We started hearing about ’em last fall, but on Thursday Palma Violets brought their Brit-attack to the Jimmy Kimmel Show on Thursday and tore the roof off the joint. Check ’em out below performing Best of Friends and Rattlesnake Highway (and the highway won???). They are still on tour in support of their debut album 180 and play the Echoplex in LA on Tuesday.  Their full tour dates can be found HERE.

Whenever Jimmy Fallon and The Roots make music with classroom instruments, great things happen. Check out their stellar performance below of Blurred Lines with Robin Thicke.  So very good.

Lollapalooza is happening this weekend in Chicago.  Most of the festival is now streaming HERE.  Crystal Castles are on right now. Our anticipated highlights are Band of Horses (at 5:30 Pacific on Friday), Local Natives (at 2pm Pacific on Saturday), The National(at 4:00pm Pacific on Saturday), Alt-J (at 3:30pm Pacific on Sunday), Vampire Weekend (at 5:00pm on Sunday) and Phoenix (at 8:15pm Pacific on Sunday).  You’ve been warned. Enjoy.

We love everything we’ve heard from Athens, Georgia’s Futurebirds. They wowed us in May with their jangle-y performance of Serial Bowls off of their resonant recent album, Baba Yaga (review upcoming).  As we wrote before, their sound is a masterful mix of real country (assisted by the pedal steel playing of Dennis Love and the four vocalists’ discernible twangings), harder rock elements and four-part harmonies.  And their lyrics are just like we like ’em:  oblique, but evocatively heavy, and left largely to the listener’s interpretation/application.  Now comes their performance of Death Awaits live in-studio for HearYa.com below.  Listen in to this sad-but-true song that will appeal to fans of My Morning Jacket, Band of Horses, Neil/Crazy Horse and others.  Afterwards, you can download mp3’s from the HearYa session for free HERE.  By all accounts, the band shines brightest live.  They are just finishing up a leg of their tour and will head back out in September.  Check out the dates HERE.

Check out a song excerpt from the upcoming Live at the Artists Den performance by The National. Watch below as the augmented band performs This Is The Last Time from their fantastic album Trouble Will Find Me.  Superb, as usual.