[EDITOR’S NOTE: Each of the seven volumes that comprise this Watch This package contain 25 clips apiece. Due to the sheer volume of live videos that have come out during January, February, and March all of the packages will have the same introductory paragraph. Regular Watch This segments will resume on Sunday.]
It’s been a tremendous first quarter for live videos. While Watch This, Heartbreaking Bravery’s weekly series celebrating the very best of the live video format, hasn’t been in operation for roughly three full months, the information required to keep this thing humming (i.e., checking through hundreds of subscriptions and sources for outstanding new material) has been collected at regular intervals. If they were full sessions, single song performances, studio-shot, DIY captures, transcendent songs, or transcendent visual presentations, they were compiled into a massive list. 175 videos wound up making extraordinarily strong impressions, those videos will all be presented here, in the Watch This: The Best of 2016’s First Quarter extended package, one 25-clip presentation at a time.
Watch the seventh and final collection of those videos below.
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1. Two Inch Astronaut – At Risk Student (bandwidth.fm) 2. Bob Mould – You Say You (WFUV) 3. The Intelligence (KEXP) 4. Lever – The Task (DZ Records) 5. The Thermals – Always Never Be (Jam in the Van) 6. Saintseneca – Bad Ideas (KUTX) 7. Young Jesus – Oranges (Slanted Manor) 8. Eleventh Dream Day – Go Tell It (Sound Opinions) 9. Julia Holter – Betsy on the Roof (Strombo Sessions) 10. Mothers – It Hurts Until It Doesn’t (Do512) 11. Lucy Dacus – Strange Torpedo (Radio K) 12. Blah Blah Blah – Crying (DZ Records) 13. The Frights – Kids (Allston Pudding) 14. Caveman – Never Going Back (Jam in the Van) 15. Dan San (3voor12) 16. Test Apes (KEXP) 17. All Dogs – Farm (Slanted Manor) 18. Kitten Forever – Brainstorm (Radio K) 19. Bully – Milkman (KUTX) 20. Tancred (Audiotree) 21. PWR BTTM (NPR) 22. Pinegrove – Waveform (BrooklynVegan) 23. Mansfield.Tya – Le dictionnaire Larousse (Faits Divers) 24. Cross Record – Steady Waves (KUTX) 25. Charles Bradley (NPR)
Another week gone by, five more incredible live clips to feature. Now that the series is back in its normally-paced swing, it’s been easier to keep tabs on the incoming flux of footage but it makes it more difficult to narrow down the selections. With 2015 already bursting at the seams with great studio material it seems only appropriate that the live videos should be following suit. With strong videos coming from the likes of Close Up, Littlefoot, Gay, Darlingside (ft. Tall Heights), and Ultimate Painting, it would have been easy to double up on the series. Fortunately, to lessen the sting of limiting it to just one, the five clips included in this 70th installment are all among the year’s best. Only two of the band’s included in today’s collection have ever had their names published on this site (incidentally, both bands share a member in Noah Bowman), leaving the majority to new acts. Running the gamut from fiery high-energy punk subsets to devastating low-key folk outings, there’s a lot to appreciate. So, as always, lean in, adjust the screen contrast and lightness to your preferred settings, crank the volume, and Watch This.
1. Panther Ray – Get To You (The Current)
One nice things about emergent trends in DIY music as of late has been an acute focus (and subsequent celebration) of shoegaze inflections in bands with strong basement pop sensibilities. Panther Ray are one of those bands and their turn-in of “Get To You” for The Current is a particularly inspired piece of work from the band. Mixing shades of twee and post-punk into the mix, “Get To You” becomes as irresistible as the performance.
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2. Earl Boykins – Judy Carrot (bandwidth.fm)
Scrappy basement pop gets featured more on this site than any other genre of music so it’s unsurprising that Earl Boykins‘ name has appeared here a few times throughout the site’s existence. While it may have taken 70 installments for them to wind up in Watch This but they’re finally here. The band recently swung through the bandwidth.fm studios to tear their way through “Judy Carrot” and it’s clear from the outset that they’re having fun- something that translates over in an extraordinarily satisfying clip.
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3. July Talk – Paper Girl (Audiotree)
Shot in crisp black-and-white for the consistently strong Audiotree at their SXSW showcase, July Talk quickly sets about making a statement. Combining the fire-and-brimstone approach of Lucero at their most impassioned and the spiky irreverence of Be Your Own PET is a compelling combination even on paper but the band somehow finds a way to make it exhilarating in execution. Dual vocals, contrasting styles, and through-and-through showmanship make July Talk one of the most exciting live prospects possibly imaginable. “Paper Girl” is one of the group’s best songs and here the band lays it to absolute waste. Simply put, this is unmissable.
