Two great videos surfaced today from the Primavera Sound Festival that wrapped up yesterday in Barcelona. Although both vids are shot from the outer rim of the crowd and are optically zoomed in to the max, the integrity of the audio remains pretty much intact (a surprise in festival settings).
The first video is of the inevitable cover of Wavves’s “So Bored” by PT-Music favorites Best Coast:
The second is a smooth recording of Real Estate’s “Fake Blues”. Enjoy!
———————————————————
And here is one more Primavera 2010 video dug up from the depths of youtube, this time “Cold Freezing Night” by The Books:
Let’s jump head-first into yet another installment of my favorite video finds of the past week:
No doubt, one of the most buzzed about thing in the blog-o-sphere the past couple of days has been Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno’s (aka Best Coast) fast-food inspired video for “When I’m With You”:
Don’t have too many details from the Boston/NYC band Hooray for Earth other than they are set to open for crowd-favorites Surfer Blood and Pains of Being Pure at Heart on most of their East Coast tour dates. The following is a self-proclaimed “muppet-friendly, 80s public access channel-inspired video” for their track “Surrounded By Your Friends”:
Producing one of my favorite albums of 2010, I was shocked to find that I haven’t done a single Toro y Moi post yet. Here is an audio recording posted on youtube of Mr. Bundick covering Beach House’s “Master of None” that I found intriguing:
Another video I’ve been late to post is Kurt Vile‘s three song set he performed for Q-TV back in March:
I’ll end with an old-y but good-y, the karaoke music video for the Swedish sugary-sweet pop group Acid House Kings‘s track “This Heart is a Stone”. Yes, it’s three minutes of them playing ping-pong, but the song is soooo good!
Been waiting on this one for a while as twice I’ve tried to pick up a copy at their live show and both times learned that they sold-out of all their 7”s earlier in the tour (seems to be a trend…). Thankfully, Dean Spunt’s Post Present Medium label decided to do a limited re-pressing — 200 on orange, 300 on black vinyl — which I snagged as soon as I got word of the news.
The A-side features a duo of live favorites “Something In the Way” and “Wish He Was You”. Both tracks are upbeat, reverb-laden, infectious pop songs that Bethany Cosentino and Bob Bruno are known for. However, it’s the B-side “The Road” which I find the most intriguing of the bunch. A more heavy — and certainly more heady — song than anything else I’ve heard since Cosentino’s early Where the Boys Are Cassette, the track chronicles, what else, the hurt of lost love. (However, a more exotic interpretation could be “the son’s” later reflection of “his father” in Cormac McCarthy’s book of the same name. The lyrics, such as “I remember when I was younger / I used to sit around and think about you”, are certainly ripe for comparison).
You can listen to an mp3 of the “ballad” B-side as well as watch a live version of “Wish He Was You” that someone recorded at a Portland gig I went to:
Sorry for sounding too much like a shill for LA noise-rock act Best Coast, but Ms. Bethany Cosentino & Co. have been one of my favorite new bands of the past year so I feel all of myrecent postshave been justifiable.
If you’re like me and you just missed copping their Sun Was High (So Was I) 7” on the unfortunately named Art Fag Recordings, have no fear because a repressing has just been announced! Printed on orange vinyl this go around, this limited edition 7” is sure to be snatched up quickly by the hordes of recently converted fans. So if you want a copy, head over to one of the fine online vendors to snag one before it’s too late again! Below, is an mp3 of one of the B-side tracks (and one of my favorite BC songs), “That’s The Way Boys Are”:
Ready for another round-up of some of my favorite music-related finds of the past week? Well, here goes:
Starting off is a grainy video that I included more because of the music and the musicians than the image quality. On a summer European tour date in Göteborg, Sweden, Massachusetts chanteuse Marissa Nadler teamed up with local Sarah Assbring (better known as El Perro del Mar) for a beautiful rendition of the Don Gibson classic “Oh Lonesome Me”:
One of my favorite concerts in recent memory was the Best Coast show I caught about a week and half ago. Well the videographers at the San Fran based site Truly Yours brilliantly captured Bethany Constantino and Bobb Bruno’s performance of “Crazy”, along with some back story showing how cool Bruno is (which I can confirm):
The next video is from one of my most anticipated SXSW bands, The Good The Bad. This midly NSFW vid for their simply titled “026″ captures the sex, drugs, and rock & roll this Danish band is known for:
Although the next one is just an audio rip of Gnonnas Pedro et ses Dadjes excellent track “Dadje Von O Von Non” (and a poor one at that, with the final 90-or-so seconds completely silent), ever since Chocolate Bobka featured it on his Sunday morning radio show, I’ve dusted off my copy of Legends of Benin and have been playing it a lot this week:
The guys over at IGIF labeled this video as of their favorites they’ve seen in a while. I tend to agree with them. Here is Fang Island‘s “Daisy”:
This final video is meant to get you pumped for the upcoming SXSW festival in Austin (only one more month!) Sit back, relax, and soak in the genius of Daniel Johnston as he performs “True Love Will Find You in the End”:
Sorry to post this so late, but I had a pretty busy weekend of concert going. However, better late than never, so let’s kick off another week of some of my favorite video finds of the past week:
The first one is an incredible music video from Sierra-Leonean Janka Nabay. He has an upcoming 12” on one of my favorite labels True Panther entitled Babu King. Here’s the video for the excellent and highly publicized track “Eh Congo”:
At this point, I’m starving for any sort of new National material. Although I’m usually current with any latest developments (even filming a new song myself in Copenhagen), somehow I missed this live footage for another unreleased track called “Blood Buzz Ohio” that was filmed back in August:
The next two videos are so amazing that you can’t believe they are fan produced. The first is “When I’m With You” from a track off of Best Coast‘s impossible to get Black Iris 7” while the second is a take on Memoryhouse‘s “Lately”:
“Our Love Was Saved By Spaceman” is the first single off of The Pipettes forthcoming album. Probably due to all the recent lineup changes, their sound has taken a turn from 50s to 70s inspired. Take a listen for yourself:
Finally, the full video of Casiokids‘s brand spanking new track has finally surfaced. I talked a little about the teaser for “En Vill Hest” earlier this week, and the full cut seems to be just as weird as the 15 second snippet:
For weeks I’ve been waiting for this show: Meth Teeth are one of my favorite Portland bands, Best Coast is one of my new favorite groups, and Vivian Girls are definitely in my top five all-time faves. Words can not express how excited I was for this show. Anyways, I wasn’t about to let the typical arms crossed Portland concert goer get me down, so I went into the show ready to go crazy — regardless if I was the only one.
The downside of getting all liquored up heading out to a concert is that you don’t really make for a good journalist. I can’t really tell you much about Meth Teeth as I only own one album of theirs, but they put on a pretty damn good show. As for Best Coast, Bethany Cosentino steamrolled through most of the material on her plethora of 7”s, even playing two new tracks and a cover song in the process (sorry, didn’t have my video camera). Teaming up with longtime guitarist Bobb Bruno and Vivian Girls drummer Katy Goodman, Best Coast’s live incarnation is a sight to behold — not to mention “When I’m With You” and “In My Room” have never sounded better. As for Vivian Girls, they played most of the material from Everything Goes Wrong as well as a few sprinklings of past hits. Also, they played that bad ass Chantel’s cover and Bethany joined them onstage for two tracks.
Although I don’t remember much, I did snag the Vivian Girls setlist and took some photos of the show which you can check out below (or see the full set here):
This past week was a good one for me, so let’s start off with something happy: little kids dancing to Best Coast’s “When I’m With You”.
Canadian singer/songwriter Basia Bulat‘s latest LP Heart of My Own has been creeping into my rotation more and more with each day. I don’t know, maybe I’m a sucker for interesting female vocalists (Marissa Nadler, Tiny Vipers, Joanna Newsom, etc…), but sometimes there is just nothing better. Filmed nearly two years ago by Yours Truly and kept secret until her latest album release, here is the track “The Shore”:
Another funny clip, this one is taken from an old episode of the British version of “The Office” with David Brent (aka Ricky Gervais) interrupting a team building exercise to play some music:
One of the saddest days of my life was when I learned that the British group Electrelane was going on indefinite hiatus. Here is a video of their song “In Berlin” that I think best captures the essence of the group:
The next video is from one of my favorite up and coming bands Local Natives, whom I have You Ain’t No Picasso to thank for exposing me to:
The last video is by the Danish group Efterklang for their track “Modern Drift” which made me very nostalgic as it is composed of footage of Dyrehaven (or “Deer Park”) from the 1970s. When I was studying in Copenhagen, I would often ride my bicycle through the picturesque park, eventually winding up on the even more picturesque coast. Paired with the song, this just might be my favorite video of the year [NSFW for 20 seconds at the 1 minute mark (naked girl in woods = artistic)]:
Got another batch of videos for you to watch if you need to kill about half an hour of time this weekend. Ranging from live recordings, to music videos, and a new release sprinkled in, these vids are the cream of the crop of what I found over the past week. So without further ado, here you go:
Burgerville is a Northwest based fast-food chain. Mean Jeans is a Portland punk band. Combine the two, and you have one very envious Ronald McDonald.
LA based Best Coast‘s Bethany Cosentino has been steadily releasing 7” and singles since early 2009 (one of which winded up on my Best-Of List), and she’s back in the studio recording for another Black Iris release. Here’s a vid of her in the studio throwing down some vocals/guitar with a baby crawling around.
If it wasn’t for Jens Lekman and his freakishly eclectic tastes, I don’t know where I would turn to get my off-the-wall music:
M.I.A. is back and when she’s not lambasting the NY Times, she’s videotaping unofficial versions of tracks from her forthcoming as-yet untitled album. For “Space Odyssey” you get 4+ minutes of Ms. Arulpragasam dancing in front of a spotted green laser light while her music is playing on some terrible speakers in the background. Somehow this has wound up with over 100,000 plays in less than a week.
I think the world would be a much happier place if Ezra Koenig danced all the time. We certainly would at least laugh a lot more, that’s for sure. Here is his and The Very Best‘s official video for their track “Warm Heart of Africa”:
Rising up my list of my favorite French music sites, Wow Magazine has been releasing some great stuff lately. Here is a video they recorded at a recent Beach House show in Paris: (embed has been disabled).
Finally, a video recap wouldn’t be complete without a La Blogotheque mention and this sweet 12 minute video, shot also in Paris, of LA’s HEALTH blazing through four tracks is just the right one (I recommend full screening this one):
