[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 first collection of those videos below.
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1. Charly Bliss (Audiotree) 2. Julien Baker (NPR) 3. Happyness (KEXP) 4. Car Seat Headrest (NPR) 5. PWR BTTM (KEXP) 6. Kal Marks – Coffee (Allston Pudding) 7. Fern Mayo (BreakThruRadio) 8. Wolf Alice (NPR) 9. Coke Weed (WKNC) 10. Frankie Cosmos – Outside With the Cuties (Pitchfork) 11. All Dogs – Sunday Morning (Little Elephant) 12. Eskimeaux (BreakThruRadio) 13. Sóley (KEXP) 14. Ty Segall & The Muggers – Candy Sam (Conan) 15. Pinegrove – Need 2 (Little Elephant) 16. Beach House – Irene (Pitchfork) 17. Petal – Sooner (WXPN) 18. Ratboys – Collected (DZ Records) 19. together PANGEA – Blue Mirror (Consequence of Sound) 20. VANT – Parking Lot + Do You Know Me (3voor12) 21. Long Beard (BreakThruRadio) 22. Courtney Barnett – Nobody Really Cares If You Don’t Go to the Party (Colbert) 23. Michael Rault – Nothing Means Nothing (Out of Town Films) 24. Sleater-Kinney – Modern Girl (Austin City Limits) 25. Bo Ningen (KEXP)
It’s been quite some time since their was an installment of Watch This, Heartbreaking Bravery’s weekly (when on schedule) round-up of the finest work in the live video field. Coverage is generally split between individual performances and full sessions that are captured in places like basements and professional radio studios. Though there has yet to be a volume of Watch This in 2016, the information regarding the series was collected diligently while it remained quiet.
Due to the overwhelming bevvy of material that’s surfaced over the past three months, the below collection while simply be given via hyperlinks. There’s a lot of information to digest here and — due to the nature of press cycles when bands are on tour — several acts will be listed more than once. Like the recent round-ups, this will be literally impossible to watch in one sitting. The best way to view this material will be to simply bookmark this page and explore the content at random, all of which is definitely worthy of some investment.
More round-ups will follow focusing on the best of the best of the 2016 Watch This field of candidates. Until then, enjoy these examples of excellency in the live video format.
Now that Watch This is caught up to its usual weekly routine, the rest of the week will be spent dragging the coverage for other formats up to the present release cycle. Following that round of catching up, the site will be turning its focus towards year-end lists and the second edition of A Year’s Worth of Memories. Before we hit that point, though, it feels more necessary than ever to shine a light on some of the best live capture performances from this past week. Again, a strong week’s relegated a slew of extremely strong candidates to the honorable mentions, which include performances from Palehound, The Courtneys, Green Dreams, Vinyl Williams, Albert Hammond Jr., Futurebirds, The Bottle Rockets, Husbands, Noah Gunderson, Caleb and Carolyn, Donovan Wolfington, The Dick and Jane Project, Doe Paoro, Gudrid Hansdottir, Youth Lagoon, Shopping, and Battles. Site favorites abound in the featured section and the whole thing wraps with one of the year’s finest– and most unexpected– live clips. So, as always, kick back, focus up, adjust the volume, and Watch This.
1. The Sidekicks – Hell Is Warm (Radio K)
In “Hell Is Warm” The Sidekicks have written themselves a shockingly strong opening number, so it should come as no surprise that it’s been leading off a lot of their recent sets. By that same token, it makes perfect sense as an exhilarating standalone number. Here, the quartet tears through the song in a session hosted by Radio K, delivering a blistering version that arguably improves on the excellent studio take.
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2. Bad Canoes – Radio Without Rules (Don Giovanni)
Some people are natural performers who imbue every project they appear in with a radical charisma that elevates everything in their reach. Marissa Paternoster is one of those performers. In the deliriously scrappy Bad Canoes, Paternoster’s divorced from her guitar and allowed free reign over the stage, careening around with a reckless abandon as the rest of Bad Canoes alternates between contained proto-punk and building up a swirling wall of chaos. Packaged together, it’s electrifying.
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3. Wimps – Dump (Band In Seattle)
One of the most purely entertaining videos of the past few months has been for Wimps‘ all-too-relatable “Dump“, a 2015 standout. The trio’s most recent effort, Suitcase, is a brilliant collection of basement pop gems that coast by effortlessly but carry enough weight to be memorable. Here, the band takes their brand of goofy irreverence and sharpen it for a memorable run through “Dump”, unable to suppress some very heartfelt smiles along the way.
