Heather has done it again and dug up a shit ton of live cover songs by Wilco. I can’t wait to dig into these tunes because I love both covers and Wilco. Among the bands Jeff Tweedy and company put a spin to are The Kinks, The Stooges, Daniel Johnston, Kermit the Frog, U2, Carole King, Brian Wilson, The Who, Bob Dylan, and so many others. She found these tunes over at Owl and Bear, but b/c they only deal in FLAC files, Heather has been generous enough to translate them all to Mp3 for your enjoyment.  Grab nearly 29 covers and keep your eyes out for part 2!

Tokyo Police Club come in hard and fast, with shimmering, angular songs. Tessallate is the word that comes to mind.

Their debut album Elephant Shell clocks in around 30 minutes. Which is the ideal length for an album in this ADHD musical world we live in. It’s over before you know it. The only problem is that the songs kinda song samey - they bleed together.

“Graves” gets the video treatment with the band playing in an antique store. The people are frozen and the lights have a mind of their own. It’s scary in the same way getting dragged to antique stores as a kid is scary. “Don’t touch anything!” or um, “You break it you buy it!” were two of my favorite condescending sayings. And no Mom, those were from the shop owners, so don’t worry. Strange that after all these years, I’m only now just appreciating those kind of stores. This video, though, we can appreciate now.

Mp3: Tokyo Police Club - “Graves”

Which is like saying here are some good albums from some British bands you may have heard of.  The award is given strictly on merits of music. But, it helps if you are a member of The Arctic Monkeys since they always get nominated for this prize.  Among the notables in contention for the award this year are: Radiohead - In Rainbows, Adele - 19, British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?, Burial - Untrue, Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid, Estelle - Shine, Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim, Neon Neon - Stainless Style, Portico Quartet - Knee - Deep in the North Sea, Rachel Unthank & The Winterset - The Bairns, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand, and finally, The Last Shadow Puppets (Monkey’s frontman Alex Turner’s other band) - The Age of the Understatement.

If you missed Vh1’s Rock Honors, featuring not only The Who, but also The Flaming Lips, The Foo Fighters, Tenacious D and Pearl Jam paying tribute to Peter, Roger, Keith Moon’s Ghost and the other guys in the band fear not.  You can catch the most of the highlights here.

The Hold Steady swung by Letterman on Wednesday night. We know we’re late in getting around to this, but shit we were watching The Watchmen trailer all day yesterday. Anyway, the band played “Sequestered In Memphis” and even got to work some comedy chops in a skit, well, at least singer Craig Finn was in a skit.

Their new album Stay Positive is out now on Vanguard Records and we like it a lot. We’re not sure if we like it more than Boys and Girls in America but it’s been on non-stop rotation all week. Pitchfork gave it an 8.4. And though we generally detest Pitchfork their review of the album was pretty good.

I love how Finn seems to be milking every moment of his new found rock star status. It’s always great to watch a band that never expected to have success find it the most; still, he needs to work on his stage moves. But he’s a rock star! Which he goofs on in the skit.

The Duke Spirit have hit the road for another tour of the states, which if you can check them out you should. They’re playing a lot of small clubs, so at most it might be a $10 or $12 cover charge. Trust me when I say this, but they are one of the best live bands going. Just ferocious. They are full of piss, vinegar and squalor, but they deliver it in a loud, tight, pretty package. And no, we’re not just talking about lead singer Leila Moss.

The new video for “Lassoo” manages to capture the essence of their live performance, even though it’s not really a live performance. The song is one of the better ones of their dynamite sophomore album Neptune (Shangri-La Music). It sounds like it could fit comfortably off their first disc, which found the band more scuzzy, more Sonic Youth. However, their growth is evident with the subtle touch of horns sprinkled throughout the song and the more polished songwriting.

What the band does do, about as well as anyone, is tap into that emotional core in all of us. You don’t listen to this music so much as you let it surge through you and sweep you away.

Mp3: The Duke Spirit - “Lassoo”

U.S Tour Dates:
July
19 Mountain View, CA @ Download Festival @ Shoreline Amphitheatre
20 Los Angeles, CA @ Download Festival @ GIBSON Amphitheatre
22 Los Angeles, CA The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
23 San Francisco, CA @ Bottom of the Hill
24 Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge
26 Seattle, WA @ Nectar Lounge
28 Hollywood, CA @ Amoeba (instore)
30 New York, NY @ Webster Hall w/ Supergrass

August
1 Philadelphia, PA @ WXPN/World Café – FREE
1 Asbury Park, NJ @ The Saint (NEPTUNE Live From Neptune, NJ)
2 Camden, NJ @ Download Festival @ Tweeter Center
4 Baltimore,MD @ Ottobar
5 Boston, MA @ T.T. The Bear’s
8 Jersey City, NJ @ All Points West Festival @ Liberty State Park
9 Pittsburgh, PA @ New American Music Union Festival @ SouthSide Works
10 Nashville, TN @ 3rd & Lindsley
12 Columbus, OH @ The Basement
13 Detroit, MI @ Magic Stick
14 Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle

Also: The band will be on Leno on July 22, so you can set your Tivo’s to watch them if you don’t want to make it out to one of their shows. For all you budding rock photographers – submit your best live photo over at Buzznet and win a chance to interview the band and have your photos featured in their official TourZine, as well as a Nikon D40 6.1MP Digital SLR Camera [Enter Here]

Now, don’t laugh

Or do, because really, that’s the point. As a 20-year-old self-professed “hipster” who went to see Weird Al last Friday night, I have no right to take myself or my scene cred too seriously.

