It’s the time of year that we should be preparing to leave to Todos Santos for Peter Buck’s previously-annual Todos Santos Music Festival. Buck and his wife (TSMF founders), however, have elected to put the Festival on hiatus this year, which has left us reeling after having attended last year’s phenomenal festivities. Oh well.

Despite that downer, our spirits have been newly-lifted. Last night The (Augmented) Minus 5 performed at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia. The Minus 5 were one of the highlights of last year’s TSMF, with core members Scott McCaughey and R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, augmented by R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, Steve Wynn, Linda Pitmon and others, performing awe-inspiring sets and sitting in perfectly on many of the other bands’ sets (Mike Mills was the MVP of the Festival). Last night at the 40 Watt The Minus 5, joined by Mills and retired R.E.M. drummer Bill Barry, and the gifted ensemble performed a raucously righteous cover of The Clique’s 1969 song Superman (which was included on R.E.M’s seminal Life’s Rich Pageant album).

Check it out below. And if you ever get a chance to see these superb musicians performing together (whether as The Minus 5, The Baseball Project, or in other configurations), don’t ya miss it. They are seriously gifted connoisseurs and curators of rock ‘n roll.

And here’s to the Todos Santos Music Festival’s return in 2018!

We’ve been hearing word from the new-female-singers cognoscenti that Phoebe Bridgers was another new phenom to check out (and to add to the talented quiver of Julien Baker, Torres, Alyeska, Miya Folick, Laney Jones, etc.). But then we got distracted. No more.

Check out Phoebe Bridgers’ exquisite new song Smoke Signals below. We know Bridgers has been hanging with the right people. Ryan Adams has produced her and compared her to Bob Dylan, and she’s been opening on tour for Conor Oberst (who also, hmmm…wrote his own stellar Smoke Signals song). But none of that prepared us for the depth and subtlety of Smoke Signals.

Bridgers apparently wrote Smoke Signals in a cabin last spring (“Bon Printemps“?). We love everything about the song, including the single-note vibrato guitar that introduces the swelling strings, but especially its lyrical incisions (see lyrics at bottom). The following stanza, with its poesy and double- and triple- entendres, is our favorite of the year so far:

“I want to live at the Holiday Inn where somebody else makes the bed
We’ll watch TV while the lights on the street
Put all the stars to death
It’s been on my mind since Bowie died
Just checking out to hide from life”

We’ve read the tea leaves and now the smoke signals, and now its your turn to turn your attention to the rising Phoebe Bridgers.

You can check out more of her superb songs HERE.

Smoke Signals:

“I went with you up to
the place you grew up in
we spent a week in the cold
Just long enough to
“Walden” it with you
Any longer, it would have got old

Singing “Ace of Spades” from when Lemmy died
But nothing’s changed
LA’s all right
Sleeping in my bed again and getting in my head
And then walk around the reservoir.

You, you must have been looking for me.
Sending smoke signals
Pelicans circling
Burning trash out on the beach

One of your eyes is always half-shut
Something happened when you were a kid
I didn’t know you then
And I’ll never understand
why it feels like I did

“How Soon Is Now” in an ‘80s sedan
You slept inside of it because your dad
Lived in a campground in the back of a van
You said that song will creep you out until you’re dead

And you must have been looking for me.
Sending smoke signals
Pelicans circling
Burning trash out on the beach

I want to live at the Holiday Inn where somebody else makes the bed
We’ll watch TV while the lights on the street
Put all the stars to death
It’s been on my mind since Bowie died
Just checking out to hide from life

And all of our problems
I’m gonna solve ‘em
With you riding shot-gun
Speeding, ‘cause fuck the cops.

And you, you must have been looking for me.
Sending smoke signals
Pelicans circling
Burning trash out on the beach

I buried a hatchet
It’s coming up lavender
The future’s unwritten
The past is a corridor
I’m at the exit looking back through the hall
You are anonymous
I am a concrete wall.”

On the heals of the devastatingly perfect song Keep Your Name, Dirty Projectors’ David Longstreth has put out another luscious new pop/R&B song entitled Little Bubble. Adding to the allure here is the song’s sumptuous official video below. Listen/watch as Longstreth’s falsetto soars over the Utah Salt Flats and other sublime environs while contemplating a technological infusion. The lyrics ain’t exactly uplifting (see below video), but the video serves to dull the pain.

