The Pixies have released a free EP featuring four songs — “Dancing the Manta Ray,” “Monkey Gone To Heaven,” “Crackity Jones,” and “Gouge Away” — from the 10/16 Paris gig, the last of the European leg of their tour.  The band is currently making their way through the US of A and stopped by Conan on Friday.  Insert your email at pixiesmusic.com for some live goodness.

Even though it’s evident the years have taken their toll on the band (into Frank Black’s belly? No, that’s just wrong) there is something so sublimely comforting about a world in which the Pixies exist for me beyond listening to their records late at night on a Sony discman underneath my bed covers.

November 9th will mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  The short (six-songs) U2 concert that took place at the Brandenburg Gate yesterday ran into some trouble after — no lie — a huge wall was constructed to keep non-ticket holders from watching the free concert.

Controversy aside, Jay-Z does little but his presence adds a certain amount of swagger to this already swaggering song.  It’s easy to hate on U2 — the conventional argument is that the band hasn’t done anything worthwhile in nearly 1.5 decades.  But that’s bound to happen to any band that’s been together and still playing after 30 years.  It’s impossible, I say, to watch the above clip and not get goose-pimples, to not marvel at just how huge U2 and Jay-Z are as cultural ambassadors.

Holy fucklobsters, in full make-up no less.  I thought Pearl Jam’s cover was pretty awesome, but this may take the cake.  For those of you wondering who Monsters of Folk are, the group comprises the very classy M. Ward, Jim James, Connor Oberst and Mike Mogis.

This is from the Monsters of Folk show in Louisville on Halloween and dang I am jealous of everyone in attendance.  I mean, they dressed up like KISS for crying out loud.  [via]

Love this cover of Devo’s “Whip It.”  Love the authentic costumes.  However, the best part is the band mimicking Devo’s robotic dance moves.

This was broadcast live on Sunday, but I held off on posting it, mostly because the idea of a U2 concert alone doesn’t seem all that note worthy.  But, they’ve since released two new (but old) tracks for the 25th anniversary of The Unforgettable Fire.

“Yoshini Blossom” is a dark instrumental with spry bass and an atmospheric sound that immediately evokes the collection without Bono uttering a syllable. His voice is very present on “Disappearing Act,” a moody anthem that reminds us “there is only one thing you need to own / and that is hunger.”

I just picked up the new Ramona Falls album Intuit (out now via Barsuk Records), which is the solo side project from Menomena member Brent Knopf.  If you like Menomena, then Brent’s solo project is like a familiar slice of bread but instead of whole wheat you’re getting whole grains.  And like nine of them.  Here he is talking about the recording process while laying down tracks for “Going Once, Going Twice.”

Ramona Falls (named after a hiking trail along Mt. Hood) had several great musicians pitch in during the recording process, including members of The Helio Sequence, Mirah, Loch Lomond, 31 Knots, Talkdemonic, Nice Nice, Tracker, Datr, Dear Reader, 3 Leg Torso, and Matt Sheehy.

The most interesting aspect for any art is the creative process.  How the art gets done.  I think a lot of people have this idea that music, etc. exists in a vacuum waiting to be discovered and set free, as opposed to crafted, shaped, built and sculpted.

Click here to view the embedded video.

See the song being built, hear it played live, download the studio track.

Mp3: Ramona Falls – “Going Once, Going Twice”

Let’s get this morning started off right, shall we?  This is from The Grates 2009 SXSW performance. It’s also the lead track off their latest insanely infectious and toe-tapping new album Teeth Lost, Hearts Won. The little girl at the beginning of the performance really makes this video for me.  I wanted to use the official video, but Universal decided it was better to not allow embedding, so you’re getting a live performance instead.

The Flaming Lips stopped by Colbert last night and debuted a new tune off their upcoming Embryonic album.  The album is also streaming on Colbert Nation, so it’s really win-win for all involved.  I like where Colbert is going with this.

If there’s any band that is at the top of my list of must see acts, it would be The Dirty Projectors.

“In a festival heavy on over-familiar or unimpressive bands, it was left to last night’s closing act Radiohead to wrong-foot everyone. The odds on their angst-ridden singer Thom Yorke’s first words being ‘Whassup?’ followed by the initial hit song they’ve all but disowned, ‘Creep’, would have been prohibitively long,” writes Nick Hasted for The Independent. It’s disarming to hear Yorke turn himself into a Budweiser commercial.  Still, there’s no doubting how good “Creep” followed by “The National Anthem” sound together.

