Here's a holiday treat to help you kick off your weekend courtesy VK faves Donny Hue and the Colors. Their Mr. Red Blues EP features eight totally original Christmas tracks which revel in the wintery jangle of the season. Here's the title track for your listening pleasure.
Also be sure to check out the there latest full-length, the utterly spellbinding Folkmote.
Mr. Red Blue - Donny Hue and the Colors
Dear all,
Due to unforeseen circumstances, tonight’s PENultiamte Lit event with Sufjan Stevens, Rick Moody and Wesley Stace has been postponed. We feel awful about rescheduling at this late date, but a very recent turn of events has taken us by surprise.
We plan to reschedule the event, so please stay tuned for details. Each of you are guaranteed a spot and I will email you with the new date.
Please accept our deepest apologies and we hope to see you when the event happens.
My best,
Elizabeth
Hi AK folk,
I just received an e-mail that tonight's lit event at Southpaw is postponed. First, we are just concerned and hope everyone/everything is OK. Second we're not sure what to do with tickets except pass them on... My friend and I flew out here from Seattle just to see Sufjan tonight... we're more than a bit heartbroken knowing we probably can't come back when it's rescheduled. We just hope though that nothing truly awful has happened.
With that creepy Christmas feeling,
June & Meghan
Dears June and Meghan,
We are heartbroken for you. Please know
it is because Sufjan has contracted the flu. He must be feeling very
out of sorts because he never cancels engagements.
His assistant said, and she does not know for sure,
that it will be re-scheduled for December 17th. You
may try to be reimbursed through Ticketweb for your
tickets. We know that does nothing for your disappointment
and expenses to come to New York.
Thank you for your willingness to travel so far to see Sufjan.
I will let him know.
Diane/ Asthmatic Kitty Records
I'm sitting in Orlando International airport right now. Free wireless never felt so good. Here are three apt songs about such transitory locales.
The City, The Airport - Loney Dear
Airport - Jason Collett
Airports - Morning Recordings
This is what happens when you have new graphic design software, not a lot of creativity, and a lot of time on your hands. (If you can think of any other great pairings or campaign slogans, pass 'em on and I'll see what I can do with it.)
This is surely the most adorable video of 2007...and I don't even like children, in fact I loathe them. But there is just something about Herman Dune's pink muppet-esque head covering -it's all kinds of endearing. And that's to say nothing of the song itself. "I Wish That I Could See You Soon" features trumpets as boppy and lyrics as melancholy as anything you'd hear on a Belle & Sebastian album minus any of the art-school pretension. GO!
Do people in Britain actually do this? Could you go an entire 24 hour period without listening to anything? According to this Salon.com article, November 21 is quickly taking on the title of No Music Day. Perhaps it could be refreshing, or just plain maddening?
So I'm away for the week, visiting the grandfolks and accessing these new-fangled internets via their old-school AOL server. The connection is slooooow (with a hundred "o's"). Also their computer lacks sound?! So here I am providing you with a clip of what I would be watching (and listening to) if I wasn't in the presence of the technologically impaired.
It's Okkervil River's Will Sheff performing "A Girl in Port" solo acoustically on a beach in Italy. It looks great. I'm betting it sounds great too.
The British seven-piece led by Gareth Campesinos! makes it ok for you to like bands with gratuitous exclamation points in their name again. Seriously, with track titles like "Don't Tell Me to Do the Math(s)" and "You! Me! Dancing!" these guys have a thing for excessive punctuation. They also have a thing for glockenspiel and uber-clever lyrics. I hate making up weird genre-hybrid terms, but for the sake of describing them I'm gonna go with the somewhat cringeworthy modifer "twee-punk". They sound something like a more frenzied Architecture in Helsinki crossed with a less-abrasive version of Art Brut, with a dash of the Unicorns thrown in for good measure.
While the entire output of their career only spans 16 minutes, it might just be the most joyous 16 minutes I've heard all year. Listen for yourself.
Don't Tell Me to Do the Math(s) - Los Campesinos!
You! Me! Dancing! - Los Campesino!
And here they are leading the International Tweexcore Underground (their words, not mine):
As you've probably discovered by now, I am a cover song fanatic. Drastically reinterpret any song and I'm likely to swoon. Unless it's bad. Then maybe not.
It's not just the novelty of this version of "Toxic" I like. I like how its striped down and the lyrics are put in the forefront, spotlighting how just how sad, self-destructive the nature of the relationship being described really is. Whatever. It's a great song regardless.
Toxic - Stevie Ann (Britney Spears cover)
Special thanks to Cover Lay Down an amazing blog which specializes in folk covers. Check 'em out.
"I don't think it's even a rumour anymore--I have my working holiday Visa, and I've already brought a little straw hat to wear. And I'm stocking up on sunscreen. Yeah, it's not a rumour- I think it's fact by now."
He Keeps Me Alive - Sally Shapiro
You've probably all seen this by now (those Radiohead webcasts spread fast!). But I shall post it regardless, because I just love, love, love how Thom Yorke nearly yodels the chorus. It is agony expressed as joy. And it is swell.
