Following Monday night’s appearance on the Letterman Show, Tom Waits moved over last night to the Jimmy Fallon Show to sit down with J-Fal for a tete-a-tete and to perform Raised Right Men off of Bad As Me.  Perhaps it was Questlove’s and The Roots’ palpable excitement over the legend’s appearance on the show, or J-Fal’s winning ways and rising stature amongst the musical cognoscenti, or perhaps the enthusiasm of the studio audience; whatever the case, Waits and the band brought even more to their performance than the prior night.  ?uestlove (@questlove) captured it well in his Twitter tweet:  “man. you aint lived til you seen @tomwaits sing in the flesh. (tonight on @latenightjimmy)”.  We have several times, and couldn’t agree more.  Long live Tom Waits!  Check out the performance followed by the interview below.

The incomparable Tom Waits showed on the Letterman Show last night for a chat and to perform Chicago off of his latest album, Bad as Me.  Waits is backed by about a hundred or so musicians, including his son, Casey, on drums and Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo on guitar.  Check out the song and then the interview after (the usual hilarity from Waits).  Keep on chooglin’.  All aboard!!!

Waits will also appear on the Jimmy Fallon Show tonight.

Both courtesy of the Audio Perv.

One of the best indie confabs, John Darnielle and The Mountain Goats, will release a new album entitled Transcendental Youth on October 2nd on Merge Records.  Their last album, All Eternals Deck, was one of our favorite albums (No. 16) of 2011, and their show at Soho was one of the best concerts of last year.  So expectations for Transcendental Youth are extremely high at Chez Lefort.  We could wax poetic and prolifically on the subject, but funnyman John Hodgman (The Daily Show, etc.) has done a far better job than we’re capable of below.  You can also check out Darnielle’s own explique of the new album HERE.  We can’t wait.  More sneaks and previews to follow.

John Hodgman:

“Biographical details that I have personally observed regarding John Darnielle and the Mountain Goats

John Darnielle is a human male and American musician who was born in Indiana.

Alone or in collaboration with others, he has been known as the Mountain Goats since 1991.

He grew up in Central California [TLR–San Luis Obispo], and has lived in many states, but now lives in North Carolina with his wife and child and at least one cat that I have observed.

I visited his home in the year 2011. I took off my shoes when I came in the door because that is my habit. No one made me do it.

John Darnielle’s house is not rockstar huge, nor rockstar glamorous. It does not have a home theater or rolfing center. It’s modest.

There is an office packed with shelves reflecting his preoccupations: pulp horror and philosophy and religious study. John Darnielle is fascinated with both death metal and the Holy Bible and speaks eloquently of the dark magic and elegance and grace of both.

Now I am going to tell you that, in the study by the stairs, I stepped in a little bit of cat vomit.

I can report that John Darnielle was not embarrassed. Because he knows it is in a cat’s nature to vomit, and because he saw an opportunity for kindness. He loaned me some socks, and they were argyle, warm from the dryer and very soft.

The house has a basement, which John Darnielle describes as “awesome.”

The basement is not particularly awesome. (I have seen some awesome basements.) It has some drums and guitars in it but otherwise is a fairly typical basement of a modest, middle-class home. Normal.

It is my impression that this may be why John Darnielle considers his basement to be awesome, for such normality was not necessarily going to be his fate.

Inside the basement is a box of a limited-edition, alternate vinyl version of his album The Sunset Tree, which came out in 2005. Each one is hand-painted by John: white sleeve traced with naïve snakes and swirls of bright color.

John Darnielle told me that he made these when things were going well in his career, but he was still not convinced he was going to make it…when he still thought he might have to go back to psychiatric nursing, which is what he did when he started writing and recording songs.

Those first recordings, you may have read, were made on a simple cassette recorder. And those tapes of just him plus guitar are full of hiss and urgency. They were made for one reason. Like these hand-painted LPs, even if all else failed, they were going to get out there, no matter what.

He has written almost 600 songs now, and some of them are very sad, dealing with hard drugs and tragic ends, hurting yourself and others, sicknesses of both body and brain, off-brand alcohols. They are told in beautiful, unnerving, specific detail, because John Darnielle is a very good writer, and also some of them are just true stories about his own life.

But many have noted that John Darnielle seems often very happy, and his demeanor on stage is almost exclusively unhaunted, ecstatic.

Anyone who reads his Twitter feed knows he takes great delight in his delights: vegan cooking, fat babies, hockey, the beautiful alchemy of Chemex coffee, Anonymous 4, playing music for people, loaning out socks when the time comes, basements.

These are the consolations; and if some of his songs suggest that there are real hells on earth, other songs remind that the heavens are equally close at hand.

(Sometimes they are even the same songs.)

It is my impression that this is the ecstasy John Darnielle is feeling: that thrill of having survived, escaped for even a second to enjoy those small transcendent delights, and to sing of them.

And I can report that if you are standing in the basement with John Darnielle and wondering how he survived this far, to stand happy in this heavenly basement, you may look down at the hand-painted album of songs you are holding and realize the answer is in your hand.

Like that album, TRANSCENDENTAL YOUTH is full of songs about people who madly, stupidly, blessedly won’t stop surviving, no matter who gives up on them.

I can report that it is a very good album and has many more instruments on it than those early tapes, including Peter Hughes on bass, Jon Wurster on drums, and, for the first time, a full horn section. And all of this makes a very joyous noise.