Weird Al Yankovic’s Straight Outta Lynwood Tour began in March 2007 and reaches its last leg this August. This tour celebrates two significant firsts for Al: his first Top 10 Album (Straight Outta Lynwood debuted at #10 on the Billboard Charts ) and his first Top 10 Single (“White & Nerdy” debuted at #28 on the Billboard charts, but quickly shot up to #9). Both the album and the single have since gone gold.

Pier 6 Pavilion in Baltimore is a pleasant, if somewhat small venue found in the city’s scenic Inner Harbor (newly renovated! Thug-free!). This Baltimore isn’t the Baltimore of The Wire fame. You’re more likely to find tourists and yuppies here. I wouldn’t recommend walking the streets alone at night, but that goes for most major cities. Pier 6 usually houses “has-beens”—this summer Hootie and the Blowfish as well as Donna Summer are playing—but a few gems pop up every now and then (The Avett Brothers, G. Love and the Special Sauce). I saw Nickelback there when I was 14. I don’t want to talk about it.

The Gates opened at 5:30, but the show didn’t actually start until 8:30, much to my boyfriend’s chagrin (he was convinced the show would start within an hour or so. “Al wouldn’t do that to us!”). Not to worry though, Spaceballs played on the screen on stage while we eager Al fans waited. A nice touch, even if the sun made it difficult to see anything. Al’s fans—from families with prepubescent children to the 20- and 30- something societal misfits—filtered through the doors and filled up the majority of the pavilion’s seats.

I have to hand it to him, Al is a great showman. His show is family-friendly (no more risqué than your average Simpsons episode), but thoroughly entertaining. It’s a nice change from smaller bar venues where the main act might show up too drunk to perform, but make a valiant effort anyway. Changed costumes for nearly every numbered, but filled in the lag time with clips from a documentary I’m told is exclusively available on tour and contained very funny interviews with Jessica Simpson, Eminem, K. Fed, and other Al-related clips. He started with a polka medley (naturally), went through a few recent hits (White & Nerdy, Trapped at the Drive-Thru, the Saga Begins) and hit some of the old greats, too (Eat it, Fat, Gump). He even did Amish Paradise, another first for this tour after he recently made amends with Coolio. It was a fun show, which certainly makes up for any cool points I may have lost in the process.

And now, to listen to “Gump” until I can get it out of my head.

MTV swings down to our little neck in the woods to let 14-year-old girls everywhere know that PDX has rain, trees, great music, breweries, coffee shops, basement shows, organic food, blah blah blah. Thanks for stating the obvious MTV.

Regardless, they round up a who’s who of musicians to talk about how awesome Little Beirut is. Faces you’ll recognize belong to Colin Meloy, M. Ward, Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks, YACHT, Starfucker, Menomena, Panther, Valet, White Rainbow, Au, etc. There are less familiar faces, too, like Eat Skull, White Fang, Southern Belle, Fist Fite, etc.

“Everyone is in a band. Your waiter, your record store clerk, the guy who pumps your gas because it’s illegal to pump your own in Oregon.” Truer words my friends. Though not everyone, since my musical abilities stop at playing the air drums.

Seriously though, if the food is incredible (which it is to a degree) how come it’s impossible to find a decent slice of pizza here? And under no circumstances should a large pie cost $18. Just sayin’. All in all, the move to PDX has been well worth it, even if there is a brewing war between motorists and bicyclists and I’m on the wrong side by driving a car.

If not for the Fab Four then CAT Scans would never have been invented.  True story to use to impress your doctor friends with at your next dinner party.  CAT Scans were invented by Godfrey Hounsfield, an employee at EMI, Ltd. on the back of the money they made off of The Beatles.  Hounsfield went on to win the Nobel Prize for his efforts and The Beatles went on to become an influential rock band, natch.  Your move Alex Trebek.  [via]

Anyone watch MLB’s marathon five-hour All Star Game last night? It was a good time - got to say goodbye to Yankee Stadium, look around for Madonna, remember how much Joe Buck and Tim McCarver suck as announcers and forget about Sheryl Crow’s performance of “The Star Spangled Banner.”

Now, it wasn’t her singing that was bad, that was actually okay. No it was her use guitar, which sounded lost in the acoustics of The House that Ruth Built. Seriously. It was like she was tuning her guitar or not even playing, so you have to wonder what was the point. Still, those white pants and American-flag T-shirt were purdy. [via]

If Zooey Deschanel killed me I would still love her, would probably still attempt to envelop her in a gigantic bloody bear hug. There is no one more adorable right now working in the entertainment industry. In her first video she still looks rather uncomfortable, or at least as uncomfortable as people were saying she looked performing live, but here with animated birds and ghosts she amps the cute factor to 11.

That we get the unexpected surprise of her killing people in the video is just gravy. Seriously, this is one of the most morbid videos I’ve seen in a while, but it’s all good because Deschanel is cute as a button.

Also: M. Ward, otherwise known as the guitar guy in the above video, but known more famously for his dusty, throwback folk music is re-releasing his album Transfigurations of Vincent on vinyl. The good folks over at Merge Records are offering free downloads for three demos tracks cut from the album. Get them here (registration required).