Merge Records is generously offering up its free Winter Sampler Download HERE.

As listed below, the Merge sampler consists of some of the best music put out this year (in particular the Buckner, Mountain Goats, and Friedberger offerings).  Check ’em out.

Hospitality – “Betty Wang”
Richard Buckner – “Traitor”
Lambchop – “Gone Tomorrow”
Crooked Fingers – “Bad Blood”
Superchunk – “Driveway to Driveway”
The Mountain Goats – “Estate Sale Sign”
Eleanor Friedberger – “My Mistakes”
Imperial Teen – “Runaway”
Archers of Loaf – “Harnessed In Slums”
Wild Flag – “Romance”
Stephin Merritt – “Rot in the Sun”
The Rosebuds – “Go Ahead”

And while you’re over there streaming/downloading, check out the Christmas offerings of She & Him and Julian Koster (as to the latter, it is finally what we’ve all been waiting for: O Holy Night performed on saw–we are now ready for the rapture).

Fab French band, M83, stopped in on the Jimmy Fallon Show last night and killed on a performance of their great new song, Midnight City, off their tres grand new album, “Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming” (a double album). Check out the digitalis, the harmonies, and then the arresting analog sax solo (reminding of Destroyer’s great sound on this year’s phenomenal “Kaputt” album).  Fallon was wowed, as were we.  We’re keeping our fingers crossed that they’ll be alighting in a nearby venue in the near future.

The elevating English band, Elbow, recently performed on CBC’s Studio Q sessions.   Studio Q just today released video of the band performing a stripped down version of their great song, Grounds For Divorce.  Compare a full-electrified version of this song from this year’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival HERE.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUZ5FRqss2U&feature=uploademail

Ryan Adams showed up at KCRW and performed on their Morning Becomes Eclectic show.   Check out Adams and band perform his great chestnut, Come Pick Me Up.  And go over to KCRW and watch the full session HERE.   Nevermind the bollocks or bleeps–it’s the “Clean” version.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buAu6ZbD6vs&feature=uploademail

Kathleen Edwards showed up on The Line of Best Fit’s Sessions (“encroached her”? nice!) for an exclusive performance (on a jogging path on the banks of the Thames in London) of her new song, Sidecar, off of her new album (co-produced with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon) arriving in the new year.  Watch out for Edwards next year, coming to a jogging path near you.

Shy and retiring (yeah, right) Florence and her mega-Machine (backup choir, strings, harp, you name it) appeared on SNL on Saturday.  In case you missed it, check out Shake it Out and No Light, No Light below courtesy of The Audio Perv.  Girl

Shake It Out:

“Regrets collect like old friends
here to relive your darkest moments
I can see no way, I can see no way.

And all of the ghouls come out to play
Then every demon wants his pound of flesh
but I like to keep some things to myself
I like to keep my issues drawn
It’s always darkest before the dawn.

And I’ve been a fool and I’ve been blind
I can never leave the past behind
I can see no way, I can see no way

I’m always dragging that horse around
All of these questions, such a mournful sound
Tonight I’m gonna bury that horse in the ground
‘Cause I like to keep my issues drawn
It’s always darkest before the dawn.

Shake it out, shake it out
Shake it out, shake it out uh-oh
Shake it out, shake it out
Shake it out, shake it out uh-oh
And it’s hard to dance with the devil on your back
so shake him off uh-oh

And I am done with my graceless heart
so tonight I’m gonna cut it out and then restart
‘Cause I like to keep my issues drawn
It’s always darkest before the dawn.

Shake it out, shake it out
Shake it out, shake it out uh-oh
Shake it out, shake it out
Shake it out, shake it out uh-oh
And it’s hard to dance with the devil on your back
so shake him off uh-oh

And you tried to dance with the devil on your back
Given half the chance, would I take any of it back?
It’s a fine romance but it’s left me so undone
It’s always darkest before the dawn

And I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t
So here’s to drinks in the dark at the end of my rope
And I’m ready to suffer and I’m ready to hope
It’s a shot in the dark aimed right at my throat
‘Cause looking for heaven found a devil in me
Looking for heaven found a devil in me
But why the hell I’m gonna let it happen to me?

