Pearly Gate Music at the Crocodile ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth

Our boy Zach Tillman and his boys stopped by Daytrotter for a quick session. Sublime.

And via Barsuk Records, we finally get a listen to a cut off the 2009 Pearly Gate Music Tour EP. Nice!

MP3: “I Was a River” (Live Take) by Pearly Gate Music from the Pearly Gate Music Tour EP courtesy of Barsuk Records

Today’s Daytrotter session is by none other than J Tillman, who’s strengthened voice I was commenting about earlier this week. This session contains songs mostly from his latest Vacilando Territory Blues, and is another demonstration of the change I was speaking of; the whispy elements of his former delivery have moved to the background in favor of a much richer sounding vocal melody. And we thought his voice was to die for even before he joined the Fleet Foxes…

Did you miss the live broadcast of the Decemberists performing The Hazards of Love last night on KEXP? Whether you did or you just want to listen to it again, you can stream it at NPR.org and I highly suggest you do. It’s clearly a hot stream today considering I wasn’t even able to pull up NPR’s page earlier today. Featuring the full cast of characters in Lavender Diamond’ Becky Stark and My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worden, I think it manages to be as epic as the band had hoped. Also take a moment to swoon over the openers Avett Brothers set.

The Hazards of Love will be released in stores, next Tuesday March 24, but you can find it on the iTunes Store as I write.

We’re huge advocates of the live experience here and recognize that capturing and presenting a live recording of a band (or solo player) so the music retains it’s vital qualities is no mean task. Below we’ve presented a few of the online sessions that knocked our socks off this year and we think shouldn’t be overlooked.

Bon Iver : Hard to Find a Friend’s Backstage Sessions featuring two songs with Justin Vernon solo: “Creature Fear” and “Flume.” |listen and watch at htfaf|

Fleet Foxes : Hard to Find a Friend’s Backstage Sessions featuring three songs with Robin Pecknold solo: “Katie Cruel,” “Innocent Sun,” and a stunning version of “Oliver James.” |listen and watch at htfaf|

Throw Me the Statue : LA BLOGOTHEQUE featuring all five members busking on the Banbridge to Seattle ferry playing three songs: “Lolita,” “About to Walk” and “My Valuable Hunting Knife.” |listen and watch at la blogotheque|

Starfucker at Rudy’s Barbershop : The Penny Jam featuring the Portland trio stirring up a dance party with casio’s and electric vocals on “Dance Face.” |watch it here|

Damien Jurado Daytrotter Session features four songs: “Dimes,” Gillian was a Horse,” “Everything Trying,” and “Ohio.” |listen here|

The Lonely H Daytrotter Session features four unreleased songs that sound as professionally done as if they had paid a whole lot of money for them: “Mother’s Only Son.” “Goin’ Out West,” “Oh My!” and “Pheonox.” |listen here|

The Maldives KEXP In-Studio on Swingin’ Doors where they play five songs: “By the Wind Sailor,” “Do You Still,” “Tequila Sunday,” “Time is Right Now,” and “Whidbey Island Blues.” |listen here|

Blind Pilot Live at MusicFest Northwest KEXP Podcast featuring a half hour of this Portland duo with a large cast of friends helping out. |subscribe to the KEXP podcast here|

Thee Emergency In the KEXP Studio. We were there so of course it is on our list. |listen to it here|

Portland band Horse Feathers premiered their video for “Curs in the Weeds” on pitchfork.tv yesterday.

Today they visited WOXY.

Ages ago they visited Daytrotter.

It’s all good. If you’re into the bearded softies that is…

Captain’s Dead had a baby, and put up one of the last known Nirvana recordings from a show in Italy on February 22, 1994. Titled ROMA (see the poster above), this recording is pretty high quality and might be from the soundboard, but I can’t tell (there are a few recordings floating around out there). One week later, Nirvana would cancel the tour due to Kurt coming down with bronchitis. Five weeks after that Kurt took his own life. I’ve been sort of obsessed with Nirvana as of late, after seeing About a Son. I’m slowly making my way through Heavier than Heaven, and re-listening to Nirvana, so this recording comes to my attention at an interesting time for me. I highly recommend checking it out. (Plus at the end of “Polly,” Kurt calls bootleggers “a bunch of pedophiles, they support murder in the third world, they torture children.” It’s pretty hilarious.)