Anyway, from Ben Smallen, “enjoy…some real gems to download in here (some crap too).  I also can’t vouch for the quality but hey.”

There’s everything from The Pixies, Flaming Lips, Willie Nelson, XTC, Van Halen, Phish, Grateful Dead, Van Morrison, The Faces, The Misfits, The Raspberries, The Eagles, etc.  A little something for everyone.  Happy hunting!

Menomena closed out the 2009 PDX Pop Festival with a set leaning heavily on their breakthrough LP Friend and Foe. They absolutely brought it, to the point that I was worried the people at the front of the stage were going to get crushed from the ripple beginning at the back of the audience.  It was electric in a way that few concerts are.

The band opened the set with the tune “Caught.”  It may or may not be on their upcoming new LP and if it does appear it may have a different name.  The title was something I pulled from drummer Danny Seim’s set list after the encore.  The song itself, feels very un-Menomena-like.  It’s a slow tempo, straight forward affair, with some good harmonies.

If this is on the new album, it really would work as a breather song.  Coming down off one of their more adventurous songs, a chance to catch your breath.  A good transition form the A-side to the B-side (in the parlance of the old people).

Live from 2004.  If this song doesn’t put you in a silly/happy mood at any point in your day, I’ll refund your money.  Just look at all those people jumping, singing and dancing.  The band is in there somewhere. That’s what it’s all about.

On a related note, if you have the time, you should bump on over to read Alesh’s post that combines The Unicorns, roshambo and game theory.  It’s a doozy.

Saturday’s BSS lineup included, among others, Feist, Emily Haines, Kevin Drew, Jimmy Shaw, Brendan Canning, Jason Collett, and Amy Millan.  Impressive seeing them all together on the same stage considering all the ridiculous success many of them have had either solo or with other bands (Metric and Stars).

Anyway, here’s the group with Emily Haines out front dropping the track “Anthem for a 17-year-old Girl” with Feist and Amy Millan looking on in awe.

There was some controversy concerning the show’s cancellation and subsequent move to the Harbourfront, but by all accounts (Youtube really) it looked like it was a concert for the ages.  [more]

I’ve really been enjoying the direction Conor Oberst has been taking with The Mystic Valley Band.  It’s slightly more playful, evidenced by this sweet rendition of “Spoiled.”  [via]

Iceland’s Sigur Ros has put out of a bevy of difficult to pronounce but easy to listen to albums over the past tens years.  There’s a fluid, ethereal, dream-like quality to their work.  As if you’re aren’t really listening to their albums, so much as invented them in your head at night.

“Agaetis Byrjun’ is the one album I tell people to start with.  If you like that album, then surely you’ll love their other records too.  Hard to believe but the record just turned 10-years-old.  To celebrate, they have released two exclusive live performances (download one of them here) from the original record launch concert at the Icelandic Opera House on the night of June 10, 1999 – back when few people outside Reykjavik hadn’t heard of them.  What’s great is that neither of these songs appeared on the actual record.

‘Nyja Lagid’ (seen above) shows Jonsi and Co. when they really were still young, performing a song that disappeared from their set-list shortly after. It’s also one of the last tracks performed live by original drummer Gusti. Eventually, however, the audio of this live recording was featured on Sigur Ros’s, ‘Svefn-G-Englar’ EP.

I’ve been digging out a lot of old Supertramp records and though I kinda feel like they’re a properly rated band (a bunch of hits/a few essential albums/nothing mind blowing) I’m always amazed they aren’t more popular or get brought up in discussion more often.

Because they’re pretty fantastic.

It gets great about three-minutes in when Trey shows Bruce who The Boss really is. [Jamtopia via @Acecowboy]

The East Anglian Railway Museum also happened to be the site of their first public performance back in 1988 (ahhhh).

Push comes to shove, Blur is on my shortlist for my favorite band. Every album from Modern Life is Rubbish through Think Tank offers suprising pleasures and nuggets of various musical stylings.

“Coffee & TV”

“Parklife”

Luckily, the entire show was practically recorded for our viewing pleasure.

It’s great that Alex James and Dave Rowntree can still bring it, despite their day jobs as food writer for The Independent and Labour Party politician, respectively.

How good is Blur? For any fan the setlist will leave you drooling in jealousy that you aren’t one of their 150 family or friends, for others the following list of 26 ditties is an excellent primer to dive into Blur-fandom.

