There’s a group of fine French folks (led by Frenchman Vincent Moon, seen above) putting out some of the best, most-captivating music videos on the planet under the moniker, “The Take-Away Shows.”  Moon began by making cinéma vérité styled music videos of bands such as Phoenix, The National and Yo La Tengo, filmed in settings that helped to isolate and illuminate the performers and their music.  You may know Moon and the Take-Away from the Arcade Fire-in-elevator video below (Take-Away #41).

Take Away Show #41 _ THE ARCADE FIRE from Vincent Moon / Petites Planètes on Vimeo.

As you can read in the New York Times link below, Moon eventually grew restless and reinvented himself by abandoning his Parisian life and taking to the worldly road and producing videos from Brazil and, most recently, Austin Texas.  Check out a recent video below from the band Vandeveer (which have a bit of  the look and feel of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros) set in an abandoned swimming pool.  The Take-Away, Vandeveer and Maps and Atlases worked together this year at SxSW in benefit of Uganda’s “Invisible Children.”

Vandaveer | The Nature of our Kind | A SxSw / IC Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

You can see more fantastique Take-Away Shows HERE and read a profile of Vincent Moon from today’s New York Times HERE.

We meandered upon a couple of new music videos that, for us, help to overcome the greasy gray-matter outside our windows and convey some serious Summertime.  First up is a great new song and video by Eleanor Friedberger from her first solo record, “Last Summer,” which is due from Merge in mid-July.  Friedberger is the co-leader (with her brother, Matthew) of the inventive and invigorating band, “The Fiery Furnaces.”  In My Mistakes Eleanor delivers a powerful pop song brimming with honesty (and manages to incorporate some solo tennis in the video).  The Merge press blurb says it well:  “Friedberger’s phrasing is as good as anyone’s; even better, when the line’s over and most other singers would leave it right there, she’ll throw in an unnecessary extra syllable—a “yuh” or an “er,” even an “oh oh.” It’s like she hates silence. “Eleanor Friedberger’s music improves on silence”: there’s your headline.”

And below that is the perpetually peppy Matt and Kim (do they ever have a “bad day”?) with a new video for their song, Block After Block.  The video is an infectious bit of sound and and sight featuring New York City and environs (Union Square, Brooklyn Bridge Walkway, etc.).  Chapeau! to the maundering mosh-pit and the crowd-surf train guy.  All of which serves to remind:  it’s been far too long, NYC.  Check ’em out.

Eleanor Friedberger – My Mistakes from Merge Records on Vimeo.

If you like instrumental music and rock n’ roll, then you have to love Explosions in the Sky.  We are such slaves to lyrics in songs and their collaborative effects that we admit instrumentals are generally not our first (or second) pick when we want to listen to music.  But when a band makes music as beautiful and cathartic as Austin’s Explosions in the Sky, you must give them their due.  Check out their set from Bonnaroo a few days ago (courtesy of the AudioPerv), and see why this band has a justifiably huge following.  Click twice on the arrows below for viewing.

Photos by Lefort

We had the great fortune to catch Buffalo Springfield at the Santa Barbara Bowl last Wednesday.  A year ago no one would have predicted that Neil Young, Richie Furay and Stephen Stills would re-group and grace us with a reunion tour from a band that had dis-banded a scant 43 (!) years ago.  For what it’s worth, it was well worth the wait.  The songs and delivery of the band roundly resonated in the hallowed grounds of the Bowl.  The only expectation of ours not met by the band was when they failed to play their best song, Neil Young’s  Expecting to Fly. Check out the full set-list from the show way below.  Also below is a video of the band performing Mr. Soul at Bonnaroo.

Photo by Lefort

Opening up was the American-treasure-trove of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, who performed their usual musical magic (in full Nudie-suit regalia) despite the nattering and inattention of the ADD crowd, which failed to heed Buffalo Springfield’s own warning that Gillian and David might not “be back till later on, if [they] do come back at all.”  Pay attention folks: you might at any point be in the presence of greatness without realizing it.  Better to adhere to the admonition of the Talking Heads:  “Don’t you miss it, don’t you miss it; some ‘a you people just about missed it!”  On June 28th, the duo will release its phenomenal new album, “The Harrow & the Harvest,” under the Gillian Welch moniker (after an eight-year wait), which you can read about and pre-order HERE .

For a flavor of the Bowl show, check out Buffalo Springfield’s performance of Mr. Soul at Bonnaroo last Saturday.

Buffalo Springfield setlist from the June 8th Bowl show:

We caught the brilliant Bright Eyes when they came through Pomona a few months back, and the band delivered an “incendiary” performance.  In line with that flash-pot set, check out the official video for Bright Eyes’ tribute to The Cars:  Jejune Stars below.  Consider it an early Fourth of July celebration.

Stephen Malkmus is soon to release his fifth post-Pavement album, Mirror Traffic (out August 23) on Matador. The new album was recorded by Beck (candidly, we’re not fans of his) in Los Angeles over the past couple of years and includes 15 songs.  Check out the first song released from the album, entitled Senator, below.  In light of the recent wiener-revelations swirling around Representative Weiner, along with the allegations concerning the IMF’s Dominique Strauss-Kahn (OK, go ahead and pick amongst 30-50 possible sordid government or regulatory offenders), the lyrics are particularly apropos.  And if this song is any musical indication of the caliber of the new album, it sounds like Malkmus is back on track and making vibrant, melodic and interesting sounds, and not just wanking on his guitar as he has over the course of the last couple of albums and tours with the Jicks.  We’re sure it was because of our earlier plea. Vive le Malkmus!

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks–Senator

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/stephen_malkmus_jicks_senator.mp3|titles=stephen_malkmus_jicks_senator]

Matthew Zapruder recently won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry with his book, Come on All You Ghosts.

We highly recommend this collection.  Zapruder takes the everyday happenstance and applies boatloads of texture to render haunting and whimsically simple vive-vignettes.  Check out one of the poems from this collection, Global Warming below.

“Global Warming”

In old black and white documentaries
sometimes you can see
the young at a concert or demonstration
staring in a certain way as if
a giant golden banjo
is somewhere sparkling
just too far off to hear.
They really didn’t know there was a camera.
Cross legged on the lawn
they are patiently listening to speeches
or the folk singer hunched
over his little brown guitar.
They look as tired as the young today.
The calm manner in which their eyes
just like the camera rest
on certain things then move
to others shows they know
no amount of sunlight
will keep them from growing suddenly older.
I have seen the new five dollar bills
with their huge pink hypertrophied numbers
in the lower right hand corner and feel
excited and betrayed.
Which things should never change?
The famous cherry trees
I grew up under
drop all their brand new buds
a little earlier each year.
Now it’s all over before the festival begins.
The young.
Maybe they’ll let us be in their dreams.

They’re everywhere, and that’s a good thing.

If you missed it, check out video from their recent Todd Haynes-filmed show at the The Palace in Louisville and then tune in to VHS1 Storytellers tonight.

Read about VHS1 show HERE and check out a sample below.