We discovered quintessentially-Seattle singer-songwriter Bryan John Appleby through the annual Doe Bay Festival and the varied coverage thereof.  And then we became smitten with his glorious song, Glory, which you can and should listen to below. And then go over to Bandcamp and stream and buy his great album, “Fire on the Vine,” HERE for a measly $5. That’s a serious value.

Glory’s lyrics:

“Glory, I have known you my whole life
In the morning, you come in gentle as a golden vine
Through my window, you fill up the valleys in my sheets. Glory

Glory, I have known you on a black crow night
From my rooftop, shining in the alabaster moonlight
And the rats all scratch in the attic under my feet. Glory

Glory, you are the anvil for my hardened heart
Glory, you’re the only mystery I can see
I have known you as the song that goes before me
And the only one who’ll be there when I’m gone”

And then go below and check out Appleby and band singing sweet songs of melodies pure and true in the first video at this year’s Doe Bay Festival (in the San Juan Islands), and in the second video discussing surroundings and songwriting at Appleby’s house, each as captured by Sound On The Sound.

At WXPN’s celebration of the 20th Anniversary of its World Cafe show, Brit-band Mumford & Sons joined Dawes on the latter’s anthem, When My Time Comes.  Check it out below.

One of our favorites, Joseph Arthur, was recently interviewed on BreakThru Radio’s video series “BTR Live Studio“ and performed a few songs (the mesmerizing Out On A Limb, Gypsy Faded, and Horses) from his highly-regarded recent album, “The Graduation Ceremony,” which is available through his label Lonely Astronaut Records.   Arthur sat down with BTR’s DJ Maia to talk about his new album, playing with Pearl Jam, and what it was like living in his art studio for a while. Check it out below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hur6emlJLiI

Coincidentally, Arthur also released this week the entrancing official video for song Out On a Limb. Check it below.

Lana Del Rey sure does get around.  On Monday night Lana Del Rey performed two new songs, “Born 2 Die” and “China Doll” at the Nouveau Casino in Paris.  More positive semaphores for her first album.  Check ’em out below.

We won’t shut up about this band.  Having seen Elbow recently at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, our praise-ante has only been upped.  Check out Guy and guys perform the piano hymn, The River, off of this year’s “Build a Rocket Boys” album.  A confessional beauty.

“I walked with the river in kind of a dream
Hand in hand, the all-knowing river and me
To the clammer of rushes and deeply barren trees
A drunk making blossom, the blush to be seen

I told him my sorrows and broken-down dreams
Confessed every lie, replayed every scene
He openly wept as he listened to me
And then, with the sun in the west, he showed me the sea”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F87D6hE9mdw

St. Vincent showed on Jimmy Fallon’s Show to perform a cover of post-punk band, The Pop Group’s “She Is Beyond Good and Evil.”  And so we have additional respect for St. Vincent and Annie Clark. As we have seen before in her selection of other heavy covers, St. Vincent doesn’t mind taking risks and casting off serious avant-garde racket on guitar. There’s no sweetness in this performance below, thankfully, just intensity and art. Check it out below.

There are seemingly endless bantam-male Swedish singer-songwriters from which to choose.  To help narrow it down: forgot all about that Tallest Dylan Impersonator option.  Instead our top choice is Jens Lekman, thank you very much, over all the rest of the mini-Swedes.  Check out Lekman on the very appropriately titled NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert below. As NPR puts it: If you’re suffering from a broken heart, Jens Lekman is here to remind you that there are more important things to worry about. Like, say, the end of the world.” Check out Lekman’s interesting banter and the following songs: I Want A Pair Of Cowboy Boots; The End Of The World Is Bigger Than Love; and Waiting For Kirsten.

Check out Tom Waits’ official video for his song Satisfied off of his career-crowning “Bad as Me” album.  This could be your idea of heaven or hell.  As always, we’re leaning heaven.  It done gots gobs of glitter AND doom, but Keef is sorely missing.  Check it.

Swedish sister duet, First Aid Kit, played KCRW recently.  Check out below their charming homage to The Real Country music, Emmylou, and its stalwarts, Emmylou Harris, June Carter Cash, Gram Parsons and Johnny Cash.  The song and performance evince great taste and talent, and a kinship to the touted touchstones.  If you’re in LA tonight, First Aid Kit plays the Troubadour.

