One of the seminal, mid-70s, art-punk bands out of New York City, Television, has been away from the scene and hasn’t released a proper studio album since 1992.  Their first two albums. Marquee Moon and Adventure, remain amongst the best rock albums ever put to acetate.  Tom Verlaine recently pulled the band together (sadly, minus Richard Lloyd), and on Wednesday this week they played at Beco 203 in Sao Paulo, Brazil.  Check Tom Verlaine and the gents lay it all out on the classic Marquee Moon below.  Make sure you stick with the video for the entire 12+ minutes.  You can thank us later.  Alive and kicking Television!!  The setlist is at bottom.  Good luck finding much current information about the band on the interwebs.  Thus far, we’ve only been able to deduce that they will play a few festivals in Japan and Australia.

Set List:

Prove It
Jericho
Little Johnny Jewel
Glory
The Fire
Breaking In My Heart
Persia
The Sea
Marquee Moon

Encore:
Venus
(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
(The Rolling Stones cover)

We’ve been following Seattle’s Pickwick for quite some time, and consider them a cut-above the fray receiving adulation (Allen Stone?  Please.).  And so as if manna from heaven, Pickwick has now released their official video for Lady Luck, their collaboration with the mesmerizing Sharon Van Etten.  The song appears on the recent Pickwick album, Can’t Talk Medicine.  The song is an addictive, repeatable offense and a defense against the humdrum world.

Matthew E. White (of Fight The Big Bull) has received critical acclaim for his multifaceted Mayfield-meets-Nilsson-and-pops-up-a-revival-tent debut album Big Inner.  White has now gifted us a new official video for the uplifting new single Steady Pace, which will be released on Domino on May 6th.  The video was directed by Travis Robertson.  Check it out, and go buy his superb album HERE.

Kopecky Family Band have been garnering deserved attention following the release this month of their well-crafted debut album Kid Raising Kids.  We were reminded of this chamber-folk-pop band when we recently saw their uplifting official video for Hope off the new album.  Speaking of chambers, check out the band performing Are You Listening in a cave for InTheOpenTV.  The natural reverb in the cavern is a perfect fit for the band’s superb group vocals.  Keeping with the chamber theme, after check the band’s leaders performing the new album’s Heartbeat in a drainpipe.  And finally, check them out performing in a studio chamber the song Angry Eyes (no, not that one) for HearYa.  This band can both ballad and bray well, and is well worth keeping your ears and eyes open for.  They play the Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco in August, with all their tour dates listed HERE.

In between Coachella weekends the artists continue to spread out in an effort to conquer California.  One of the best-received bands at Coachella was French band Phoenix (yeah, the rumored Daft Punk didn’t show, but R. Kelly joined ’em on stage).  Phoenix showed up at KCRW today and played a session which you can listen to HERE.   To get a flavor, watch the band deliver Entertainment below from their new album Bankrupt!

We’re starting to repeat ourselves, but Phosphorescent’s new album Muchacho is one of the best albums released so far this year and certain to end up in our Top 10 Albums of 2013 at year’s end. Watch the band below deliver a riveting read of Terror In The Canyons off of Muchacho for The Current (89.3 in Minnesota). And go HERE to check out the remainder of the session at The Current.

Awhile back we posted excitedly about the great new project of Will Sheff (Okkervil River) called Lovestreams.  Today Sheff released another strong song off the promised Lovestreams album. Check out the new video (shot and directed by Scott Coffey) and song There’s Video, and listen while Sheff gets his Bowie superbly on (circa  Diamond Dogs/Young Americans).  Check out Sheff as he adds to his horizons by subtracting musicians to get to one.  Bring on the Lovestreams.

According to most accounts, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs received nothing but heck-yeahs for their performance last weekend at Coachella.  Last night the band crossed the desert to perform on the Jimmy Kimmel Show, performing the title track (Mosquito) off their new album and Sacrilege.  Check ’em out below.  The band continues up the coast to Ventura tonight to perform at the Majestic Ventura Theater.

We had the fortune of catching Foxygen live and raging-loud recently in a semi-secret show at The Loft in the Funk Zone. Later that night the band announced the cancellation of its European tour.  Ironically, then, the decidedly European La Blogotheque today released a sweet video of the band strolling around Paris (on the Montmartre steps of Sacre Couer, etc.) singing songs In the Darkness and No Destruction.  Check out the band’s fine group harmonies and lead singer, Sam France, getting his Ray Davies/Mick Jagger on. The bottom line is this band just doesn’t give a good gash what anyone thinks.  And that’s refreshing in this day and age.  We wish them well.  After, check the band performing On Blue Mountain (at 1:50) after a long intro.  Great to see the band suck in the sidewalk Parisians.