Check out Iron and Wine performing a rocking-blues Freedom Hangs Like Heaven (from their EP Woman King) at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia via RadioVA.  The song lyrics follow.

“Mary, carry your babe
Bound up tight like lips around a whimper
Your fingers over my face
Blind eyed Samson driven to the temple
And night birds digging until dawn
Freedom hangs like heaven over everyone
Ain’t nobody knows what the newborn holds
But his mama says he’ll walk on water
And wander back home

Mary, carry your shame
Well past all those eyes across the avenue
Fish heads running from rain
You know i’ll do anything you want me to
Lamp oil lovers may say
“freedom hangs like heaven over everyone”
Ain’t nobody knows what the newborn holds
But his papa’s going to hide shaking gristle
And shaking like bone

Mary, carry my name
Hoof marks hacked up all i had to offer you
Looked all over this place
Lost your portrait lately when the winter blew
In like herod and them
Freedom hangs like heaven over everyone
Ain’t nobody knows what the newborn holds
But a dollar says he’ll lick that devil
And do it alone”

Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks played Monday at Soho in Santa Barbara in support of their new album, Mirror Traffic, brought to us by the indie-music maestros at Club Mercy.   Mirror Traffic is the Jicks’ best album in recent memory, and so expectations were high for the show.  After years of superb live shows in support of their earlier albums, we had been sorely disappointed by their last show at Soho in support of 2008’s Real [Emotional] Trash.  Aptly named, we ultimately said.  What had evolved from Pavement as intelligent, quirky and melodic music accompanied by clever and challenging lyrics had devolved by 2008 into long-winded, prog-blues jams and uninspiring guitar-noodling by Malkmus at Soho that year.  Then came the Pavement reunion and their tour de force show at the Fox Theater in Pomona in April 2010.  And all was right again.  But we were concerned when we learned that Beck would helm the new Jicks album as its producer.  But Beck correctly steered Malkmus back to shortened and melody-favoring songs on Mirror Traffic without the prog-jam trappings of the last album.  And so with the strong new album in hand we were keyed up for this night’s set at Soho.

After opening band Nurses gave us an interesting mix of songs and complexities in their set, Malkmus and the Jicks sauntered onto the Soho stage, Malkmus doffing a red-glitter ballcap and nimble bassist, Joanna Bolme, working a working-class/prison-garb onesy (beguiling to many of the male workers/prisoners in the audience nonetheless).  Utility infielder, Mike Clark, on keys, guitar and vocals, and great replacement drummer, Jake Morris, rounded out the band.

Their set opened with Tiger from the new album and, like many of the Jicks’ songs, it is filled with complex chords, stop-starts, tempo-tantrums (all of which smacks of rock-jazz) and nearly-indecipherable, Scrabbled lyrics.  Such are Malkmus and the Jicks, and we love ’em when they’re on.  We have a love-hate relationship with Malkmus’s guitar-playing.  Most of the time it’s accomplished, challenging and riveting, but at other times when Malkmus seems unmotivated or un-mused, he sputters and spews before giving up the ghost.  We heard both this night.

The band moved from Tigers to the comparatively simple crowd-pleaser, The Hook, off their fine first album.  But then it was back to the fervent rock-jazz complexities of Spazz, Share the Red, and Forever 28 (the latter with its charming chorus-chant, “this just might hurt!”), before they slowed it down for the sweetly-sung Asking Price.  The Jicks then kicked matters back up with the Pavement-esque and poignant Stick Figures in Love, before playing another “hit,” Jenny and the Ess-Dog.  After a few more obscure new and old songs, the band elected to play their new singalong charmer, Senator, before ending the set with a couple of longer songs, Animal Midnight (off of Pig Lib) and the unreleased, circumambulating rock-jam, Surreal Teenagers.

After some solid prodding from the audience, the band returned for an encore that started off with the familiar Vanessa from Queens.  And then the unthinkable happened.  Adding to a disturbing new trend amongst “indie-rock” bands in which they waste time covering heinous 70s “hits,” the almighty Malkmus lowered himself to cover (albeit energetically) the horrific and hoary 1976 Boston song, Peace of Mind.  While many in the audience were enamored (it’s called “pandering,” Stephen, and it isn’t pretty), we tapped our foot and awaited an improved finish.  Unfortunately one sensed the life had gone out of the band, and next was a desultory Velvet Underground cover (What Goes On) that segued into a daft jam that ultimately ended with the band throwing in the towel and resorting to a singing of the chorus to the Doors’ The End.  The end of everything.  Indeed.

On the whole, the band played with verve and sounded far better than in support of Real Trash.  And the new Mirror Traffic songs definitely helped the cause this night.  It obviously was no help that the band seemed tired (“we just came from Vegas,” explained Bolme) and were anxiously awaiting the following night’s tour-ending show in San Francisco.  Matters would be helped immensely if the Jicks would cede their setlist to someone else (a manager, a parent, anyone really).  Then perhaps heinous covers and lesser obscurities could be supplanted by more deserving songs (e.g., where were their best songs this night:  Church On White, Trojan Curfew, Ramp of Death, Freeze the Saints, etc.?).  Still, Malkmus has written some of the best songs in the American oeuvre, and he and the Jicks can play with incredible aplomb, so we’ll cut the slackers some more slack.  Until next time.  But then the jick’s up.

The Shins today released a new song (and video), Bait and Switch, in advance of the release of their new album, Port of Morrow on March 20th.  Check it out below and go over HERE to hear another song and to order Port of Morrow.  The first two songs from the album bode well.

