Land of Talk - Some Are Lakes

Yeah, I know, just what we need--another band from Montreal! When I first heard Land of Talk last year, I wasn't too keen on them. But this new song has me won over. Frontwoman Elizabeth Powell's got a lovely, lilting voice and this is really sticking in my head.


MP3 Land of Talk - Some Are Lakes (from 2008's Some Are Lakes)

Arlo Guthrie - I'm Changing My Name to Fannie Mae

Arlo updates his "I'm Changing My Name to Chrysler" for our new era of poor, poor billionaire bailouts.

I'm changing my name to Fannie Mae
And I'm heading for that great receiving line
So when they hand a trillion grand out
I'll be standing with my hand out!

When my creditors are screaming for their dough
I'll be proud to tell them all where they can go!

Sing it Arlo.

MP3 Arlo Guthrie - Alice's Restaurant (HUGE file--18 minutes long and totally worth it! anti-Vietnam masterpiece from 1967's Alice's Restaurant)

Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel SINGS in NYC

Jeff Mangum joins Elephant 6 pals Elf Power on the beautiful The Arrow Flies Close from their 1997 album When the Red King Comes (he walks onstage at the 2:00 mark to cheers and whoops).

Oh man, I just KNEW this was gonna happen at this Knitting Factory show, I shoulda been there. Maybe Mangum is finally coming out of his self-imposed exile from public view and maybe one day he'll even sing a NMH song again, wouldn't that be something? Here's how one fan in attendance described it (courtesy of brooklynvegan):

Jeff Mangum walked onstage 3 times last night at the amazing Elephant 6 collective show -- first just for the chorus of a song, about halfway through, then again for just a chorus, and finally at the last song ("The Opera House" by Olivia Tremor Control, before the encores) when he went NUTS and sang for the whole song. He was jumping around and sort of tackled Scott Spillane halfway through and put him in a headlock. He had the most intense look in his eyes the whole time he was on stage. Everyone chanted "Jeff Jeff Jeff", and someone was yelling for songs from Aeroplane ("anything from that album!!! you have to!!") but all we got from that album was Julian Koster and Scott Spillane doing a stripped-down, unpracticed version of The Fool, "dedicated to a friend", which Julian said they hadn't practiced in years. I'm sure you'll get more emails about it -- it was incredible.

I'm very encouraged by this! C'mon Jeff, ten years is long enough, please come back.

Springsteen plays for Obama in Philadelphia

It was a beautiful day in Philly as local hero Bruce Springsteen performed a 45-minute acoustic set for the Obama campaign. The crowd filled the Ben Franklin Parkway for five city blocks as the Boss played songs that sounded like prayers, accompanied only by his own guitar and harmonica. Fantastic!

The setlist:

The Promised Land
The Ghost of Tom Joad
Thunder Road
No Surrender
Does this Bus Stop at 82nd St? (with its line "the dope is that there's still hope")
The Rising
This Land is Your Land (Woody Guthrie, 1940)

Listen to Bruce address the crowd just before he played The Rising (my own upload to youtube!):

Springsteen to play free acoustic show for Obama in Philly

They don't call him The Boss for nothing.

Of course I'm going! There's not much could keep me away from free Bruce 35 miles from my house. All you have to do is sign up and they send you an email that serves as your ticket. If you volunteer to work the event (I can't get over to one of the PA offices before Saturday or I'd have done that), you get to stand in the VIP section up close, which will be nice cuz it's gonna be HUGE, something like this:


crowd on Ben Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia

MP3 Bruce Springsteen - My City of Ruins (from 2002's The Rising)