Little Bubble:

“Morning
About the break of day
Here we lay, arm in arm
And cradled by the dawn

How did you sleep?
What did you dream of?
Can you still remember our world in the key of love?
The amount of light that we both know
Or the shadow descending from above

We had our own little bubble
For a while
We had our own little bubble
For a while

Morning
There’s no one else here
I’m alone in the cold
October light hits like a black hole
Growling greatness

Sentry of emptiness
It’s not enough, whatever I dreamed of
Dreams are dumb and meaningless
Like the days they refract
But are dull, empty and sad
I wanna sleep with no dreams
I want to be dead

We had our own little bubble
For a while
We had our own little bubble
For a while

We didn’t know one way or other
For a while
We had our own little bubble
For a while”

Julien Baker first alighted in our jukebox in 2015 with her tremulous confessional, Sprained Ankle. Baker has since been rightfully lauded for her spellbinding, soul-bearing songs delivered in earnest. Now comes the good news that Baker has signed with the smart Matador Records folks and released a stellar new 7-inch single. Perhaps the Matador influence can be heard on the distortion closing to the song. Regardless, it’s worthy addition this young artist’s commendable discography. Check it out below (superb lyrics at bottom).

Baker ruminated on Funeral Pyre for NPR in a recent interview as follows:

“Obviously, drinking gasoline incurs bodily harm on you, but also, being an accessory to that kind of behavior and having to decide — it incurs harm upon you, too. And then, are you responsible for permitting that? If you stay, are you responsible for permitting it? And if you leave, are you responsible for not intervening? If you intervene, are you out of your bounds? Everything about the song is figuring out how you should act in your level of responsibility for your own health and to others in the dynamic of a relationship, which is a difficult lesson to learn. I feel like I would have put myself into an unfavorable or unhealthy position for this person and maybe recognizing from an outside perspective that that destructivism is a more healthy thing to do than to stay in it for the sort of, romantic, admirable belief that subjecting yourself to this kind of sacrificial, fatuous love would be more of the right thing to do.”

You can go pre-order the re-release of the Sprained Ankle album or Funeral Pyre song on Matador HERE.

“I wake up with the same pain every night,
Digging a hatchet in my left side,
Clearing my chest of something to burn,
Ash for a decorative urn you keep on your mantelpiece;
Like a trophy for everything
That withers eventually…

Call me a coward, but I’m too scared to leave,
’cause I want you to be the last thing I see.
Call me a coward, but I’m too scared to leave,
Watched you pouring lighter fluid out onto the leaves

And I would’ve loved you with the dying fire
let you smother me down to the embers…
Frostbite turning my limbs as black as cinder of funeral pyre

And I would have stayed if you asked me to
Stood outside till my lips turn blue
I wouldn’t have blamed you
For leaving me there on the porch while you drank gasoline
’cause it’s what you needed so bad

And it’s true.
It’s nothing that we… could.. do”

Ask and it shall be done. Something like that. We’re doubling our Elbows today. After complaining earlier today about Americans being shut out of the listening party for Elbow’s new All Disco song, All Disco has now been made available for listening in the US. We didn’t know we had that kind of pull. Check the song out below in all its anthemic, sonorous glory. This song ain’t no disco, this ain’t no fooling around.

Bandleader Guy Garvey recently gave the following explanation for the song’s title:

“I remember this phrase from Black Francis from the Pixies. I interviewed him for a radio show 10 years ago in Lynchburg, Tennessee. I was to talking to him about between him being Black Francis and Frank Black and all these different incarnations. I said ‘with all these different styles of music, where are you going next?’ He said something along the lines of ‘you have punk rock, you have rock, you have blues, you have soul, it’s all disco.’ And I just love that attitude, from one of the most influential people – particularly to me. For him to have this attitude of ‘put everything into it, invest everything into it, but remember it’s not everything. I think that’s a really good way to do it. He’s not having any money but he gave us a really good chorus there.’”

You can pre-order the band’s impending album, Little Fictions HERE.

