Ramona Falls is the love-child of Brent Knopf, former member of much-loved Menomena.  In May Ramona Falls released the highly-acclaimed album, Prophet.  Their song Spore is at the core of Prophet and is one of our favorite tracks off the album, and is Exhibit A in the case for Knopf’s cunning compositional skills.  Check out Knopf,  Dave Lowensohn and Brandon Laws (of the underrated Hosannas) performing the song for Last.fm in its NYC studio below.  Knopf has exhibited great taste in luring Brandon Laws, one of our favorite guitar players extant.  And this song is simply beauty.

In support of their new album, Transcendental Youth, the marvelous Mountain Goats’ frontman, John Darnielle, showed up on WNYC’s Soundcheck series to render a poignant solo-piano reading of their new song, In Memory of Satan.

Darnielle had this to say about the song recently for Rolling Stone:  “Mid-tempo and piano-based, it’s a look at the process of someone becoming a borderline recluse, getting inside their head and looking out at a world that seems too much to take. Everyone has spent those years, or maybe entire seasons, indoors where you don’t really leave,” Darnielle said. “That’s when you go into the inner realms of the spirit. This guy’s in hiding, and it’s this most spiritual realm. That old saying holds here, that you can’t be in a cave unless there’s an exit, or else it’s a grave.”

The song’s lyrics follow the Soundcheck performance below.

“Got my paintbox out last night
Stayed up late and wrecked this place
Woke up on the floor again
Cellphone stuck to the side of my face

Dead space on the other end
Perfect howl of emptiness
Cast my gaze around the room
Someone needs to clean up this mess

Tape up the windows
Call in a favor from an old friend

Make some scratches on my floor
Crawl down on my hands and knees
In old movies people scream
Choking on their fists when they see shadows like these
But not one screams cause it’s just me
Locked up in myself
Never gonna get free

Something sacred something blue
Cannons in the harbor dawn
Crawled down here to dig for bones
One more season then I’m gone

Black drapes over the crosses
Call in a favor from an old friend”

Wilco will play the Avila Beach Resort on September 29th.  Today they released their official video for Sunloathe off of their most recent album, The Whole Love.  Check the animated video below (Where The Wild Things Are meets Sesame Street?), and we’ll see you at Avila. 

Randy Newman has never been one to shy away from controversial topics.  His record label, Nonesuch, has made his new song I’m Dreaming available via video stream above and for audio download immediately below.  Nonesuch and southern man Newman have also (after the download) issued a press release discussing the song.  Further, you can read a thoughtful piece in the New Yorker about I’m Dreaming and Newman’s history with respect to similar topical matters HERE.  The songs lyrics are way below.  One way or the other, get out and vote in November.

Nonesuch:

“Randy Newman’s new song, “I’m Dreaming,” is available as a free download…[and streaming] video [at top]. With lyrics from the viewpoint of a voter who casts his ballot solely based on skin color, the song draws attention to something Newman has noticed and written about for 40 years: racism in America. While the song, which Newman performs solo at the piano, is free, anyone wishing to contribute is encouraged to donate to the United Negro College Fund at www.uncf.org.

Newman explains, “No other Western industrialized nation would’ve elected a black president. I’m proud of this country for having elected Obama in 2008. But from the beginning of his term, I noticed a particular heat to conversations that wouldn’t ordinarily generate that kind of passion: The budget, appointments, health care.” He continues, “I think there are a lot of people who find it jarring to have a black man in the White House and they want him out. They just can’t believe that there’s not a more qualified white man. You won’t get anyone, and I do mean anyone, to admit it.

“I often write songs in character. You can’t always trust or believe the narrators in my songs. So why listen? Good question.

“Anyway the guy in this song may exist somewhere. Let’s hope not. Vote in November.”

“I’m Dreaming”

George Washington was a white man
Adams and Jefferson too
Abe Lincoln was a white man, probably
And William McKinley the whitest of them all
Was shot down by an immigrant in Buffalo
And a star fell out of heaven

I’m dreaming of a white President
Just like the ones we’ve always had
A real live white man
Who knows the score
How to handle money or start a war
Wouldn’t even have to tell me what we were fighting for
He’d be the right man
If he were a

I’m dreaming of a white President
Someone whom we can understand
Someone who knows where we’re coming from
And that the law of the jungle is not the law of this land
In deepest darkest Africa nineteen three
A little boy says, “Daddy, I just discovered relativity.
A big eclipse is coming
And I’ll prove it. Wait and see!”