Everything I have written here is true, to the best of my knowledge.

I am not giving back the socks.

That is all.

John Hodgman
2012″

One of the great “posthumous collaborations” of all time transpired when Billy Bragg and Wilco wrote music for lyrics long-ago written by Woody Guthrie (and later discovered by Woody’s daughter in an attic).  What resulted was the phenomenal Mermaid Avenue album in 1998.  The highlight of that album was the music written by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and the late Jay Bennett for what became the song California Stars.  If there was any justice, California Stars would be the California State Song and schoolchildren across the State would be required to sing the song in unison on Woody Guthrie’s birthday.

But until that finally happens, check out (via American Songwriter) The Farewell Drifters‘ fabulous cover of the song below.   “We’ve been fans of this song for a long time,” the band told American Songwriter. “Woody is probably best known for his politically charged folk songs, but I love the imagery he uses as he captures a hopeful kind of longing in this one. And Wilco captured that same spirit as they set it to music. I hope we did too. It seemed like the perfect song for us to do as we embark on our west coast tour this month.”  The dates for The Farewell Drifters’ tour follow the videos below.

Below it, check out the original version of the song by Wilco themselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZBL5uQt5Rw&feature=related

7.11    Knuckleheads Saloon        Kansas City, MO
7.12    Strings & Wood Concerts            Denver, CO
7.14    Bluegrass on the Bay       Great Falls, MT
7.15    Pilgrim Church                       Bozeman, MT
7.17    Downtown Crossing                  Sandpoint, ID
7.18    Tractor Tavern                     Seattle, WA
7.19    Green Frog Cafe                    Bellingham, WA
7.20    Dante’s                            Portland, OR
7.21    Axe & Fiddle                   Cottage Grove, OR
7.22    Les Schwab Amphitheater      Bend, OR
7.25    The Palms Playhouse         Winters, CA
7.26    Hotel Utah                         San Francisco, CA
7.27    McCabe’s Guitar Shop        Santa Monica, CA
7.29    Music Near the Hearth       Sunnyvale, CA
8.01    Steve’s Guitars                   Carbondale, CO
8.02    Avogadro’s Number                 Fort Collins, CO
8.03    Keystone Bluegrass Festival   Keystone, CO
8.04    Conifer Community Park      Conifer, CO

Damon Albarn has to be counted as one of the great songwriters in all of musicdom.  In Blur, Gorillaz, Rocket Juice & The Moon, wherever, Albarn has penned some of the best songs of this or any era.

To celebrate the closing of the impending London Summer Olympics, Blur will headline at Hyde Park, with New Order and The Specials, on August 12th.  Oh to be there.  Check out below the band’s in-studio version of Under the Westway, the first of two new songs written by Albarn and Blur especially for the Hyde Park celebration.  It’s a beauty that can stand with the best of Lennon & McCartney.  Gold medals all the way around.

“On a permanent basis I apologize, but I am going to sing
Hallelujah, sing it out loud, sing it to you”

No apologies necessary Damon.  Please, sing on.

The official lyrics can be found in the video below.

Back after roaming in the desert for what seemed like 400 years, one of our favorite music-fans slaked our thirst for some new music (thanks Haznah).  Check out Alt-J, the smarty-pants band from Cambridge, England, and a couple of performances of their very catchy song, Tessellate.  We’re just getting a feel for the band, but Alt-J smacks of suave alt-pop that blends shimmering synths, hip hop metrics and smooth vocal harmonies.  Reminds a bit of some of the old stalwarts, such as Blue Nile, but updated well.  Alt-J released its first album, An Awesome Wave, on June 5th, which you can stream in its entirety HERE.  Check out two winning live versions of Tessellate below.  As a bonus check out the official video for their song, Breezeblocks at bottom.

New Jersey’s indie band Woods are coming to Cali(fornia) in support of their new album, Bend Beyond, which will be released this Fall.   After catching them at Jensen’s Backstage a few years back, we were wowed by the band last Fall at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival.  Leader Jeremy Earl’s high, soulful voice, coupled with his bandmates’ playing and harmonizing, won us over completely.  The band has just released Cali in a Cup from the impending album, which you can listen to below.  The song smacks of Summer, and we’ll drink to that.

Woods plays Velvet Jones in Santa Barbara on August 7th with duo Peaking Lights courtesy of Club Mercy.  The other Cali tour dates are below.

8-03 San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall
8-04 Big Sur, CA – Woodsist Festival @ Henry Miller Library
8-07 Santa Barbara, CA – Velvet Jones
8-08 Los Angeles, CA – Echo
8-09 San Diego, CA – Soda Bar

It’s Independence Day in America.  Leave it to The Avett Brothers to spin it well with today’s release of Seth Avett, accompanied by Bob Crawford, covering Jim Croce’s sweet ole song, Operator.  Some Americana nostalgia to get you started.  Those younger than 40 years old are scratching their heads and asking why one would ever need to speak with an “operator.”

Sad news from San Francisco–Christopher Owens has announced that he is leaving Girls, one of our favorites.  In addition to putting out two phenomenal albums, Girls put on one of the most enjoyable sets we’ve seen at a club when they tore the roof off of Muddy Waters in December 2009.  We hope all is well with Owens, who has a particularly storied past, and that he re-appears soon.  We can’t think of a more appropriate soundtrack to this news than the band’s song, Hellhole Ratrace, which remains one of our favorite songs of all time.  Bon chance Christopher.