MW and Louie pressured me into actually talking to Miles Kurosky when we saw him, and it was really great. He was a really cool guy — as cool a person as you might hope seeing stuff like this.

I was a huge fan of Beulah, and it feels like I’ve been waiting for this album for years. And I just ran across it this morning!

Lots of wild and crazy in this one.

Recent discovery — I think I’m going to see them Wednesday April 7 at Schuba’s!

Strictly Game by Harlem Shakes … I just stumbled across this album and I think it’s going to be my French Kicks Swimming of 2009. It’s really clicking with me – I listened to it like six times in a row when I first got it and keep going back to it. This is my favorite song from the album, and it’s such a great video (yes, video).

Louie just sent this to me, it’s a song called Frontier Psychiatrist. Pretty great. Of course, my favorite part is the ghosts. I just love a good sheet-style ghost in a music video.

I really loved their album Swimming from last year, and just saw them at Schuba’s last week. I’m totally in head-over-heels mode now, having pretty much gone back to buy all of the albums I didn’t have, and commence the absorption process. This is my favorite song from Swimming, for which the video was just released …


French Kicks “Abandon” from THE FEAR on Vimeo.

When I heard my first song from these guys, I thought “this is just too spot on to stuff I like”. Which, as it turns out, is true. I love their album, this is the first video from it and it’s not even within my top 3 or 4 favorite songs from the album (that would be Old, Old Fashioned and The Twist and Backwards Walk for those keeping track at home). This is Heads Roll Off …

I was just reminded of this video talking to my dad about M. Ward. It’s pretty great, all around.

I really think she’s a great songwriter — Crush in the Ghetto and Mexican Blue from the last album are among my favorite songs all-time. I like this one a lot too — and was really struck in the video by how much, to me, she looks like Julia Louis-Dreyfus (I think it must be the hair, I’d never thought that before).

I really wasn’t into these guys when I got their album Boys and Girls in America when it came out and everyone was going crazy over it. But, since my friend George started to get me into Springsteen, when I went back to it recently, I started loving it.

Here’s a live version from Letterman of the opening song Stuck Between Stations, and I was thrilled to see the front man looks like a mix of Woody Allen, Randy Newman, and Michael Moore. And the pianist is a dead ringer for the front man from the Fabulous Thunderbirds (and also George and I’s friend Michael Boumenot).

Here’s the video for the second song on the album, Chips Ahoy!