For those of you wanting to click and let your music ride, listen to our recent YouTube faves in sequence by clicking on the first video of the playlist below.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse have just released the official video for song Driftin’ Back off of their new album Psychedelic Pill.  Given the title, it’s an unabashed nostalgic look back by Young.  But it still resonates well in our ears.  And it comes in at a scant 27:50.

Last night while you were sleeping, late night musical mayhem ensued.  Check out Father John Misty, Ben Folds Five, Ty Segall and RNDM below.  As seen on Conan, Father John Misty’s Josh Tillman has adopted well his new hip-shakin’, white-linen-suit-wearin’ persona and continues to show why he was THE talent there was to find in the Fleet Fockers.  Next up are pop maestros Ben Folds Five on Jimmy Kimmel performing Do It Anway and Erase Me off their fourth studio album The Sound of the Life of the Mind.   That Folds lad can write a pop song, bang a piano and sing like few can.  And then for fun (plus it’s only 2:00 long) watch the throw-back Ty Segall on the Letterman Show raging on You’re the Doctor before yelling into the microphone “Go Vote!!.”  Dave was both amused and frightened.  Finally, check out supergroup RNDM (Joseph Arthur, Jeff Ament) be-decked in Halloween/SF Giants colors with matching instruments/amps and performing their song Modern Times (J-Fal just can’t help playing along at the end) and Ain’t Got No Mag 7 (a mash-up of The Clash and Nina Simone).  That’s entertainment folks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6ubw2XzxsM&feature=em-uploademail-new

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_sNXLnJspg&feature=em-uploademail-new

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVKyRMal0sM&feature=em-uploademail-new

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtYQHGBgzig&feature=em-uploademail-new

We are huge fans of Iron & Wine.  We caught them live in early 2011 at the Wiltern in LA and were mesmerized throughout.  You can get a great feel for that tour from the hour-long concert video below of Sam Beam and the band in Germany in late 2010.  Sweet stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf7nUnvVumc&feature=youtu.be

Time to open up the evening hymnal again.  After glossing over this band for entirely too long, and posting their video for Family Tree only yesterday, there seems to be a conspiracy afoot to keep Toronto band Evening Hymns in the forefront of our musical minds.  Today the band pointed to a new video directed by Neil Haverty for their song Spirit in the Sky off of their haunted and haunting Spectral Dusk album.  According to the band, the album “is a study of loss, pain, and hope and a pathway drawn out of the dark into the light. Spectral Dusk finds Jonas Bonnetta dealing, through music, with the loss of his father three years ago.”  Let the record and video show you below.  Bonneta recently had this to say about Spirit in the Sky:  “This song was written as an intro into ‘Irving Lake Access Road’. I wrote a big list of things I related to Dad. Images of us as kids playing with him. Swimming, hiking, fishing. Just meditated on my youth with brothers. The idea was for the song to be dreamlike and have the long string piece wash in and take it away. To carry it out to sea.”  It’ll carry you away if you’re not careful.

Evening Hymns – Spirit In The Sky from Neil Haverty on Vimeo.

Gram Parsons would have been 66-years old today.  Simply put, Parsons was one of our best singer-songwriters of all-time.  As we have written repeatedly, he was the primary driver behind a new musical melange (country-rock, alt-country, whatever you wanna call it) that would have its way with our generation and beyond.  Click on the links above to revisit/listen to one of our finest ever.

Happy Birthday Gram!  We’ll see you in the sweet by and by.

You will be shocked to learn that families can be a blessing and/or a curse.  One of the many compelling songs off of Toronto-based band Evening Hymns‘ sophomore album, Spectral Dusk, is Family Tree.  The band’s lead singer-songwriter, Jonas Bonetta, recently had this to say about the song:  “I’ve often felt obligated to associate with people in my life based on traditional family structure.  This is about severing a lot of those dysfunctional relationships.”  Check out the band’s video for Family Tree below.  To the extent you are currently focused on the curse side of the family equation, we hope this video will resonate and provide solace this Sunday.

Video co-director Chris Altorf described the video concept as “centered around the idea of presence. We tried to explore how a space can be filled or weighted with memories, and also drained of those same moments. We used projections of events doubled onto the same space when empty to illustrate the dissipation of family. We were interested in the idea of how relationships can be built and supported by perceived strength, but also how events can shatter such perceptions.”

The Avett Brothers have been encoring at their shows with a cover of Neutral Milk Hotel’s  In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.  Check out a couple of such encores below.

Speaking of Atoms For Peace’s Nigel Godrich, his band Ultraista acquitted themselves quite well last night on the Letterman Show.  Check it out below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTKEOcx7VP4&feature=em-uploademail-new

Atoms For Peace (Thom Yorke, Flea, Nigel Godrich, Joey Warnonker and  Mauro Refosco) announced yesterday they will release new album Amok via XL Records on the 28th of January 2013.  Coincident with that announcement, the band released track What the Eyeballs Did, the B-side of a new 12″ entitled Default (out on the 19th of November 2012).  We note the artwork on the track, with its LAX/SoCal-flooding-apocalypto motif, which is particularly eerie in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.  More happy happy joy joy.

The title track, Default, was released previously.  Listen to both below.  We can’t wait.  Atoms For Peace’s 2010 concert at the Santa Barbara Bowl was our 2010 Concert of the Year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4Uc7LieFeE&feature=plcp