Old is the new new, evidently. Though they have a new album in the works, The Avett Brothers showed up on Conan this week and performed an older song, the four-year-old Murder in the City (from 2008′s The Second Gleam).  Check it out below courtesy of The Audio Perv.

Sometimes you guess wrong.  We lazed out and played it safe on Cinco de Mayo by sauntering up to the Santa Barbara Bowl for Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros’ ultimately-underwhelming show.  We should have instead gone up to Nipomo for the X/Los Lobos/Mariachi El Bronx concert at the golf resort.  Turns out that was the musical party on el Cinco.  Having seen and loved  the other two bands for forever, we were most keyed-up to see Mariachi El Bronx, who have won us over repeatedly on the talk shows.

To get a good, spicy flavor (albeit minus a full stage and the pandemonium of their live sets) for the band, check out their recent Tiny Desk Concert for NPR below.  We particularly love the intro to and playing on the second song, Everything Dies (at 4:21).  All is well on this western front.

One of the most pleasant surprises of last year’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival was Gomez’s ginormously strong set.  Following immediately on the heals of Elbow’s set-of-the-Festival performance next door, the bar had been set incredibly high.  Though we’ve enjoyed Gomez’s albums over the years, we had heard that they really came alive live.  We couldn’t agree more.  Having nonchalantly ambled over to their stage, it wasn’t long before we were wowed by Gomez’s musical matching of the ravishing sunset.  Bravo!

Check out below Ben Ottewell and Ian Ball of the band performing Options and Whatever’s On Your Mind unplugged for WNRN out of Virginia.  Great stuff.  ‘Bout time for some new material, eh lads?

Following yesterday’s fine unplugged performances by Metric, the band timed its performance well last night on The Jimmy Kimmel Show.  Check out the electrified band performing Youth Without Youth and Breathing Underwater below.  All things considered, we might lean towards the unplugged.  Youth Without Youth in particular doesn’t have the reckless abandon and passion that the lyrics require here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE7n81xPh9U&feature=channel&list=UL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxnm3jlnUZ8&feature=em-uploademail

Metric have a brand new album entitled Synthetica.  Emily Haynes‘ music we love (in particular).  Whether in Broken Social Scene (with fellow females Feist and Stars’ Amy Millan) or Metric or solo, she’s got brains and brawn, both of which are exhibited below in unplugged performances while at Sasquatch and in NYC at the Bowery.  Check Haynes and guitarist James Shaw perform Synthetica above the Columbia River for KEXP and Youth Without Youth in the Bowery Hotel for Bowery Presents.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxABD07kmD8&feature=channel&list=UL

One of our favorite artists, Channing (Cat Power) Marshall, will soon release her first album of new material in six years, SUN.  Marshall performed and produced SUN herself in various locations, including a studio she built in Malibu.   Check out below the first video and song, Ruin, from the new album.

Dirty Projectors will release their new album, Swing Lo Magellan, on Domino in three weeks.  We loved their contributions to the fabulous Dessners’ philanthropic project, Dark Was the Night, but were ambivalent regarding their first album Bitte Orca.  The band performed the album’s first single, Gun Has No Trigger, on the Jimmy Fallon Show last night.  The first single and the performance below bode well for the new release.  Check the complexity cloaked in ease.

We caught LA’s brown-eyed soul-rock upstarts Electric Guest in Santa Barbara a couple weeks ago, and were impressed by their energetic delivery and crowd-winning ways.  Keep an eye on these lads.  You can check out the band playing Troubleman plugged for KCRW and unplugged for Rhapsody below.  You can also here their Marvin Gaye/Curtis Mayfield vamp on This Head I Hold, also played unplugged for Rhapsody HERE.

How to express a father’s love and care for his child(ren)?  We’ll let a mother give the feel in My Brightest Diamond’s song, I Have Never Loved Someone, which was written for singer Shara Worden’s child.  Check it out below.  The lyrics follow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlyRVPTNg88&feature=em-uploademail

I have never loved someone the way I love you
I have never seen a smile like yours
And if you grow up to be king, or clown, or pauper
I will say you are my favorite one in town
I have never held a hand so soft and sacred
When I see you laugh, I know heaven’s key
And when I grow to be a poppy in the graveyard
I will send you all my love upon the breeze
And if the breeze won’t blow your way, I will be the sun
And if the sun won’t shine your way, I will be the rain
And if the rain won’t wash away all your aches and pains
I will find some other way to tell you you’re okay

You’re okay (x7}