The setlist:
01 “She’s So High”
02 “Girls And Boys”
03 “Tracy Jacks”
04 “There’s No Other Way”
05 “Jubilee”
06 “Badhead”
07 “Beetlebum”
08 “Trimm Trabb”
09 “Coffee & TV”
10 “Tender”
11 “Country House”
12 “Charmless Man”
13 “Colin Zeal”
14 “Oily Water”
15 “Chemical World”
16 “Sunday Sunday”
17 “Parklife”
18 “End Of A Century”
19 “To The End”
20 “This Is A Low”
21 “Popscene”
22 “Advert”
23 “Song 2″
24 “Out Of Time”
25 “Battery In Your Leg”
26 “Essex Dogs”
27 “For Tomorrow”
28 “The Universal”

NME has additional details. [via Vulture / Stereogum]

You would think with traveling back to Boston for my niece’s second birthday and a high school friend’s wedding and being in Boston when Phish played Fenway, that I would have made the effort to go.  Unfortunately, I didn’t.

Regardless, by all accounts the band hit the show out of the park (ouch, sorry); so much so that it was even live blogged from the west coast using Twitter.

Besides the sticker shock of $8.25 beers, my buddy Seth said the best thing about the show wasn’t even the music (though that was obviously quite tasty).  For him it was seeing all these people who hadn’t seen each other in four years, grown up with haircuts and real jobs, coming back to the one thing they loved more than anything else.  The fleeting moment when you bumped into somone you only knew in the context of touring with Phish and seeing those old friends after four years.

It was a great crowd, Seth said.  You could feel the sense of love and community and the band provided all those years.

You can check out tons of photos from the show here.  And if you’re inclined to listen to the show, you can buy the whole shebang over at Livephish.com for a mere $10.

Turns out when a fan tried to stump the Boss in London by requesting the song “London Calling” it’s been a new feature rolled into Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Bands latest world tour.

They’ve played dozens of covers, but mostly from a classic rock perspective.  If they really wanted to stump The Boss, I’m sure someone could come up with a song he didn’t know.  Anyway, this is a great idea and proves why Bruce Springsteen is one of the best ever.  Something as tiny as this idea makes fans more invested and a part of the show then if they just paid their $70 bucks and called it a night.

Not because we weren’t expecting it, but because producer Britt Daniel (Spoon frontman) managed to capture the drumtastic-excellence of their live show. The thumping piano, so prevalent on the first album, has taken a backseat to the drums.

You see, White Rabbits bring the thunder to their live show with dueling drum kits, in fact the drums are so overwhelming and forceful that that’s all I remember from seeing them live.  And nowhere on their debut album was the percussive attack so front and center.

All that’s changed on the new album, which is chaotic, unrelenting and leaps and bounds better than their first album (which is so good it’s still in heavy rotation two years later), evidenced by the first single “Percussion Gun,” which the band played for Letterman the other night.

Click here to view the embedded video.

White Rabbits – “Percussion Gun”

It’s Frightening is out now on TBD Records; you can stream the full album on their MySpace page.

I’m planning on catching them in Boston in early June and then again when they swing back to Portland later in the month.  And so should you when they come to your city.

WHITE RABBITS TOUR DATES
5/21 – Bowery Ballroom – New York NY
5/30 – Grog Shop – Cleveland OH
5/31 – Do Division Fest – Chicago IL
6/01 – Summit – Columbus OH
6/02 – Rock N Roll Hotel – Washington DC
6/04 – Middle East – Boston MA
6/05 – Johnny Brendas – Philadelphia PA
6/06 – Brillobox – Pittsburgh PA
6/09 – Mojos – Columbia SC
6/10 – Firebird – St Louis MO
6/11 – Bonnaroo – Manchester TN
6/14 – Emo’s – Austin TX
6/16 – Club Congress – Tuscon AZ
6/17 – Casbah – San Diego CA
6/18 – Troubadour – Los Angeles CA
6/20 – Independent – San Francisco CA
6/22 – Crocodile Cafe – Seattle WA
6/23 – Doug Fir – Portland OR
6/24 – Neurolux – Boise ID
6/25 – Urban Lounge – Salt Lake UT
6/26 – Bluebird – Denver, CO
6/27 – Slowdown JR – Omaha NE
6/29 – 400 Bar – Minneapolis MN
6/30 – High Noon – Madison WI
7/1 – Empty Bottle Chicago IL
7/02 – Pike Room – Pontiac WI
8/1 – All Points West Festival – Liberty State Park NJ

I really thought I was going to hate The Decemberists Hazards of Love, but it’s grown on me both for it’s audacity and it’s impecable craft.  Also?  Colin Maloy and company really tried to turn up the rocking to 11.  I don’t think they quite got there but still, got to hand it to them for trying.