Poster courtesy of Nirvana Live Guide

I think I might have found my favorite song of 2008. The Blue Scholars played an in-studio yesterday on KEXP, where they featured four brand new songs. And one of them, “Guns and Butter,” ripped my heart right out of my chest. It’s one of the most powerful, intelligent songs I’ve heard in a long time. The new songs are set to be released on an EP early in 2008, but you can listen to the set now on KEXP’s Streaming Archive. (To hear “Guns and Butter,” enter December 13, 2007 as the date and 9:51 am as the time.) Here’s some of the lyrics that gobsmacked me so much that I tried my best to transcribe them.

“Tell me whatever happened to veterans getting they pensions? First they saying they paying for college, your body exchanged for knowledge. But what good is a mind whenever we find another one locked in a coffin? Y’all. My brothers was up in Iraq, while his brother was singing a song. I chanted of bringing him home and most the people was singing along, except for middle-American, flag-waving, fag-hating, crazy-saying, yellow ribbon campaigning on anybody debating.”

The in-studio got me so excited for The Scholar’s 5 night long residency at Neumo’s,  called “The Program,” which starts next Tuesday - December 18th. Sound on the Sound will be there in the front row at least one night, hoping they play “Guns and Butter.”

The Antiques are getting The Daytrotter treatment, and it’s sure to be grand.

Head on over and take a listen, I haven’t had a chance yet to. (damn you day job!) But The Antiques style and sound is a perfect match for Daytrotter.

The band spent part of the summer recording with Scott Solter (Mountain Goats, Okkerville River) in North Carolina, and recorded the Daytrotter session on the way back to Southern California. The songs the band recorded are all previously unreleased, and are  a taste of the new album featuring those newly worked and written tracks.

Congrats to The Antiques for getting some much deserved exposure and to Daytrotter for their impeccable choices.

The sun decided to take a break today. Here are a few things helping me pass the time…

The National - Live Interface Session on Spinner.com

The team at Spinner consistently puts together beautifully mixed live performances and this one is no exception. I can’t wait to see them at Neumos on June 30.

The Features - Live Session on WOXY.com

WOXY.com, an internet only radio station that went silent for a short time, has risen from the grave better than ever. This session with the Features is not to be missed. I suspect you’ll be hearing about this band a lot more in the coming months.

Bishop Allen - Live Session at Daytrotter.com

Daytrotter consistently attract great bands for their intimate sounding sessions, and with their frontpage ticker, I have been hotly anticipating this one. This prolific band utilizes horns, glockenspiels, mandolins and all matter of instruments in creating their one-of-a-kind sound.

Earlier this week, down at ULCA, for his finale of “Such Great Heights”, Ben Gibbard was joined on stage by Jenny Lewis, Jimmy Tamborello, David Bazan, and Jenny’s bf Jonathan Rice. I’m so jealous right now I can’t even explain. Speed of Dark has the recording of that night, in which the song is simply acoustic. I can only hope tommorow’s concert works out as nicely.

Update:

Uberdrivel also posted a live Postal Service Concert (w/ Spanish radio talk at moments) from Madrid. He also points us to Jimmy’s response regarding new Postal Service material:

[Ben Gibbard and I] are working on songs but it doesn’t feel any more like a band. It still feels like a side project. We don’t have a schedule, and I could just as easily see it never materializing again as having another album. We both want to make sure that we put it out because we have more ideas; not to sell more records. We’re still working on songs the same way: by mail. We started around the beginning of this year, and it’s hard to say what the sound is. I sent him a few beats, he added some stuff to it, that’s it. I do like the three unfinished songs we have so far, but it’s hard to say what’s going to happen.