As a part of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Week on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Elvis Costello performed Brilliant Disguise and Fire (web only) with The Roots last night.  Costello is one of our best performers extant.  We’ll write more about Costello and Fallon’s Springsteen Week later (along with our thoughts on Springsteen’s impending new album), but in the meantime check out the performances below courtesy of the Audio Perv.

Caveman just released this Backyard Session in which they performed Vampirer/Old Friend live in Silver Lake from their debut album, CoCo Beware.   The new album will be released on March 27th on Fat Possum Records.  Check it out and then find below it a date on their tour to attend.

Caveman Tour:

3/6: Chapel Hill, NC @ Local 506
3/7: Athens, GA @ Georgia Theater Rooftop
3/8: Savannah, GA @ Savannah Stopover Festival
3/9: Atlanta, GA @ 529
3/10: Orlando, FL @ Orange You Glad Festival
3/11: Tampa, FL @ New World Brewery
3/13: Austin, TX @ SXSW
3/14: Austin, TX @ SXSW
3/15: Austin, TX @ SXSW
3/16: Austin, TX @ SXSW
3/17: Austin, TX @ SXSW
3/20: Louisville, KY @ Zanzabar
3/21: Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Tavern
3/22: Hamilton, ON @ This Ain’t Hollywood
3/23: Toronto, ON @ Lee’s Palace
3/23: Toronto, ON @ El Mocombo
3/24: Buffalo, NY @ 9th Ward
3/29: Syracuse, NY @ Syracuse University
3/30: Bethlehem, PA @ Nowadays Festival
4/9: Washington, D.C. @ Red Palace
4/10: Columbus, OH @ The Basement
4/11: Ann Arbor, MI @ Blind Pig
4/12: Chicago, IL @ Schubas
4/13: Madison, WI @ UW Madison
4/14: Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St Entry
4/16: Omaha, NE @ Waiting Room
4/17: Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge
4/18: Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge
4/20: Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore
4/21: Seattle, WA @ Barboza (Neumos)
4/22: Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
4/24: San Francisco, CA @ Brick & Mortar
4/25: Los Angeles, CA @ Echo
4/27: San Diego, CA @ Casbah
4/28: Tucson, AZ @ Club Congress
5/1: Kansas City, MO @ The Record Bar
5/2: Columbia, MO @ Mojos
5/3: Cincinnati, OH @ MOTR Pub
5/4: Philadelphia, PA @ MilkBoy
5/5: Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) w/ Beirut

Radiohead kicked off their new tour last night in Miami.  In the process, they performed two new songs, Cut A Hole and Identikit.  You can see videos of both performances below via At Ease.  The band subsequently also made available their performance of Feral (off of their Best of 2011 album, The King of Limbs).  Check ’em below.

Toronto’s The Wooden Sky have today released one of the Best Albums of 2012 so far, Every Child a Daughter, Every Moon a Sun via Black Box Recordings.  You can stream the record in its entirety here at Paste and buy it here.  We previously raved about it HERE.

In celebration of this fine album, the band has unveiled “Grace On A Hill Pt. 1,” the first of a five-part series of live performance videos shot in the Grace On A Hill church in Toronto, directed by Scott Cudmore.  In this beautifully filmed segment, the band performs one of the many song highlights off the new album, Bald, Naked and Red.   Watch “Grace On A Hill Pt 1” here courtesy of Interview Magazine.

Canada’s Elliott Brood have evolved into an “alt-Canadiana” band that plays what they’ve dubbed “death country” music.  If this is death, then call us when you’re ready.  The band recently performed in CBC’s Studio Q.  The first two songs below (the catchy and cathartic Northern Air and Hold You) are from that recent Studio Q session and are off their new album, Death Into Years, which is being released in the U.S. this very day and which you can pick up HERE on Paper Bag Records.  After those two performances, check out a 2009 Studio Q session on which they played the driving-and-thriving songs Miss You Now and The Valley Town from their Polaris Prize-nominated 2008 album, Mountain Meadows.  And then finally check a couple of rocking performances of Johnny Rooke and The Bridge off of their first album.   These guys can throttle it with the best of ’em.  Though the studio versions of the new album’s songs add textures and instruments, we like these stripped-down, raw singalongs too.

They have a bit of the Avetts feel to them, particularly when you see the earlier emphatic deliveries way below.

The band is embarking on a U.S. tour that will bring them to San Francisco’s Rickshaw Stop on March 2nd (INFO & TICKETS) and to The Echo in LA on March 3rd (INFO & TICKETS).

Northern Air

A song written in homage to a departed friend from their youth and to the locale that that friend cherished.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClVmGvuf2Mk&feature=uploademail

Hold You

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfcFSTFW_iA&feature=uploademail

Miss You Now

The Valley Town

Johnny Rooke and The Bridge

New Order helped meld electronic music with rock back in the early 80s’.  What began in the shattering music of Joy Division evolved and was first convincingly introduced by New Order with their seminal album, Power, Corruption & Lies,  along with the release of their song Blue Monday, each in 1983.  The latter has been rightfully remixed and covered for 29 years since.  In honor of the band’s recent re-grouping, Mojo recently featured the band and album on its cover and compiled covers of the songs from the album, along with Blue Monday and some bonus songs.  Check out the official video for the band’s original version followed by an inventive cover/remix by Norwegian ambient-techno maestro, Biosphere.   And after, check out Fujiya & Miyagi’s fine job on Your Silent Face and our fave Destroyer’s gripping cover of Leave Me Alone.

Biosphere–Blue Monday

Fujiya & Miyagi–Your Silent Face

Destroyer–Leave Me Alone