The Line of Best Fit has provided some great live music vignettes in the past, but our favorite is the great Mathhew Houck and Phosphorescent performing one of our favorite songs, Cocaine Lights. Check it out below.

We know some of you are heading to Outside Lands this weekend in San Francisco.  If not (yeah, that’s us), there are two festivals coming up in September to sate your music festival desires.  They’re not Glastonbury, but won’t take a 10 hour flight or involve fields of mud and rain (we hope).

First up on September 3rd is the FYF Fest at the Los Angeles State Historic Park in downtown L.A.  Check out the lineup, the highlights of which for us will be Guided by Voices, Broken Social Scene, Girls, The Weakerthans, Explosions in the Sky and Cass McCombs.

And then of course there’s the free three-day Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco from September 30th to October 2nd.  We attended last year and were enthralled despite the crowds (owing solely to the guidance of HSB veterans’ voices–thanks John!).  This year’s lineup (with more to be added) looks even better than last year.  Amongst countless others scheduled to perform:  Elbow(!!!!!),  Bright Eyes, Broken Social Scene, The Felice Brothers, M. Ward, John Prine, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson with Merle Haggard, Gomez, Robyn Hitchcock, Gillian Welch, Over the Rhine and Justin Townes Earle (with his estranged father, Steve Earle, performing separately).  It’s an embarrassment of riches, and it’s free.  Did we mention free?  Be there.

We don’t like to repeat much.  But the Dawes performance of Time Spent in Los Angeles was repeated two nights ago.  And we repeat, don’t miss their show at Soho with Blitzen Trapper on October 8th.  Tickets are on sale now at Club Mercy. In the meantime, check out Dawes on Letterman.

Cage the Elephant has been unleashing its music and garnering rapturous praise (their set at this year’s KJEE Summer-Roundup at the Santa Barbara Bowl was highly lauded) following the release of its most recent album, “Thank You, Happy Birthday.”  And recently they’ve been breaking out at the Big L’s:  Leno and Lollapalooza.

To help try and burn through this gray weather malaise, check out singer Mathhew Shultz below channeling Cobain vocally and the band paying homage in Aberdeen on Leno last night (while also sprinkling a pinch of the Pixies’ dust).  And below that watch the band performing the touching Shake Me Down done sing-a-long stylee at Lollapalooza in the rain (during the chorus you can hear all those Glastonbury crowds’ singing lessons finally seeming to yield sing-a-long benefits at the other festivals).  “Even on a cloudy day” indeed.

Here’s Shake Me Down:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIStRqQu7pA&feature=player_embedded

In what should be one of the best double-bills of the year in Santa Barbara, Blitzen Trapper and Dawes will “co-headline” at Soho on October 8th, each in support of new albums from both bands.  The concert collaboration seems a natural given that both bands are heavily influenced by 70’s folk-rock stalwarts (The Band, Warren Zevon, Neil Young, Jackson Browne and the Topanga entourage, and in Blitzen Trapper’s case, a dash of the Grateful Dead).  Those influences are also graphically reflected in the tour poster above.

Blitzen Trapper is soon to release its sixth album, American Goldwing.  The title track and newly-released song Love the Way You Walk Away” from the new album wear those 70’s influences on their sleeves. Here’s what Blitzen Trapper leader Eric Earley has to say about the title track you can listen to below:

“When I sing, in the title track, “I know / I know / I’ll be staying if the wind don’t blow,” I’m seeking to invoke the unseen, the spirit that beckons you to saddle up that old 1980 Honda Goldwing, or your uncle’s beat up Ford Bronco, or that Jeep you somehow, and only barely, keep running and leave this lonely town behind, ‘cause that wind’s always blowing. I’m calling you to ride, to take those curves at speed and head for someplace better where love is true, whether that be into the depths of the galaxy or just to the next truck stop where the neon shines, and where the “company of strangers / and the close and the present dangers” are all that really matters.”

To get a feel for Blitzen Trapper, check out Love the Way You Walk and American Goldwing below, along with one of our faves (Heaven and Earth) from their prior album.

Blitzen Trapper–Love the Way You Walk

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/BlitzentrapperLovethe-way-you-walk-away.mp3|titles=BlitzentrapperLovethe way you walk away]

Blitzen Trapper–American Goldwing

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Blitzen-Trapper-American-Goldwing.mp3|titles=Blitzen Trapper — American Goldwing]

Blitzen Trapper–Heaven and Earth

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Heaven-And-Earth.mp3|titles=Heaven And Earth]

Dawes has just released their second album, “Nothing is Wrong.” At first blush, the new album can strike you as entirely too Topanga-derivative (specifically Zevon and Browne).  But repeated listens divulge crateloads of creativity and craft.  We have written about Dawes before and their stellar headlining show at Soho last year.  Suffice it to say we are huge fans of this band, and the new album does not disappoint.  It may be a little too soft for some, but Dawes tosses off memorable melodies effortlessly with thoughtful lyrical bents and twists of the tongue.  And these boys can play and sing like few can.  Check out a few of our favorites off the new album below. And just know that as good as the songs sound here, Dawes will kick ’em up 20-30 notches live in October.

Dawes–If I Wanted Someone

If I Wanted Someone features some fine fuzz-crunch guitar a la Neil, some Zevon-esque piano and haughty harmonies.  Taylor even seems to name-check Neil’s old “maid.”

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/02-If-I-Wanted-Someone1.mp3|titles=02 If I Wanted Someone]

Dawes–Fire Away

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/07-Fire-Away1.mp3|titles=07 Fire Away]

Not trying to hide anything, on the Browne-out song, Fire Away, the band goes so far as to include Jackson on vocals.

Dawes–Million Dollar Bill

This is just a beautiful, heart-rending ballad.

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/09-Million-Dollar-Bill1.mp3|titles=09 Million Dollar Bill]

You can also download a “tour sampler” from both bands below.

Richard Swift, the savant indie producer (Damien Jurado, Mynabirds, Gardens & Villa), is also a gifted songwriter/performer.  Check out his new song below with its Motown mien.  Swift writes about this song:  “A year and a half ago i broke my finger.  Never got it back.  This is a song I made a few days after getting the cast taken off.”  You might also catch Swift touring with James Mercer in the newly-constituted Shins as they head out on tour shortly (with Hosannas opening at several shows).

Broken Finger Blues by Richard Swift

One of our musical faves, San Francisco band Girls, has just released the first video (of the song Vomit) from their impending new album, “Father, Son, Holy Ghost.” The song itself is a grand kitchen sink of influences with both fuzzy psychedelic and Neil Young-esque guitar, acoustic balladry, Spector-Wall-of-Sound, and a soul-gospel diva ending.  After the third listen, we were hooked.  The video features a ’65 Mustang cruising the streets of San Francisco (including a night-time drag down an empty Chinatown street, the Stockton Tunnel, etc.) and depicting the singer “looking ’round for [his] baby.”  The lyrics aren’t profound, but combined with the music the song and video did not make us vomit (homage to Chris Mundell’s stellar movie reviews).

The band’s promo says this about the new album:

“Father, Son, Holy Ghost juxtaposes the pain and beauty, hope and misery, which lie at the heart of gospel music.  According to Owens, “the title does come from a religious place, but it’s more about acknowledging the fact that music does have a spiritual quality you can’t put your finger on.” The 3-piece gospel choir that accompanies the band on seven of Father, Son, Holy Ghost’s 11 tracks echoes that sentiment.  “Some of the earliest songs we learn are happy and joyous, which is why we sing when we are sad, in a sort of effort to get back to that place of happiness…” says Owens. Christopher’s earliest experiences with music were playing religious songs in the street; here, he elevates his songs to a sacred place — not church but the rock’n’roll songbook, assembled with the toolkit (paper, pen, guitar) of a true believer.”

Some have said that Vomit was divined in part from Proverbs 26:11: “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his foolishness.”  Whatever the case, we like it.

Check out JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound covering Wilco’s I Am Trying To Break Your Heart at the Solid Sound, with Jeff Tweedy joining in on the fun.  Imagine James Brown covering My Morning Jacket, and then check it out HERE.

Portland band Typhoon has been building up strength and has been roundly praised for its deepening songs and emphatic live delivery. The French folks across the Pond have taken the Typhoon warning to heart, and one of their take aways is A Take Away Show on La Blogotheque, which you can check out below.  And then cruise down and check out their first network performance on The Letterman Show.

Typhoon | A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

And here’s the Letterman performance.

You never know.  When you sit down to write a song, you just might end up writing the Sugar, Sugar of 2011 and be this year’s Archies (for a while).  Foster the People’s Pumped Up Kicks has transcended the medium and is (so far) our pop song of the year.  The song has taken over the airwaves and invaded minds (just try kicking that chorus out of your cranium after you’re in its clutches).  Now watch Weezer (and crowd, replete with whistled chorus) up the ante and give a lively tribute to the song below.  Simply infectious.  Like SARS on steroids.

Two observations:  1) who knew the song’s lyrics were so “complex” that Rivers Cuomo would need a lyric sheet?; and 2) Weezer has now instructed Foster the People in how to play their own song live (we know, the Fosters are young; but please, let it fly fellas!).