Here is some local flavor for you from where I (still) call home: Lubbock, Texas. Growing up dead center of quite literally the middle of nowhere meant that we very seldom had any touring bands make a pit-stop in our college town. A plus to this otherwise negative isolation proved to be that local acts thrived. In fact, I would say that out of all of the places I’ve lived, Lubbock has had some of the most eclectic and better sounding local bands that I have heard. Not surprising, alt-country proved to house the best-of-the-best of bands, that being Thrift Store Cowboys. Although the group has toured extensively and recorded incredibly polished and delightful albums, they still have remained local at heart.

When I first started going to their shows about ten years ago, the core of the group consisted of singer/guitarist Daniel Fluitt and singer/fiddler Amanda Shires. Both are hyper-talented and incredibly hard-working and are deserving of higher acclaim. Below are two videos highlighting them individually (Amanda has since moved on and started recording solo albums, although her ties to Lubbock can still be seen in the video). Enjoy the best of West Texas!

I’ll start off with my favorite video posted by, as usual, Chris from GvB. I can’t come up with a better description than what’s given by the the artist’s Belgium label Crammed Discs:

The world has ended. All that’s left is a jungle on a floating rock where a paradise nightclub band is playing at the last cabaret on earth: the Las Vênus Resort Palace Hotel. The singer’s name is Sonja Khalecallon, and her band are Los Stroboscopious Luminous. Sonja Khalecallon is in fact one of the alter egos of Cibelle, the London-based tropical punkster whose take on music is entirely her own and “Lightworks” is her cover of seminal exotica producer and 1950s electronic music pioneer Raymond Scott’s track.

Videographer Ray Concepcioñ never ceases to amaze me. Evidently, I’m not the only one who’s captured by his cinematic talent as The Great Pumpkin included this video on an awesome recent post about Vermont’s folksy female group Mountain Man:

I seriously can’t get enough of this stripped down version of a new track entitled “Little Bright Fires” by West Texans Daniel Fluitt and Colt Miller of Thrift Store Cowboys (who you may remember put out one of my favorite 7”s of ’09). Take a listen for yourself and see how wonderful this song is:

Got to love the genius that is Michel Gondry. Here’s his latest music video for LA’s singer/songwriter Mia Doi Todd track “Open Your Heart”:

Words can’t not describe how pumped I am to check out St. Vincent this weekend when she plays Doug Fir Lounge. She had two great videos crop up this past week (the more official being her video for “Laughing With a Mouth Full of Blood” with Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein’s comic troupe Thunderant), however I prefer the cover of The National’s “Taken for Strangers”:

After hopping the pond for a handful of European dates, New Jersey native Dayve Hawk (aka Memory Tapes) finally got around to playing his first US show when he opened for Atlas Sound at Brooklyn’s Bell House this past week. Here’s a video of his rather nervous performance:

Finally, a video recap wouldn’t be complete with at least one Vincent Moon recording! This week’s pick is an early 2009 Montreal performance by recently deceased singer/songwriter Lhasa de Sela:

If these videos don’t take you through the weekend, head on over to my blog friend Adult Acid and check out what he has posted!