Check out the Toronto band Evening Hymns in their performance on an earlier  Takeaway Show.

Evening Hymns | A Take Away Show | Presented By La Blogotheque, NxNE, SxSW and ASTW from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

We are gonna have to attend a music festival one of these days.  Oh, right, a week from today at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival.  Can’t wait.

In the meantime check out some of our favorite vignettes from last week’s ACL Festival and then go HERE if you want to check out scads more from ACL 2011.

First check out Young the People performing My Body.  Now that’s how to rile up a crowd. Almost gleams like Glastonbury.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zuv8tncXBNQ&feature=related

Then check out the fab Iron & Wine doing their revelatory Walking Far From Home in near-acappella mode (with Rosie Thomas and Marketa Irglova, of movie “Once” fame, killing).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aV9YmaZZTU

And then check the ubiquitous The Head and the Heart doing their song, Rivers and Roads.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aojUSESZxRo

In case you missed Brandi Carlisle when she opened recently at the Bowl for Ray LaDisstagne, check out her rendering of The Story below.  Girl’s got pipes.

And then check out the Cults doing their breakout song, Go Outside.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aqyf2aYR1pQ

And just for “kicks” check out the worst cover band ever doing the great song Pumped Up Kicks. Oh wait, sorry, that’s actually Foster the People.   A shame about them live.  We’s prefer Weezer’s cover by far.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZmP4xsWKt4&feature=relmfu

One of our all-time favorites, Clem Snide lead singer, Eef Barzelay, has just released “Fan Chosen Covers (Best of)” which you can stream/download below or HERE.  We wrote recently about Clem/Eef and his ukelele-fueled live covering of Journey’s Faithfully. Now he’s back with more craftily-covert covers. Great stuff.

As the Bandcamp page says:  “As part of the Journey Ep Kickstarter campaign folks who pledged $150 or more got to choose any song for Eef to cover. Of the 30 some odd songs here are Eef’s favorites all recorded around the summer of 2011 at his home in Nashville TN.”

Check the covers out below (we particularly like Whiter Shade of Pale), and go on over to Bandcamp and contribute to the cause of one of America’s great singer-songwriters and cover-songsters.

Recent Santa Barbara visitors, Telekinesis (formidably opening for Joy Formidable at Soho), performed their song, Please Ask for Help, on the Jimmy Fallon Show last night.  They are one of our current power-pop faves. Check ’em out.

Soon-to-the-SB-Bowl, Death Cab for Cutie, did two songs on Carson Daly recently. Check out some new (You are a Tourist) and some old (The New Year) below.

Great Brit-band Elbow made their U.S. television debut on the Jimmy Fallon Show. We have written repeatedly about the wonders of this band, and can’t wait to catch them on October 2nd at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival.  They’re one of the best, comparatively-unknown bands on the planet.

Check out below their poignant delivery of the sensationally sweet Lippy Kids off their most recent album, “Build a Rocket Boys!” Guy Garvey and gang are wonders.  And then check out The River and some backstage moments with Guy Garvey

Lippy Kids

“Lippy kids on the corner again
Lippy kids on the corner begin settling like crows
And I never perfected that simian stroll
But the cigarette scent, it was everything then

Do they know those days are golden?
Build a rocket boys!
Build a rocket boys!

One long June I came down from the trees
And cursed on cue
You were freshly painted angel walking on walls
Stealing booze and outlawing hungry kisses

Nobody knew me at home anymore
Build a rocket boys!
Build a rocket boys!

Lippy kids on the corner again
Lippy kids on the corner begin settling like crows
And I never effected that simian stroll, no

Do they know those days are golden?
Build a rocket boys!
Build a rocket boys!

One long June I came down from the trees
And cursed on cue
You were freshly painted angel walking on walls
Stealing booze and outlawing hungry kisses

And nobody knows me at home anymore
Build a rocket boys!
Build a rocket boys!”

Elbow also performed The River.

Wow, it’s been an incredible two nights of rock ‘n roll on Late Night with David Letterman.   Letterman has been our favorite talk show host since he and Paul first started up in 1982 (making jokes then about their then-non-existent decades of working together–now look at the prophetic ones!).

First up on Wednesday was Coldplay performing and delivering a fine 53-minute webcast set.  Then last night Wilco performed both on prime time and via a stellar 63-minute webcast set.  You can check out the performance below and then the webcast after.  We can’t wait to catch the band next year when they finally make it to Cali.  You can pre-order their new album, The Whole Love HERE (to be released next Tuesday, the 27th).

Check out their performance of Born Alone off the new album. A beauty. And Nels again! (video courtesy of the Audio Perv).

Then check out the 63-minute webcast below.

The beautifully battling band, Warpaint, released their “Rough Trade Sessions” yesterday. The Sessions were filmed live in London.  Rough Trade will soon release The Fool (Deluxe Edition), which includes their much-lauded album “The Fool,” the “Exquisite Corpse” EP and a few bonus tracks.  This is a band to be reckoned with.

Check out the videos for Burgundy, Majesty, Billy Holiday and Composure below.

And check out the band performing Elephants and Undertow on Jools Holland.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ozmy4MQD_M&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWwt1BSHIHw&feature=related

Coldplayed on Letterman last night. Check out their performance of Paradise below . The band also played a 53-minute web-only Live on Letterman session that you can watch HERE.  Not quite Glastonbury, but great stuff (Yellow!) nonetheless.  We played cold for a while with Coldplay, but we’ve found the thread again.

Watch the performance of “Paradise” below in advance of their new album, Mylo Xyloto.

We have loved Mates of State, led by husband and wife team Jason Hammel and Kori Gardner, for quite some time.   They routinely deliver keyboard-dominated pop masterpieces overlayed with bright voices and production.  Adding to the allure are lyrics that maturely explore monogamous (and other) relationships.  It’s a heady mix, but subtly so. Their albums “Bring it Back” and “Re-Arrange Us” are amongst our all-time favorites.

NPR is featuring the brand new official video for Palomino, the opening cut from Mates of State’s just-released new album “Mountaintops.” As NPR states:  “Palomino is a sun-dappled burst of soaring beauty that falls right in the band’s sweet spot.”  Also check out the band’s and director’s (Jimi Patterson’s) explanations of the laborious animation process (Rotoscope) used to make the video.  And then check out the new video and song.