of Adz)

Radiohead - How to Disappear Completely and Never be Found (live for Haiti, Los Angeles, January 2010)

my favorite Radiohead song ever...this guy allbearsrule has a whole bunch of clips up from this show, check 'em out!

Q&A: Drive-By Truckers' Patterson Hood (via Billboard.com)

Billboard interviews the leader of the Drive-By Truckers, inheritors of the Allman Brothers Band's mantle and yet another phenomenal act based out of Athens, GA.

Q&A: Drive-By Truckers' Patterson Hood

The Magnetic Fields - You Must Be Out of Your Mind

Just beautiful! and I'm always a sucker for Stephen Merritt's (above, upper right) clever lyrics:

You can't go 'round just saying stuff 
Because it's pretty 
And I no longer drink enough 
To think you're witty

MP3 The Magnetic Fields - You Must Be Out of Your Mind (from 2010's Realism)

Frightened Rabbit - Good Arms vs Bad Arms

A beautiful, powerful breakup song off this Scottish band's tremendous sophomore album.

MP3 Frightened Rabbit - Good Arms vs Bad Arms (from 2008's The Midnight Organ Fight)

Jeff Mangum - Two-Headed Boy (live at the Knitting Factory, NYC, in 1998)

Wow. The intensity that is Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel. No wonder people throw fits every time he appears to sing backup at an Olivia Tremor Control or Elf Power show. Come back Jeff!

Girls - Lust for Life

You have to hand it to San Francisco's Girls. With perhaps the least Google-able band name possible, they have nonetheless ascended to the top of the search results. This song is a good example of their retro sound. They most often get compared to the Beach Boys and are certainly as melodic but also much noisier. Right now the band is famous mostly for its frontman Christopher Owens' (right, above) having grown up in the cult Children of God.

Note: this is not an Iggy Pop cover!

Girls - Lust for Life (from 2009's Album)

Lou Barlow - Gravitate

Catchy single from Lou's new solo record. He is the bass player and writes the introspective lyrics for Dinosaur, Jr., Sebadoh and The Folk Implosion.

MP3 Lou Barlow - Gravitate (from 2009's Goodnight Unknown)

Here We Go Magic - Fangela

Here We Go Magic is the moniker of young singer-songwriter Luke Temple from magical Salem, Massachusetts, who also performs under his own name.

MP3 Here We Go Magic - Fangela (from 2009's Here We Go Magic)

The Antlers - Two

It's been TOO LONG since we've featured a new Brooklyn band, so here are the Antlers with the tune Sirius XMU's been playing off their 2009 LP, Hospice. Record gets an 8.5 from Pitchfork.

MP3 The Antlers - Two (from 2009's Hospice)