“You better eclipse yourself outta here, son
And find yourself a tree
There’s a lion in the front yard
And he knows he won’t catch me.”

How many little Albert Einsteins
Cut down in their prime?
How many little Ronald Reagans
Gobbled up before their time?

I don’t believe in evolution
But it does occur to me,
What if little William Howard Taft had to face a lion
Or God forbid, climb a tree?
Where would this country be?

I’m dreaming of a white President
Buh buh buh buh
‘Cause things have never been this bad
So he won’t run the hundred in ten seconds flat
So he won’t have a pretty jump shot
Or be an Olympic acrobat
So he won’t know much about global warming
Is that really where you’re at?
He won’t be the brightest, perhaps
But he’ll be the whitest
And I’ll vote for that

Whiter than this?
Yes
Whiter than this?
Yes
Whiter than this?
Yes
Whiter than this?
Oh yeah”

Last night Band Of Horses performed a 45-minute set for the Letterman Show’s Live On Letterman webcast.  We can’t wait to catch them at the Troubadour on September 27th.  Check out the Letterman set, and then after watch the band perform How to Live on a Best Fit Session.  We’ll take those vintage Gibson acoustics any time, not to mention the vocal passion play.

The band’s new album, Mirage Rock, is out today on Columbia, and you can still stream it HERE.

Regrets, we have one more.  Fiona Apple came to the Santa Barbara Bowl last week and, according to all accounts, gave one of the better performances of the year.  Unfortunately, we missed Apple and the opening set by wunderkind Blake Mills, who has an incredibly bright future and who we recently interviewed.   Apple’s been finishing her shows by covering Conway Twitty’s song It’s Only Make Believe.  Check out Fiona torching the song as if the love-child of Patsy Cline, Edith Piaf and Janis Joplin at the Greek Theater two nights after Santa Barbara.  And keep your ears and eyes out for Blake Mills’ Fiona-miming, impressionistic solo beginning at 2:15 while Fiona FEELS it.  Too good.  Afterwards check out a couple of other vignettes of Blake Mills opening at the Greek.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJyLAshngwA&feature=channel&list=UL

Following on the heels of Feist’s phenomenal, intimate performance for La Blogotheque comes today’s release of her performance of Undiscovered First on a FROM THE BASEMENT episode.  From the Basement is the brainchild of Radiohead’s producer, Nigel Godrich and provides arguably the best quality performance video (available in 3D on 3D.net) and sound available in Christendom (no offense Muslim friends).  Feist’s full From the Basement episode will be broadcast on Crackle.com this Thursday September 20th, 2012.

Feist has been touring around the world for a year playing large, sold-out venues in support of her mesmerizing album released last year, Metals.  La Blogotheque managed to convince Leslie Feist and crew to play an intimate, unplugged show in Paris last fall, and has just released the performance.  The results are stunning, and particularly the transcendental vocal interplay of Feist with harmonists Mountain Man (despite the title, a female trio consisting of Molly Erin Sarle, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig and Amelia Randall Meath).  If you’re rushed for time or want a quick glimpse of these harmonics, go to 12:19 in the video.  We are huge fans of Ms. Feist, and La Blogotheque has framed her perfectly here.  Magnifique!

On this lazy Sunday, watch Afie Jurvanen of Bahamas hop a bus and perform Your Sweet Touch for Southern Souls and a bemused passenger or two.  Jurvanen sidles into the sweet song for a bit before displaying his engrossing guitar skills starting at 2:30.  Where do we catch THAT bus?

Grizzly Bear appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night to play Sleeping Ute, from their forthcoming album, Shields.  The band completely wowed the crowd and reaffirmed that they are one of America’s best live bands.  Daniel Rossen and Chris Taylor grabbed immediately with, respectively, their jangling guitar and throaty bass.  Add Christopher Bear’s deft drumming and captivating keys, and then drop in Rossen’s mesmerizing vocals and the lush life is on.  And when the group vocal kicks in at 2:17 and thereafter, transport may occur.  Stupendous stuff.  Check it out.