And here's the mp3:
The Headmaster's Ritual - Radiohead (The Smiths cover)
And one more very, very recent Smith cover sighting. The Arcade Fire played a rollicking rendition of "Still Ill" while touring through Manchester (where else?) just a few short weeks ago.
Still Ill - Arcade Fire (The Smiths cover)
via Jess, a little Sunday-night bubblegum for the brain...
This video is entertaining for several reasons:
1. A short spoken/sung piece on K recs (shout out to Olympia and The Evergreen State College!)
2. It's Jeffrey Lewis - most of his songs are weird, silly mostly spoken-word pieces.
3. He's performing in front of Noyes! My dorm and home for three years at Vassar. Yes, it really is that ugly (ugly and awesome and I wouldn't have wanted to live anywhere else):
Enjoy!
Here a couple of "new" live Morrissey songs which are slated to be on his upcoming, as of yet untitled album due for a September 2008 release. The Moz is as self-deprecating as ever. Listen for yourself
That's How People Grow Up - Morrissey
I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris - Morrissey
I am still reeling from the creeps after hearing Grizzly Bear perform their now infamous cover of The Crystals' "He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)" last night. As good as the cover sounds on their recently released Friend EP, nothing can compare to their live version. A song that attempts to justify domestic violence enacted towards cheating lovers is creepy enough as it is. But Grizzly Bear magnify the song's creepy brilliance tenfold. The eerie intermingling of the harmonies, the prolonged yearning, the crashing psych-rock freakout of the rhythm section -they all render the original impotent. 
GB's live performances really illuminate their album material. The muted melodies come alive to electrifying effect. Also Daniel Rossen wore his winter coat (with the hood up!) during the first few songs. Maybe it's just me, but it was an adorable touch, for a band that really can't be considered "adorable" in any other regard. 
It's a shame they never got to perform on Conan last Tuesday, like they were scheduled to. They were supposed to play "Knife" along with members of some Brooklyn High School choir. They accompanied them during their set and supplied extra "Oh, Oh, Ohs" making the song even more lush and vibrant. It's not that I don't support the writer's guild, but the strike certainly is taking its toll on bands deserving of a little mainstream exposure. Even if, no, rather, especially if, that exposure creeps out the mainstream.
Compare and contrast "He Hit Me":
He Hit Me - Grizzly Bear (The Crystals cover)
He Hit Me - The Crystals
And one more somewhat obscure GB cover
Owner of a Lonely Heart - Grizzly Bear
We here at VK might be a little over-zelaous with the Jens Lekman love lately, but this cover version of Moondog's cabaret romp "Paris" is too good not to post. Philadelphia's all-male a cappella group Silver Ages lends Jens a hand as well. Snap along and enjoy.
I've been hesitant to write about Black Kids because everyone and their grandmother has been writing about Black Kids. I will try to make this entry devoid of hype, hyperbole or trash-talking because the Jacksonville, Florida quintet has already had its fair share of all of the above, on the sole basis of a four-song EP no less. Instead, I will 
See, here's the part where I could tell you about how only two of the members (siblings Reggie and Ali Youngblood) are actually black and how the other three-fifths of the band maybe represent ironic cultural appropriation. But see, none of that matters. Because when I hear the first downbeat of "I'm Not Gonna Teach Him" I don't want to think; I want to dance! For some, Black Kids veer a little too checkily to early 80's synth-pop. You can make all the Human League-Cure-New Order references you want. They are apt, but only partially. There are doo-wop-y harmonies and girl-group, cheerleader chants plus an occasional self-depricating lyrics (Like "It's Friday night and I ain't got NOBODY" on the awesome "Hurrican Jane"). 
By now you might have also read about all the technical SNAFUs that plagued their Annex performance at CMJ. Luckily, I caught them the following day at R Bar, where their show went off without a hitch. Off course, lead kid Reggie acknowledged this saying how the audience of wannabe tastemakers would all go back and "write about them in their blogs." Well, hey, he was right.As you've probably heard by now, The Decemberists have cancelled their "Long and Short of It Tour" due to a member's illness, rendering thousands of people's concert-going weekend plans in disarray, yours truly included. Get better, undisclosed member of The Decemberists!
Two days before this disappointing announcement Wakey! Wakey! somewhat aptly (and precognitively) released a cover version of "Apology Song" as a part of their 10-week series of free downloadable covers. It's pretty damn awesome. Maybe it will hold you over until the next Decemberists tour? In the meantime, try and catch Wakey! in a town near you.
Apology Song - Wakey! Wakey! (Decemberists Cover)
Go Your Own Way - The Decemberists & Death Cab For Cutie (Fleetwood Mac cover)
Mr. November - The National
Rose Hip November - Vashti Bunyan
November Spawned a Monster - Morrissey
November Love Song - the Mountain Goats
November Rain - Guns N Roses