Shake it out, shake it out
Shake it out, shake it out uh-oh
Shake it out, shake it out
Shake it out, shake it out uh-oh
And it’s hard to dance with the devil on your back
so shake him off uh-oh”

No Light, No Light:

A couple of weeks ago David Crosby and Graham Nash showed up on The Letterman Show to perform their older song, Taken At All, which you can check out way below.  For us, however, the performance served primarily as a reminder of the great sounds these two musicians have made solo, together, and with fellow musical denizens, Stephen Stills and Neil Young. Their music was the scintillating soundtrack to our formative years, and we can’t let it go.  We’ve covered Stephen Stills and Manassas in the past, and are still assessing if we will ever be able to give a fitting tribute to the all-timer, Neil Young (who for us sits atop a mountain of musicians).  For now, we give you Graham Nash and David Crosby.

Whether as CSN&Y, CS&N, the duo Crosby & Nash, or solo, a generous portion of our juvenile years were spent listening in to these fine musicians and their vocalisimmos.  We have a particular soft spot for two masterful albums that seem to have slipped through the seams in the musical pantheon.  We hold Graham Nash’s “Songs for Beginners” and the eponymously entitled, “David Crosby/Graham Nash” albums in the highest regard.  If you haven’t heard or haven’t recently listened in, they merit your ears.

Following the initial break-up of CSNY, Graham Nash decided to go it alone and in 1971 put out his first solo album, “Songs for Beginners.”  Thematically the album bears signs of the turbulent political and personal state of Nash in the aftermath of Nash’s traumatic (duh!) breakup with Joni Mitchell.  Graham Nash has given us a seeming millennium of great, melodic music, first in the Hollies and then in CSN&Y.  But what many forget is the particularly prolific period between 1971 and 1972 when Nash put out this first solo album and then consorted with Crosby for their first album together as a duo.  Nash’s songs on these two albums are witness to his pop-song savvy, his authentic emotional lyrics, and his political activism, and all of which boast his tenor lead vocals and harmonies.

Songs for Beginners featured many fine musicians such as David Crosby (who that same year released his seminal solo album, “If I Could Only Remember My Name“), Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Dave Mason, David Lindley, Rita Coolidge and Neil Young (under the Joe Yankee pseudonym), and some of the best songs from the early ’70s.  Check out some of our faves below. First is Military Madness, which is particularly fitting 40 years later (check the lyrics below the song), particularly as compared with the “hit” political song off the album, Chicago, which we’ll leave off.  Military Madness features Rita Coolidge’s background vocals and Dave Mason‘s stellar electric guitar.  Next up is the confessional Simple Man (via a phenomenal, “ancient” live performance accompanied by Crosby).  Then check out Better Days (with its McCartney-esque feel and flourishes), I Used To Be A King (an obvious ode to Joni with supreme pedal-steel guitar from Jerry Garcia), and There’s Only One (with Rita Coolidge on piano and Clydie King and choral crew on backing vocals).

“In an upstairs room in Blackpool
By the side of a northern sea
The army had my father
And my mother was having me
Military Madness was killing my country
Solitary Sadness comes over me

After the school was over and I moved
To the other side
I found a different country but I never
Lost my pride
Military Madness was killing the country
Solitary sadness creeps over me

And after the wars are over
And the body count is finally filed
I hope that The Man discovers
What’s driving the people wild
Military madness is killing your country
So much sadness, between you and me
War, War, War, War, War, War”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gua6mFty4so&feature=related

Following the release of their solo albums, Nash and Crosby then collaborated on their “David Crosby/Graham Nash” album, which was released in 1972.  The album’s and these musicians’ many gifts still (knowingly or unknowingly) influence manifold musicians of our current music scene.  Once again this album featured backing from Dave Mason and members of The Grateful Dead (Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh and Bill Kreutzmann) and The Section (Craig Doerge, Danny “Kootch” Kortchmar, Leland Sklar, and Russell Kunkel), the members of which dominated the California music studios at the time. The songs on the album confirm/extend Nash’s pop songwriting abilities (including the album’s hit, the well known ode to the US Immigration Service, Immigration Man), and Crosby’s complicated and introspective compositions that explored mood via augmentation and diminishment.  All of the songs on this fine album are delivered with the duo’s usual complicated vocal arrangements and heavenly harmonies.  The commercial success of this album eclipsed their two solo albums.

Though the entire album shines, check out favorites from the album.  First check out Nash’s Southbound Train, featuring an elegiac pedal steel guitar solo from Jerry Garcia.