It’s a bit unfortunate to hear the song out of context from the rest of the album.

Colin’s got his best Rod Blagojevich haircut going, which is so un-rock n’roll that it might be the most rock n’roll thing he’s ever done.

In case you were wondering, the female vocalist isn’t even in the band, she’s Shara Worden from My Brightest Diamond.  Another band worth getting into, if you haven’t already.

Because it’s Portland and it feels like it’s been raining for a week straight, even though it hasn’t.  Also?  Six years later this is still the jam.  And without seaming hyperbolic, are The Jayhawks the most underappreciated band of the last decade?  I’m throwing that out there and music fans can throw out your own ideas or argue this.  Prove me wrong.

No one really cares about them much now, but in my estimation they were one of the top bands of the 90’s.  Constantly churning out great songs on both August and Everything After and Recovering the Satellites.

At 1:38, the guy is having the most important moment of his life.

The one you should watch is of Super XX Man, aka Scott Garred.  The Portland songwriter is a megaphone of empathy – channeling the insecurities, doubts, hopes and swirling emotions of people into three-minutes of pure bliss.  I know it’s preposterous to claim he’s the best songwriter working right now, that anyone can stake that claim since there are so many songwriters out there, but he’s at least in the conversation if we’re having it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

There are other shows from Dr. Dog, Thao Nguyen, Tom Jones (ftw!), Shearwater, Vic Chestnutt, Sera Cahoone, Laura Gibson, etc. It’s an impressive list of performers, really.  So get watching.

Of course, The Boss, Little Stevie, Max and the rest of the gang absolutely tear up the song.  Whether a manufactured moment or not (looks like the concert was shot for a DVD or something), the guys absolutely kill it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

[via YANP]

This, is the essence of Vincent Moon’s La Blogotheque.  A group at the height of their artistry and popularity playing one of the finest tracks off their excellent 2008 album in an upscale Paris restaurant.

Sigur Ros’s music has always been big; it transcends time and space and language barriers and though it feels too overwhelming for a tiny French bistro, they prove that their music fits into the tiniest nook of a physical space as well.

While we wait, we ask the group in vain to play a few other songs in the mean time—any song that doesn’t need the brushes. They decline.As John reminds us, they’ve never done anything like this before—they usually don’t perform acoustic. We just have to wait, and not add to the looming pressure of tonight’s huge concert.

Still waiting, we rummage around la Closerie. We chat with elegant old couples, we watch from afar as a fat businessman absentmindedly strokes the hair of a girl 20 years his junior, and we let ourselves be cradled by the incessant waltz of guys in vests running and pivoting with their plates filled to the brim.

Little by little the room empties, the remaining diners drag out the final moments of their lunch, and then the drumsticks arrive. The environment is tense, but they jump in. A few notes on the harmonium, and an incredible voice that it would have been a shame to exhaust. We don’t know if the sticks were essential. But in three minutes, our patience was repaid.

I worry, however, that Malloy is beginning to accentuate in the extreme everything that I didn’t like about the band.  Gone is the sense of playful pop, subsitituted with nothing but the hyper-articulate, pompous aspects of the band.  There has to be a balance; that’s why we grew to love them because the two sides compensated and elevated the other. 

Portland’s The Decemberists will debut their new rock opera tonight at NPR’s SXSW musical showcase. 

The show will be streamed and broadcast live from Stubb’s Bar-B-Q in Austin, Tex., and archived online afterward, starting at 11 p.m. ET on Wed., March 18. (The Decemberists will take the stage at 1 a.m. ET, after opening acts The Avett Brothers and The Heartless Bastards – excellent bands in their own right and worth listening to tonight, as well.)

Portland's The Decemberists

The Hazards of Love a 17-song, sprawling narrative , and tells the woodland melodrama of a character named Margaret — voiced by Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond and Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond, alternately — who encounters such obstacles as a lecherous villain, forest royalty and rapacious, shape-shifting fauna.