Once again, lots of Santa Barbara music-lovers were AWOL on Sunday when the Fruit Bats and Parson Red Heads put on one of the best shows Santa Barbara has seen this year (saying much) courtesy of Club Mercy and the New Noise Festival.  As anticipated, the Fruit Bats brought their high-energy, pop-melodic phantasmagoria to Soho, and the appreciative (albeit diminutive) crowd went batty.  Those in doubt before the show are now doubtless.  The Fruit Bats are one of America’s best live bands and Chicago-based songwriter/leader, Eric Johnson, continues to add to his burgeoning song-chest as one of America’s premier new-generation singer-songwriters (along with Taylor Goldsmith from Dawes, Jim James, the National boys, Conor Oberst and a few select others).

You have simply got to catch this band live.  Passion and precision rarely coincide, but Eric Johnson and the Fruit Bats provide exactly that.  At Soho there were pop stars converging.  The first part of the band’s set consisted mostly of songs off of their worthy new album, “Tripper” (more on this new concept album another time), including You’re Too Weird, Tony The Tripper, Tangie and Ray, and Heart Like an Orange. Johnson then alerted the crowd that the remaining songs would be “older and progressively older,” and the remaining set consisted of pop-gems predominantly from their last album, the fantastic ’70s-influenced, “The Ruminant Band” and and from “Spelled in Bones.” Highlights included Lives of Crime, (the Marshall Tucker Band-sounding) Feather Bed, (preposterously jaunty) Being on Our Own, Legs of Bees, Primitive Man, When You Love Somebody (of course; check the Soho video below), and a stunningly beautiful solo rendition by Johnson of Singing Joy To The World.  The band closed out the night with a ridiculously rousing rendition of The Ruminant Band (with some more Marshall Tucker/Allmans guitar bits).

The bottom line is that when you combine Johnson’s pop-hooky songwriting, sweet high-register voice and friendly Midwestern-mien, with the superb playing and harmony vocals of the other Bats, you can’t help but be won over.  Our faces ached from smiling after the show.

Fortunately for the slackers that missed the show, the good folks at NYCtaper recorded the Fruit Bats’ very-similar recent set at the Bowery, and you can listen/download the set HERE (if you do nothing else check out Johnson’s solo version of Singing Joy to the World). As usual, the quality by Nyctaper is high and they had this to say about the particulars: “I recorded this set with a soundboard feed provided by the Fruit Bats’ sound engineer, together with DPA microphones.   The results are, as usual with Bowery, excellent.  Enjoy!”  We did!

And below check out the band performing  When You Love Somebody at Soho (thanks to Oulalie), then My Unusual Friend and Johnson’s solo (acoustic guitar as opposed to the shimmering, reverbified electric at Soho) Singing Joy to the World, and finally, the closer: The Ruminant Band:

And then just for fun, check out Johnson channeling Neil on Young’s Revolution Blues below.

As a side note, after the show Eric Johnson hailed Club Mercy as his “favorite promoter in all of America” and commended them for the good care given to the bands.  And we (Santa Barbara and the ever-expanding beyond), are the beneficiaries.  Bravo!

And while we’re at it, make sure you support the bands out on tour and hit the merch tables as hard as you can.  Look at the sort of eye-and-ear candy you can pick up.  Well done Fruit Bats!

Opening up for the Fruit Bats were the rousing Parson Red Heads, touring in support of their new album, “Yearling.”  Yearling was produced and engineered by seminal North Carolina indie dudes, Chris Stamey and Mitch Easter (REM, etc.), respectively, and by sometimes member and producer, Raymond Richards.

The Parson Red Heads themselves are leader, Evan Way, sweet-faced redhead (and wife of Evan) Brette Marie Way on drums and vocals, tall Sam Fowles on guitar and vocals, and Charlie Hester on bass and vocals.  Visually they’re three hirsute dudes and one girl-next-door redhead gal (killing on drums).  They have a decided folk-rock sound, on several occasions directly channeling the jangle of The Byrds, albeit updated.  Ultimately their songs and breathtaking harmonizing won the crowd over.  Highlights of their set were the beauteous barbershop-quartet-esque rendering of the Beach Boys’ Surfer Girl (as pictured above and a snippet of which can be heard below) and the two closing songs (both off the new album), the rocking Kids Hanging Out and Burning Up the Sky.

Check out below a snippet of their cover of Surfer Girl at Soho (again courtesy of Oulalie), and then their live performance of new song highlight, Burning Up the Sky: