Grizzly Bear has released their new official video for Gun-Shy off of their sterling, penetrating 2012 album Shields.  Warning:  in the clever video, Director Kris Moyes has avowedly attempted to depict how much of their bodies (and souls) the band puts into their music.  So there are some gratuitous blood, tissue and organ facets to the video.  We can’t wait to see the band give their all on April 16th at the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur.

At year’s end, Kendrick Lamar’s album good kid, m.A.A.d city posed a serious threat to Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange for Best Album of 2012. The album was universally hailed by critics and fans alike.  We had been immune to Lamar’s allure until a couple of fans held a “good kid” symposium at our house over the holidays (thanks Derp and Hazznah).  And at long last we got it.  And we got it more still when Lamar appeared on Saturday Night Live as musical guest this weekend.  See what all of the fuss was about below as Lamar and band slay on the self-possessed call-to-consciousness (literally) of Swimming Pools (Drank) and then Poetic Justice from the album.  The former, in particular, was stunning.

We fell in love with Glen Hansard’s music again last Fall.  His best-of-festival performance at the 2012 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival led us back to his bountiful album from earlier in the year, Rhythm and Repose.  Since then we’ve continued to unearth various gems from Hansard.  Just the other day we bumbled upon the video below for his song Love Don’t Leave Me Waiting from the most recent album (heaven knows how we missed it before?).  And it brought joy.  Also with you.

We paid lip service again to making our way to Todos Santos in Baja Mexico for Peter Buck’s annual Todos Santos Music Festival.  Good friends were smarter than us, and are riding it out, and reporting that it’s the musical party of all-time.  Another round of regrets, all the way around.  Check out Buck, Mike Mills, Ed Kowalcyzk (in the bald Michael Stipe role), Chuck Prophet, Scott McGaughey, and others perform Don’t Go Back to Rockville and Superman.  Amongst others, Buck and the guitarists sound fantastic.  Looks like one heck of a party, with great crowd-sing.  Next year!

We’ve fallen heavily for the upstart Brit-band Palma Violets.  In the last two weeks, the band has been playing a few dates in the US and showed recently at Brooklyn’s tiny Shea Stadium BK venue.   Check out the band below (captured well by Tear ‘N Tan) playing their fan-favorite Best of Friends in our favorite setting and atmosphere:  ardent fans singing every word of a hot new band in their first-run at a tiny venue.  Oh to have been there (except for the lame smokers–Brooklyn’s got rules to protect those that don’t choose cancer, right?).

Check out below Dirty Projectors covering Usher’s (cover of Diplo’s) song Climax for Australia’s Triple J Radio.  According to the group’s Amber Coffman, the cover is somewhat of a reprise of her and David Landstreth’s assistance in Jamaica during the song’s recording.

And in more It’s The End of the World news….  The Flaming Lips have released the official video for their new song Sun Blows Up Today, which is scheduled to be a bonus track to their impending new, quasi-cataclysmic album, The Terror.  We’re not sure the lyrics (as you will see) are all that necessary to garner the ditty’s gist, but we are happy to work with The Flaming Lips and their “sunny” track.  Ahhhhhh…there now.  That helps with the spitting gray outside.

It’s Friday, and…well, not so much.  We know too many out there in throes, dispirited and arc-less.  And the relentless gray is our tailspinner.  Convenient, then, that we stumbled anew upon Andrew Bird’s Take Courage, and were taken down and lifted up.  Take Courage was a bonus track from Bird’s 2009 album Noble Beast.  Check out the studio version of the song immediately below, and after, two live performances–one well-recorded (audio anyway), and one well-captured (video anyway–at the Guggenheim).  And know that you’re not alone.  The song’s lyrics precede the videos.  And if you need more convincing, let Mavis Staples and Jeff Tweedy provide further assurance HERE.

“Night’s falling, so take courage
that you’re not alone, no you’re not alone.
Night’s falling, so take courage
that you’re not alone, no you’re not alone
Then these words begin to crumble like the sidewalks
all around this crumby neighborhood.
And from the chalky Cliffs of Dover, I’d come over,
I’d start over if I could.

From the tropic of Cancer, to Capricorn,
you’re so far from you’re so far along.
Now you spin dirty laundry
You dream of the kind of love you knew the day you’re born

Night’s falling, so take courage
that you’re not alone, no you’re not alone.
Night’s falling, so take courage
that you’re not alone, no you’re not alone.

Night’s falling, night’s falling,
but you’re not alone, no you’re not alone.

You swallow far from home
It’s how you find your room

Though my words begin to crumble like the sidewalks
all around this crumby neighborhood.

And from these chalky Cliffs of Dover, I’d come over
I’d start over if I could.

Night’s falling, night’s falling,
but you’re not alone, no you’re not alone.
Night’s falling, night’s falling,
but you’re not alone, no you’re not alone.
Take courage, take courage,
that you’re not along, no you’re not alone.

Night’s falling, night’s falling,
but you’re not alone, no you’re not alone.
Take courage, take courage,
that you’re not along, no you’re not alone.”

Sufjan Stevens first gave us the album Michigan and then Come On Feel The Illinoise, vowing to release an album for each of the United States of America.  And that was the end of it.  From there Stevens ventured off to Adz, maneuvered orchestrally in the light, and then went completely Christmas (repeatedly).  Today on his Tumblr, Stevens released an untitled song that on first blush seems to wrap up the Fifty-States Project in one fell swoop. The song opens as follows: “It’s part of the act, the fifty states, pack up your bags, it’s never too late.”  We haven’t done a full State-audit, but the song does seem to call out every remaining non-Michigan, non-Illinois state in the union.  It’s not the completion many states had stridently sought, but it does wrap it up so that Stevens can move on.  You can listen to the new song HERE.  Pack up your bags!  It’s never too late!

Brit buzz-band Palma Violets have released their official video for Step Up For The Cool Cats from their debut album 180, which will be released on February 25th (UK) and 26th (US) on Rough Trade.  Click here to pre-order the album on iTunes: http://www.smarturl.it/palmavioletsitunes or pre-order it from Rough Trade here: http://bit.ly/Tr91jA.  Check out the psychedelic treatment below.