The first single “The Rake’s Song” has been on constant rotation since it dropped a month ago.  Nothing has leaked since, so this really is the first chance of getting a taste of new Colin Malloy and Co. 

I probably won’t be staying up to listen live, but it’s going to be the first thing I listen to over morning coffee tomorrow. 

The Hazards of Love is the fifth studio effort from The Decemberists and will be released on Capitol Records March 24.

Why watch it and create your own memory when you can record it digitally.  If a cultural mindsplosion happens and you capture it on your iPhone did you actually experience it?

Click here to view the embedded video.

So does this mean he has to apologize again?

That’s the sound of my head exploding and spraying thick goblets of cadmium deep red awesomeness all over the room.  Ponder this: It’s 2K9 and MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice just played a concert in Orem, Utah and there wasn’t a ticket to be had.  Not a single one.  My vocal chords vibrate but there is only stunned silence.  I wear a mask of bewilderment to hide the deep feeling of jealousy.

The idea of an MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice concert in Utah raises a lot of questions. On second thought, it’s just one question—why?—but it comes in two varieties. There are the nuts-and-bolts whys, which we can tick off now. Why would either Hammer or Ice do a concert to begin with? Because they have families and mortgages and the Iceman has the tattoo bug. Why together? I thought they hated each other. There was mild drama when they toured together in the ’90s, after Ice reportedly said the crowds were more impressed with his skills than Hammer’s. Water under the bridge. Why is it in Utah? Because a local promoter invited them to perform there, and Utahns love to party. Why would anyone pay forty bucks to see this concert? If you’ve read up to this point, let’s face it, with the right social lubricant you’re there with bells on. But there are more complex, philosophical whys. Why do MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice still exist? Having provided the soundtrack for my bat mitzvah and the basis for ironic Halloween costumes, has not their purpose been served? Why, after all these years, have the winds and rains not eroded them away?

Equal parts nostalgia, brilliance and cultural curiosity.  They exist, as a branded entity, because the people in Utah will come out to see them.  This concert was the first time Ice and Hammer have seen each other since they were hanging out at Michael Jackson’s house four years ago.  Is your head still intact?

But there’s a difference between accepting their right to exist and coming out in droves to celebrate them, as the good people of Utah do. They come costumed: neon colors, translucent fabrics and acid-wash denim, with teased hair and single earrings. Many of them wear the pants that became Hammer’s sartorial trademark. One woman wears no pants at all, the better to read the words stitched on the rear of her red panties: “Ice Baby.” Most of these folks were just born the last time Hammer and Ice performed together 18 years ago, if they were born at all. Somehow, they still sound nostalgic. “I hope he does his old stuff,” says Reagan Nickel, 21, who trekked an hour and a half from Bountiful, Utah, to see Ice. “I saw him on TV a while ago bashing his old stuff. He shouldn’t bash it, he should be proud of it. We are. Aren’t we proud of it?” “Yeah!” shouts a sextet of nearby girls, in unison, every last one of them 14 years old. The majority of the crowd falls into the late-teen, early 20s range. They aren’t the ones who bought Hammer’s and Ice’s records the first time around. They got their nostalgia secondhand, from VH1’s ceaseless “I Love the ’80s” and “Awesomely Bad” specials, from iTunes recommendations, from “Family Guy,” which derives a solid half of its humor from arcane pop-culture references. To these kids, the Hammer era is fun and frivolous, something to celebrate, not to deride. It’s not the lame music their parents conceived them to. It’s the music that blared from their older siblings’ rooms.

I could make fun, but the truth is, and I’m willing to admit this, that I would pay more than $40 to see these two in concert.  Right now.  I don’t know how much money I wouldn’t be willing to pay, but my guess is somewhere in the $60 range.

Sometimes there’s nothing better than that strange feeling of the internet and society collapsing in on itself.  MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice played a concert together in a tiny town 40-miles south of Salt Lake City.  People drove from all over and dropped $40 to see them perform.  There was not a single empty seat for the concert.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The world did not end.  It kept spinning on its axis oblivious to the sound of a person’s head exploding in Portland, Ore.

It just goes to show that practice makes perfect.  It’s good to see the guys remember that and take this reunion this time for realz.  By all accounts it was a face melting performance that didn’t let anyone down.

Phish will be updating their official Twitter account during the show, while fans that use #phish or #hampton in their tweets will be posted to @phishhampton.  Phans were twittering the shit out of the concert last night with updates, observations, photos, etc.

