Spirit of '68

Video: Night Beds’ Tiny Desk Concert

Night Beds dropped by the NPR offices to record a Tiny Desk Concert. Watch as the band performs “Faithful Heights,” “Ramona,” and “22” from their Dead Oceans debut Country Sleep and older track “Hide From It.”

Night Beds plays The Bishop on May 28 with Jenny O. Tickets still available here

The Staves live on Later…with Jools Holland

The Staves are a trio of folk rock sisters who having been making waves across the pond with their sublime harmonies, touring with the likes of Bon Iver, The Civil Wars and Michael Kiwunaka.

Watch them perform “Facing West” and “Wisely and Slow” on Later…with Jools Holland

The Staves play Russian Recording May 25 with Escondido.

Meet Lee Ranaldo and The Dust

You know Lee Ranaldo from his time playing guitar in Sonic Youth but what about his assembled band The Dust?

Steve Shelley, drums: Like Lee, Steve Shelley spent the past 28 years playing drums with Sonic Youth. Shelly drummed on Cat Power’s first three albums and for a time with The Disappears.

Alan Licht, guitar: Licht is an avant garde guitarist know for his work with Run On, Love Child and Loren Mazzacane Connors as well his own experimental solo output. Licht is also a music journalist and writer, publishing An Emotional Memoir of Martha Quinn released by Drag City and Sound Art: Beyond Music, Between Categories released by Rizzoli.

Tim Luntzel, bass: Luntzel is an accomplished and in demand bass player leading his own The Brooklyn Boogaloo Blowout and recording and touring with a wide array of performers including Bright Eyes, Roseanne Cash, Emmylou Harris, Michel Gondry, Gilian Welsh, Norah Jones, M. Ward and Natalie Cole

Lee Ranaldo and The Dust play The Bishop May 26 with The Whippoorwill.

Bleeding Rainbow live on KEXP

Philly’s Bleeding Rainbow stormed their way through this year’s SXSW, captured here by KEXP’s cameras.

Bleeding Rainbow plays The Bishop on May 10, tickets are still available.

Video: Mac DeMarco, “My Kind of Woman”

Mac DeMarco walks us trough a Lynch-ian wonderland in his video for “My Kind of Woman” off his much loved album, 2.

Mac brings his musical circus to Russian Recording on June 16th. Tickets still available.

Video: Ghostface Killah, “Rise of the Ghostface Killah”

Ghostface Killah and his Wu-Tang brethren are no strangers to the 70’s imagery of kung-fu, blaxploitation and horror films. So it only makes sense that Ghostface would create a video Dario Argento would be proud of with the priests, cloaked concubines and masked murders in the video for “Rise of the Ghostface Killah.”

Ghostface Killah plays The Bluebird Thursday night with Adrian Younge’s Venice Dawn. Tickets still available

Night Beds covers Robyn

Plaintive singer Winston Yellin and his Night Beds compatriots are primarily known for their countrified ruminations on life and love as found on their excellent Dead Oceans debut, Country Sleep. But just because he may pine for “Ramona” doesn’t mean he is immune to the charms of Robyn, as found in their cover of the Swedish pop singers “Dancing On My Own” for The Onion’s AV Club.

Night Beds plays The Bishop on May 28th with Jenny O. (tickets)

Ben Miller Band live on Kix Brooks Radio

The Ben Miller Band are a high energy trio from Joplin, MO that combine bluegrass, delta blues and old fashioned mountain music to create a sound unto themselves. Their raucous shows have found them on festival stages of Wakarusa to touring the country opening for the legendary ZZ Top.

The band stopped by Kix Brooks’ The Back Forty radio show to discuss their origins, their sound and to play a few songs for the good peoples.

The Ben Miller Band plays The Bishop May 8th with Hard Candy Hearts. (tickets)

Mac DeMarco covers Weezer

On the heels of his Captured Tracks debut, 2, Canadian rockers Mac DeMarco quickly became THE artist we were most asked to bring to town. We obliged, but before he hits Bloomington this summer, Mac stopped by the AV Club offices to record a cover of the Weezer classic, “Undone-The Sweater Song”

Mac DeMarco plays Russian Recording on June 16th (tickets)

Video: The Pines, “Cry, Cry Crow”

Watch the video for “Cry, Cry Crow” by The Pines, a rising indie-Americana group from the same Minneapolis musical birthing grounds that gave us The Jayhawks and The replacements. The group last visited Bloomington opening for the sold out Emmylou Harris show at The Buskirk Chumley and return to town this Sunday at The Bishop (tickets)