We went looking for Elbow’s new song All Disco released today by the band, but found (infuriatingly) that the band or its affiliates have not made the song available in the United States (must be a Trump thing; but please, Brexit?). Fortunately, we found instead the band’s official video for the superb Magnificent (She Says) off of the band’s impending album Little Fictions. You can check the video out below. According to the band’s press release, the video is “a nod to the album title” and “using Ron Fricke’s legendary ‘Baraka’ as a point of reference, filmmaker Joe Connor has created a spellbinding film to provide visual accompaniment to what he sees as the song’s ‘beautiful portrait of what it feels to be human.'” The video was filmed in five locations across Myanmar. Check it out below to catch the magnificent (we says) beauty therein.

You can pre-order Little Fictions HERE.

Bon Iver has played a comparatively scant number of shows thus far in support of their fantastic 2016 album 22, A Million.  Thankfully the band and NPR have gifted us a great glimpse of their live shows via the band’s December show at the Pioneer Works in Brooklyn (a place near and dear to Justin Vernon).  Check out the well-performed and well-captured show below (setlist at bottom). Justin Vernon is supported by a great ensemble, including Sean Carey, two drummers and a saxophone ensemble. But Vernon is rightfully rightly front and center, providing his near-Jabberwocky lines that nonetheless effortlessly drawing forth the audience’s unbridled emotions. The show is spectacular (as is every Bon Iver show). Enjoy!

SET LIST:
“10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⚄ ⚄”
“33 ‘GOD'”
“Heavenly Father”
“29 #Strafford APTS”
“Beach Baby”
“666 ʇ”
“715 – CRΣΣKS”
“Calgary”
“22 (OVER S∞∞N)”
“8 (circle)”
“Minnesota, WI”
“____45_____”
“Creature Fear”
“00000 Million”

The Best Artist of the Year, Chance The Rapper, was the musical guest on SNL last night and rained down great gospel music on the proceedings. Dressed in a red overalls/white shirt, Santa motif, Chance and NoName and an effervescent ensemble delivered a powerful, moving performance of Finish/Line.  Watch below as Chance rightly calls out and dances off of his fantastic drummer, Greg Landfair Jr.  Chance also played piano and performed Same Drugs with help from Francis (of Francis and the Lights) and (at 3:29) from astonishingly great backup singers (who dey?) who are truly a mere 20 Feet From Stardom.

Last night’s performance came almost a year-to-the-day from Chance’s SNL-debut last year (watch his stupendous performance of Sunday Candy at bottom). We hereby petition SNL and Chance to make this an annual Christmas performance to eclipse the memories of Bing Crosby and, err, umm…White Christmas.

As an added bonus check out Chance’s skit homage to Obama and Run D.M.C.’s classic Christmas in Hollis vignette.  Awesomeness all around!

Chance The Rapper – Sunday Candy SNL from ScousaJ on Vimeo.

The great indie band Allo Darlin’ won our coveted Best Album of the Year in 2012 for their pop masterpiece Europe. Sadly, the band is ending its great run with a series of farewell shows in London that start tomorrow. But to exit in style, Allo Darlin’ has gifted us with a nostalgic video for their sweet, chiming swan song Hymn On The 45, which you can watch below.  The song is available as a 7″ coupled with B-side Wanderlust (which you can pick up HERE). Long live Allo Darlin’!!

The indefatigable, ever-busy Ryan Adams has just announced he will release his next album Prisoner in February.  Adams has given us a powerful sample in the form of new song Do You Still Love Me?, which you can listen to below. We love the Petty-esque song that opens mournfully with Procol Harum-sounding organ before quickly segueing  into an out-right ’80s-esque rocker. A whiter shade of wail! Bravo!

Prisoner apparently revolves around Adams’ separation from Mandy Moore after six years of marriage. Adams has said that “I started writing this record while I was going through a very public divorce, which is a humiliating and just a f@#$ing horrible thing to go through no matter who you are,” he said. “To be me and to go through that the way that I did was destructive on a level that I can’t explain. So a lot of extra work went into keeping my chin up and remembering what I did and what I loved about who I was.”

Adams put on our favorite show of any that we saw at the Santa Barbara Bowl this year, and we can’t wait to catch him again out in support of Prisoner.

The album’s tracklist is at bottom. You can pre-order the album HERE.

1. Do You Still Love Me?
2. Prisoner
3. Doomsday
4. Haunted House
5. Shiver and Shake
6. To Be Without You
7. Anything I Say To You Now
8. Breakdown
9. Outbound Train
10. Broken Anyway
11. Tightrope
12. We Disappear