OK so you couldn’t get away from your responsibilities for 3-4 days and spend untold money to attend this year’s Coachella Music Festival. Fear not. Via the magic of the interwebs, you can watch the entirety live at the link in the first sentence or via Coachella’s YouTube Channel. Go HERE to watch to your heart’s content (Canada’s fab band Stars are ruling right now).  Channel 1 (of the three channels) is set forth below as an example. Go forth and enjoy.  From afar.

One-album wonders (so far), Postal Service have reunited to tour behind the 10th Anniversary reissuance of that only album Give Up.  Check out the band (Death Cab’s Ben Gibbard and Santa Barbara-grown Jimmy Tamborello of Dntel, along with Laura Burhenn of Mynabirds and the phenomenal Jenny Lewis-who sang on the first album) below performing We Will Become Silhouettes at their first show back at the Grand Sierra Theatre in Reno (via Pitchfork). This tour marks the first time the band has performed live since 2003.

They played in Napa on Wednesday and play the Madonna Expo in San Luis Obispo tonight (we’ll be there to cover) and Coachella tomorrow night.  The video below features a cool light show, a fan screaming for Tamborello, Gibbard ably drumming (at 3:06) while sitting and standing, and Jenny Lewis adding her usual sweet vocals.  The identical set list from the first two shows of the tour follows the video. We’ve waited ten years…. Let’s go!

Setlist:

The District Sleeps Alone Tonight
We Will Become Silhouettes
Sleeping In
Turn Around
Nothing Better
Recycled Air
Be Still My Heart
Clark Gable
Our Secret (Beat Happening cover)
This Place is a Prison
There’s Never Enough Time
A Tattered Line of String
Such Great Heights
Natural Anthem

Encore:

(This is) The Dream of Evan and Chan (Dntel)
Brand New Colony

Tame Impala will play Coachella Sunday night.  On their way out to wander in the desert they stopped in today at KCRW to perform.  Check out below their performance of Elephant off of their much-lauded 2012 album Lonerism.  To listen/watch the entire KCRW session go HERE.

One of our favorite lyricists and songwriters, Sam Beam of Iron & Wine, is back with a brand new album entitled Ghost on Ghost.  Now residing in Austin, Beam showed up last month at SXSW at Mellow Johny’s Bike Store and played a set that was captured well by KEXP.  Check out Beam performing a few songs off the album, and a few older fan-favorites.  And you can stream the new album over at NPR HERE.

Cover art by Stephen O’Malley of Sunn O)))

Akron/Family came through town earlier this year and wowed the crowd at Muddy Waters with a decidedly prog/heavy musical attack that is prominent on their new album Sub Verses on Dead Oceans.  The band’s members (Dana Janssen, Seth Olinsky, and Miles Seaton) are each supremely talented musicians, and they quickly laid waste to any crowd concerns that the band wouldn’t bring their full A-game to the tiny Muddy.   And during the second half of the show they let down their heavy musical guard and let their big hearts and minds shine through on a few songs in particular.  It’s at these points in Akron/Family shows that the band goes beyond just being superlative and inventive players, and you discern the intelligence that sets them apart from many others playing in this field.

In the last couple of days, two video vignettes have been released that capture well the Akron/Family about which we speak.  The band has just released its official video for Until the Morning, a superb ballad off the new album, the lyrics of which ring as if they might be best listened to on a Sunday morning (and every morning thereafter).  In addition, the folks at Audio-Files have released an outstandingly-captured live performance (at the “Homestead Crater”) by the band of their song Samurai, which is an adaptation of a poem by the praiseworthy poet Robert Pinsky (U.S. Poet Laureate from 1997-2000).   Check out the band’s fine performance below and catch them on tour, the dates of which can be found HERE.  If you missed them at the Muddy, they will play The Echo in LA on May 8th.  Pinsky’s original poem is set forth at bottom.

And for heavensake, go buy Sub Verses at any of these sites:  iTunes http://smarturl.it/akronitunes // Amazon http://smarturl.it/akronamazon // SCD Bundles http://smarturl.it/akron_scd // Indies http://smarturl.it/akron_indies

Samurai Song

When I had no roof I made
Audacity my roof. When I had
No supper my eyes dined.
When I had no eyes I listened.
When I had no ears I thought.
When I had no thought I waited.
When I had no father I made
Care my father. When I had
No mother I embraced order.
When I had no friend I made
Quiet my friend. When I had no
Enemy I opposed my body.
When I had no temple I made
My voice my temple. I have
No priest, my tongue is my choir.
When I have no means fortune
Is my means. When I have
Nothing, death will be my fortune.

19-year old Brit rock-folker Jake Bugg is making quite a splash on both sides of the Pond.  He officially released his self-titled debut album today in the U.S.  You can still stream it for now below.  The album starts off righteously raucous with Lightning Bolt and Two Fingers, but there are standout ballads throughout, such as Broken, Ballad of Mr. Jones and Slide.  Trouble Town is a tad too derivative for us, but that’s just us and the rest of the album shines.  Bugg opens for Band of Horses at the Majestic Ventura Theater on April 18th.

National treasures, The National, today released their official video for their new song Demon off of their new album Trouble Will Find Me (out on May 22nd on 4AD).  Check it out below.  As sensational as this studio version of Demon is, we can’t wait to hear what the band does with this song live.  After the last album, High Violet, came out we were naturally wowed by the recording.  But it wasn’t until we heard the songs take flight live (at the Wiltern) and their later peregrinations and evolution, that we realized the beauty and the potential and emotional power of the compositions.  Don’t miss The National on their impending tour.  We guaranty it will be one of the highlights of your musical year.  Tour dates/tickets can be found HERE.

The Canadian sax colossus and Bon Iver band member, Colin Stetson, will soon release the final tranche of his ambitious New History Warfare project via Constellation.  Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon sings on several tracks.  Stetson has just released the official video for two songs from the new album, In Mirrors and the stunningly beautiful opening track of the album, And in Truth featuring Vernon (at 1:36).  You can order and read more about Stetson and the new album HERE.  At bottom, you can also watch Stetson in full flight performing Part of Me Apart From You off the new album live at Riverside Theater in Milwaukee in July 2011, as captured by filmmaker Dan Huiting.  Fantastic.

Sunday…a day to revel, rest and recall.  And a day on which to recall the week’s oversights.  Ahem. Yeah, yeah, yeah you might be saying.  And without further adieu: Yeah, Yeah, Yeah’s showed up on the Letterman Show on Friday night, and brought along the gospel choir, the Broadway Inspirational Voices, to perform the song Sacrilege off of their new David Sitek-produced album Mosquito.  Love the choir conductor’s energy in the acappella, not to mention the choir.  Superb performance.  The band plays the Majestic Ventura Theater during “hell week” on April 16th.

The fab-French band Phoenix played Saturday Night Live last night in support of  their new album Bankrupt!   Watch below as they performed Entertainment and Trying To Be Cool/Drakkar Noir off of the album. No ground broken here, but done phenomenally well.

Phoenix – Entertainment – SNL 4-6-13 by IdolxMuzic

Phoenix – Trying to Be Cool – SNL 4-6-13 by IdolxMuzic