And don’t forget, Phish will release official next-day MP3 downloads of all three shows FOR FREE at LivePhish.com.

I love in the video you get the briefest taste of “Harry Hood” at the end and the crowd is loving it.

Phish – “Backwards Down the Number Line” (New tune)

Over the last year, more than a lot of bands, Blitzen Trapper have made the leap.  You know what I mean?  With Wild Mountain Nation they made lots of peeps’s ear perk up and with 2008’s Furr it seemed like they made the entire music community hear them.

They’ve got lots of people’s attention.  Here they’re covering “Cocaine Blues,” but not the Johnny Cash version.  This one is a cover of Reverend Gary Davis.

I think Blitzen Trapper’s show at the Wonder Ballroom with the Parson Red Heads was one of my fav shows in 2008.  At one point they had everyone in both bands up on stage shaking the stage and furiously banging the shit out of anything available.

Big thanks to the folks at Giggling Ostritch (via YANP).

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jokes aside, today is the first day of Lent.  Any readers giving something up?

By all accounts it was a stellar show from Paul Simon, who was joined by partner in crime Art Garfunkel for a few songs.  The knocked off “The Sound of Silence,” “The Boxer” and “Old Friends.”

Simon played an eclectic two-set show, drawing equally from classics such as “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard,” “Slip Slidin’ Away” and “Graceland” as he did songs from his ill-fated Broadway musical “The Capeman” and newer material such as “Father and Daughter” and “Amulet,” a collaboration with Brazilian vocalist Luciana Souza.

Also featured were off-the-beaten-path cuts such as “Duncan,” which hearkened back to Simon’s folk roots, “Train in the Distance,” from the critically maligned 1983 album “Hearts & Bones,” and “Loves Me Like a Rock,” a 1973 precursor to Simon’s future dabbling in African music.

You know?  I’ve never been the biggest Paul Simon fan, but I’d be lying if I said this doesn’t give me chills.  There’s something magnetic about the on-again-off-again relationship between Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, ya know?  It’s like they’re meant to be together and just don’t know how and every few years the planets align and we’re graced by something this magnanimous. The music of Paul Simon, and Art Garfunkel for that matter, transcends age.  He’s one of the few musicians that everyone knows all the words to, that would make moms and dads and sisters and brothers drunkenly sway together at weddings, provide cross country road trip soundtracks, and have people singing at the top of their lungs at a New York city concert.

The Boxer (with Art Garfunkel)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Me and Julio

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Scottish band has a new album coming out April 21 and I couldn’t be more excited.  The group will be hitting up SXSW on what will likely turn into a small American tour (or won’t) — so be on the lookout for them in Austin.

Camera Obscura – “My Maudlin Career”

The title track for their new album is a bit darker, a bit dialed down for them.  It’s not so tweepop, in the vein of Belle and Sebastian, but still a great slice of pop with a slight layer of fuzz running underneath it.

“Otherwise, what were the high points? Anyone like the Digital Short with T-Pain on the boat? Sure, host Bradley Cooper was pleasant and enthusiastic, but his material? The game show about having sex with contestants’ wives? Cooper’s okay Christian Bale impersonation in a dull bit about Bale’s rage? The intervention sketch where he and Kristen Wiig made rude noises? Speaking of Wiig, her Kathie Lee Gifford and Bjork were excellent, but I doubt I’m the only person who thinks she’s on-screen way too much these days–at best, she’s carrying too much of the load,” wrote EW’s Ken Tucker.

And I would tend to agree.  Winona Ryder’s Bjork impression from a few years ago was much better and as much as I like Kristen Wiig (and I like her a lot) she’s slowly going from underrated role-player gem to overused and overworked.  It’s like they’ve thrust her into the starting lineup when she’s a talented sixth-man.  The writer’s are starting to kill her appeal because they have nothing else funny in the bag.  A shame really.

Wait. Hold on. They make chocolate cereal straws? Why did I not know this. Where can I find these? Amazing.

The digital short with T-Pain and the Lonely Island Boys was okay. Nothing great by their own lofty standards.

As for TV on the Radio, well, their performance was a let down. The sound was off and I suspect it wasn’t so much their fault as it was the sound guys’s. The Brooklyn, NY band played two songs off their critical lauded 2008 album, Dear Science. For those who care they were “Dancing Choose” and “Golden Age.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.