Crosby & Nash–Southbound Train

Then compare and contrast the two musicians’ stylings by checking out Crosby’s Page 43 (possibly Crosby’s finest song, vocals and lyrics–“The river can be hot or cold, and you should dive right into it, else you’ll find it’s passed you by; Pass it around one more time, I think I’ll have a swallow of wine, life is fine even with the ups and downs, and you should have a sip of it, else you’ll find it’s passed you by”) and Where Will I Be (Dear Fleet Foxes:  Listen in at 2:27 and hear that which you can attempt to copy, but will never attain).

Crosby & Nash–Where Will I Be

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/05-Where-Will-I-Be_-LP-Version.mp3|titles=05 Where Will I Be_ (LP Version)]

Crosby & Nash–Page 43

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/06-Page-43.mp3|titles=06 Page 43]

Then we return to two Nash compositions, Stranger’s Room (with its French Horns and fine lyrics–“Where do I go from here, help me, I wish I could disappear and go away, from the knowing, that you’ve known me far too long, when I find a different tune, I guess I’ll sing a different song”) and Girl to Be On My Mind (with its sorrowful search for still-lost love–haunted even two years later by Joni Mitchell).

Crosby & Nash–Stranger’s Room

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/04-Strangers-Room.mp3|titles=04 Strangers Room]

Crosby & Nash–Girl to Be On Mind

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/09-Girl-To-Be-On-My-Mind.mp3|titles=09 Girl To Be On My Mind]

And just for fun, check out The Hollies and Nash performing their biggest US hit, Bus Stop.

The Line of Best Fit captured Okkervil River’s charming recent performance (in a dry-docked wooden sailboat no less) of their heart-wrenching and masterful song, Love to a Monster (a bonus track off of 2007’s “The Stage Names” album), at The End of the Road Festival in Dorset, England.  Check out the performance below and the well-wrought lyrics after.

“Lover, now that you’ve left me, I’m glad you’re unlovely.
‘Cause if you could take all the heat in your heart and just hang it from you,
I wouldn’t be able to bear the way you cannot love me.
It’s much easier of me to make a monster out of you.

And so here I go, substituting the glow from your temples,
all our sighs and our trembles, and each last letter sent you
from the cheap little pen of this weak little man
the one singing – out his jangling, ringing
and hopefully stinging attack upon you.

Yeah, so here I go, just exploding the hope we’ll be speaking
some day, years from now, seeking friendship and understanding.
Yeah, I hope you get angry, and hurt, and have the hardest of landings.
And I hope your new man thinks of me when he sees what a number I did on you.
Come on boys.

I grow tired of this song. Turn my eyes
to the blonde in the bleachers.
She’s a lovely young creature.
I think she’s seeking adventure.
I think she’s ready to see that the world ain’t so sweet nor so tender.
I won’t break her, just bend her, and make her into my new ringer for you.

I stay in the same comfy town, write the same old songs down, drive the same streets,
seek the same sense of dull peace, whisper the same sweet words to the chippies.
The same walk by the road where the same muddy snow’s finally leaving,

But I’ll fight off the spring; I don’t want lovely things,
I don’t want the earth new.”

For obvious reasons, the performance above reminded us of Lyle Lovett’s great song, If I Had a Boat, which you can check out below (as introduced by John Prine).

And here’s another version of Love to a Monster on A Takeaway Show segment filmed on the banks of the Seine River in Paris:

# 6.2- Okkervil River-Love to a monster by lablogotheque

We caught Baltimore’s Future Islands’ early set at Muddy Waters on Wednesday (the later set being sold out), and came away from the enjoyable set still unsure of the long-term merit of the band.  They are critically acclaimed and filled the Muddy with swelling synth and bass sounds.  We’ll delve deeper into their discography and report back our findings in the future.  The three-piece played a well-received set that was marked by the flip-of-the-switch theatrics of lead singer, Sam Herring (pictured above), and seriously-stoic, but accomplished, delivery by his two band mates (Gerrit Welmers and William Cashion) on keyboards, bass and guitar.  One minute Herring is the boy-next-door chatting amiably with the crowd, and the next he’s Jack Black channeling death-growl metal and flailing around the stage.  After the set Herring reverted to his (we suspect) likable self (as pictured above).  More Jeykll, less Hyde, kind of thing.

To get a feel for the Kona conundrum, check out their performance of Before the Bridge on KCRW below. Herring seriously scaled back the method-acting for KCRW, but you still get a feel for the Jack Black Leads Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark effect.  Let us know what you think.  For now, we’re giving them the benefit of the doubt.