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4. Footings (Jenn Harrington)
For all the glossy, high-quality footage that makes its way into this series, this is still Heartbreaking Bravery, which means that when a lo-fi video from an artist with little name recognition surfaces, it will be featured. Especially when it’s as stunning as the clip Jenn Harrington captured of Footings playing a gorgeous new song to a spellbound audience. Recalling the emotional devastation of Eels at their most confessional, it’s lent a subtle emphasis through the faded visual representation. Click play and fall in love.
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5. Diet Cig – Harvard (bandwidth.fm)
Oh, Diet Cig, what words are left? All it took was one brilliant five-song collection to catapult them into “site favorites” status and ever since then, the band’s done nothing but reinforce those levels of adoration. One of the year’s most refreshingly warm music videos (which will undoubtedly come back up in conversation when December rolls around) and now, this: an extremely impassioned performance of Overeasy highlight “Harvard”. There are few bands out there right now that provide as clear of a reminder that one music’s most exhilarating aspects is the sheer fun of it all. There’s an uninhibited grin that creeps onto guitarist/vocalist’s Alex Luciano’s face multiple times throughout this performance that is the perfect symbolic image for what made me fall in love with this band, this genre, and this community (and the people who remain so actively inspired and involved). So, you know, watch it. And then go ride a goddamn log flume.
With another week of predictably great live outings behind us, it’s time to look back on some of the best videos to surface in that stretch. It’s also another week were limiting the selections to five can be frustrating, as it means excluding things like S’ gorgeous KEXP session and an equally stunning set from She Keeps Bees for bandwidth. That said, the fact that those aren’t in the featured five is a particularly strong indicator for this week’s overwhelming strength. Full sets made a sizable impression and secured three spots in this series’ 54 installment while Watch This returns to Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ Austin City Limits session and pays a visit to a soul legend. There’s a lot of memorable material on display, all of it worthy of a serious amount of admiration. So, as always, sit back, mute the world, let all of the distractions dissolve, adjust the volume to appropriately blistering levels, relax, and Watch This.
1. PUJOL (KEXP)
PUJOL’s The United States of Being was the kind of quiet career-making record that had the potential to push the band onto the radar’s of some influential people. However, any time that happens it also heavily increases the levels of expectation for a follow-up. A contract with Saddle Creek and one excellent record later, PUJOL’s doing their best to put those doubts to rest. One thing that’s never been in doubt? The band’s ability to deliver a killer live performance, which is exactly what they turn in via this blistering (and absurdly fun) four-song set for the unfailingly great KEXP.
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2. Lee Fields – Don’t Leave Me This Way (La Blogotheque)
There are few things more reassuring to see than a person being celebrated for doing something they both excel at and clearly love. In their most recent video for their acclaimed Take Away series, La Blogotheque turned their lenses on soul legend Lee Cooks delivering a powerful performance of “Don’t Leave Me This Way” to a group of appreciative bystanders, accompanied only by a guitarist. It’s a staggeringly beautiful reminder of Fields’ natural prowess as a performer and an incredible moment that was lovingly captured for everyone to visit (and revisit) for years to come.
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3. Ex Hex (WNYC)
Rips was one of 2014’s best reminders of classic rock’s curious longevity. The Mary Timony-led Ex Hex specializes in creating the kind of timeless earworms that aren’t tied down to any particular scene or movement, just the band’s commitment to the project. Here, they confidently make their way through three songs from one the year’s most carefree records for WNYC, seeming as poised as ever. Timony’s a naturally gifted leader and a charismatic vocalist, all of which ensures that no Ex Hex performance is worth overlooking.
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4. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds (Austin City Limits)
“Jubilee Street” was one of the most mesmerizing moments on Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ latest career highlight, Push the Sky Away. Live, it takes on new life and breathes a new kind of fire with a surging outro that progressively increases the tempo. Easily one of the band’s most impressively massive live songs, the performance they delivered for Austin City Limits was predictably inspired, with Cave flying from the mic to the piano, becoming as frantic as the song itself over repeated cries of “I’m transforming; I’m flying; I’m vibrating; look at me now!”- directions that become impossible to ignore as one of the greatest bandleaders in the history of music sheds all traces of inhibition as his band urges him forward and lets him sink his teeth into yet another transcendental performance.
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5. Saintseneca (KEXP)
Watch This‘ 38th entry included one of the most beautiful videos this series has ever had the pleasure of featuring; Saintseneca’s Tiny Desk Session. Unsurprisingly, the band hasn’t lost an ounce of their touch and deliver yet another brilliant performance for KEXP. Easily one of the most intriguing bands to carve out a name for themselves in 2014, their brand of subtly punk-influenced Appalachian folk helped turn Dark Arc into a very real candidate for Album of the Year. Here, the band runs through four songs and hit a series of impressive grace notes, making room for standout takes of the painfully gorgeous “Fed Up With Hunger” and the driving “Happy Alone”. All told, it’s a perfectly timed reminder of a band and record worth their acclaim.
It’s almost hard to believe that there have been 43 weeks since the first installment of Watch This was posted. Over the course of that time, this series has boasted a variety of recurring staples, one of the earliest of which being the “Band/Artist to Watch” segment that was devoted to the fifth and final slot. After being dormant for the vast majority of the series, that particular stamp re-emerges today in anticipation of an incredible release from an artist that’s been too-frequently described as a “best kept secret”. Along with the re-emergence of that sub-series, there’s a return to Little Elephant, a look at NPR’s Field Recordings series, yet another video to be featured from Exploding in Sound’s takeover of Serious Business, and a recent portrait of a band that doesn’t deserve to be overlooked. What it all winds up amounting to is one strange, wonderful capsule that explores some of the finest artists of the moment delivering performances worth remembering. So, sit back, turn the volume up, adjust the visual settings to personal preference, take a drink of something refreshing, focus, and Watch This.
1. Benjamin Booker – Have You Seen My Son? (NPR)
It’s been said before on this site a few times but it bears repeating: Benjamin Booker absolutely tore his set up at the Horseshoe Tavernat NXNE back in June. His debut self-titled record on ATO lived up to some fairly high expectations, revealing him as an extremely worthwhile new talent- and while it does have a sense of vulnerability, it’s usually buried underneath gnarled tones and emphatic gruffness. Here, Booker strips standout single “Have You Seen My Son?” to its barest form; an acoustic ballad. Add in some gorgeous cinematography, courtesy of NPR, and it’s required viewing.
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2. Mitski – First Love / Last Spring (Bandwidth)
Every once in a while, there’s an artist that manages to appear on a variety of trustworthy sources but, for some reason or another, gets overlooked or forgotten. Mitski had the misfortune of falling to the latter category a few times this year by virtue of coming up on days that were already ridiculously over-filled with content. After seeing the light perfection that is this utterly enchanting performance of “First Love / Last Spring”, it’s difficult to not want to go back and ensure the mistake of overlooking them was never made to begin with. “First Love / Last Spring” is as sweet of a song as anyone’s put out this year. So, to Mitski: sorry for being late to the party but thanks for sticking around; life’s better with this music in it.
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3. Shy, Low – Saudade (Little Elephant)
There haven’t been too many Little Elephant videos to appear that warranted consideration for the Watch This series since Mansions’ thrilling two-song set from way back in May. Fortunately, Shy, Low have provided enough water to make up for that particular drought. “Saudade” is a fascinating mixture of shoegaze, post-rock, golden-era emo, math, and a cavalcade of their connected fringe sub-genres. Every note gets played with investment and commitment while still being technically impressive, which is a medium that a lot of bands strive for but few ever achieve so concisely. “Saudade” is the perfect example of the more aggressive kind of music that’s incredibly easy to get lost in.
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4. Baked (BreakThruRadio)
At this point, it’s probably safe to assume that if a video emerges from the Exploding in Sound takeover of BreakThruRadio’s Serious Business series, it will wind up being featured here. Virtually all of them have been nothing short of praise-worthy and Baked’s session continues that trend with ease. Baked themselves have come ridiculously close to landing feature spots on this very site numerous times for their eccentric take on some of this place’s most-frequented genres. In their session, those eccentricities are on full display in both their interview segments and their live form, making for some incredibly compelling viewing.
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5. John Davey – Grand Emporium (Xack Gibson)
There are certain performances that manage to stick with a person and John Davey’s capable of delivering them. That’s said with no shortage of authority, having seen Davey deliver a solo acoustic set in a small WI basement to next to no one only a handful of years back. It was a relatively truncated set but it’s proven to be unforgettable thanks to the spellbinding nature of the songs. This being the case, the “Artist to Know” final slot section of Watch This is being revived to feature a gorgeous black-and-white video that features Davey performing one of his most impressive songs: “Grand Emporium”. Not too much has changed since this video was shot four years ago; Davey’s songwriting remains as nuanced and gripping as ever while allowing some subtle growths in terms of production. All that can be heard on Davey’s sophomore effort, Living Is Trying, which can (and should) be pre-ordered from Dilated Time Records here. “Grand Emporium” also provides a good platform to give this reminder: Heartbreaking Bravery would be nothing without DIY ethos and the artists that embody them across a variety of genres and fields. If a song in a genre that’s not typically covered here manages to come off as transcendental and provides an opportunity to feature an extremely impressive emerging talent, it will get featured. Here’s one of those songs- and one of those talents.
Heartbreaking Bravery 