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4. Alex G + Girlpool – Brite Boy (SPIN)
Alex G‘s “Brite Boy” hasn’t left my mind since writing up the song’s heartbreaking video earlier this week. Here, in a performance for SPIN, the song takes on an additional glow thanks to the support provided by site favorites Girlpool. Ostensibly a song about isolation, loneliness, and loss, it somehow transforms into an even more heartrending experience as Girlpool’s Cleo Tucker and Harmony Lebel-Tividad join in for the song’s backing vocal part, before joining each other in a half-choreographed, half-spontaneous dance during the song’s instrumental outro that’s surprisingly moving. Affectionate, human, and strangely devastating, it’s a performance that seems poised to circulate for many years to come.
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5. Dilly Dally – Burned by the Cold (Strombo Sessions)
Few songs have hit me harder this year than “Burned by the Cold”, the album closer from Dilly Dally‘s astonishing Sore. Easily one of my favorite songs of 2015 (more on that later), the song showcases the band’s commitment to range and capacity for subversion. From a purely logistical standpoint, it seemed unlikely that the band would ever latch onto the song for their live set and that it was doomed to a life of record confinement. Thankfully, George Stroumboulopoulos’ home, where The Strombo Show is filmed, comes equipped with a piano. Dilly Dally recently appeared on the show as guests and gifted everyone with this stunning rendition of “Burned by the Cold”, which is presented here in crisp black-and-white, enhancing the song’s wintry aesthetic. It’s because of performances like this one that Watch This came into existence and it’s a beautiful coda for Dilly Dally’s extraordinary year.
Once again, there’s been a brief interim since the last Watch This was posted but, as ever, a lot of great material has surfaced in that time. In this volume, there will be an emphasis on full sessions and artists who have made numerous appearances on the site over its two years of existence. All five of these artists have earned glowing reviews for their live shows and are, in a lot of ways, inextricably connected to Heartbreaking Bravery’s development. Only one of these clips is a performance of a standalone song and it’s one of the most gripping live captures of the year. So, as always, sit up, wind down, focus, adjust the settings, and Watch This.
1. All Dogs (Audiotree)
Watching All Dogs‘ exposure explode in 2015 thanks to the release of their extraordinary full-length debut, Kicking Every Day, felt genuinely gratifying. The songs in that collection, like any Maryn Jones-led project, feel brave and personal. Every song is relatable to an extent that’s almost painful; our own damage is reflected in Jones’ interior grappling, which suffuses every ounce of Kicking Every Day. In a live setting, those songs gain even more impact and Audiotree expertly captures that with this very worthy session.
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2. Bully (KEXP)
One of the first shows I saw after moving into an apartment in Brooklyn was thanks to a tweet that sent me sprinting towards Rough Trade. What followed was a whirlwind set by site favorites Bully, that largely pulled from their outstanding Feels Like. KEXP recently hosted the band for an in-studio session that once again finds the band nailing the seemingly paradoxical marriage between sounding polished and downright ragged. Exhilarating and fairly composed, it’s a fascinating look at one of 2015’s most deserving success stories.
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3. Waxahatchee (Ithaca Underground)
Katie Crutchfield has been one of the most consistently enthralling songwriters of the past 10 years, elevating a staggering number of projects that have managed to find a near-reverential status among their respective communities and beyond. Eventually, that devotion spread outward and expanded into national recognition only shortly after her first collection as Waxahatchee, American Weekend, was released. Crutchfield’s released two more records under that moniker (and a few as half of Great Thunder) in the time that’s followed, with both Cerulean Salt and Ivy Tripp finding spots in numerous best-of lists at high-profile publications. Here, Ithaca Underground presents Crutchfield performing an arresting (and beautifully shot) solo set that leaves the audience speechless. It’s a powerful document of an artist who continues to find new ways to impress.
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4. Dilly Dally (KEXP)
Dilly Dally came into 2015 riding a wave of buzz surrounding the staggering brilliance of their first few singles and capitalized on those early flashes of potential with ferocious abandon. Nearly every item the band released this year wound up inspiring several paragraphs worth of attention from this site and a few extremely strong reviews for their inspired (and, frankly, inspiring) live shows. Sore, their full-length debut, just served as the cherry on top of an already-appealing sundae. KEXP recently brought the band in for a full session and they responded in kind, gifting the studio an appropriately searing performance.
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5. Saintseneca – How Many Blankets Are In The Wolrd? (ANTI-)
Throughout 2015, ANTI- has produced some of the most beautiful live clips in recent memory (a handful of which have been prominently featured in this series) and that streak continues with this beautiful presentation of Saintseneca‘s Zac Little performing “How Many Blankets Are In The World?” while walking through what appears to be a drainpipe. Easily one of the year’s most gorgeous live captures, this is both a spellbinding performance and a masterclass in composition. Even when Little’s plunged into near-complete darkness, the song itself serves as the clip’s functioning heart, generating a thoughtful overall effect. When Little finally emerges back into the light, it’s a sequence that feels oddly moving, finalizing this as one of the year’s most complete offerings in this category.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Due to the nature of these upcoming posts, a truncated version of this introductory paragraph will be appearing over the next several installments of this series.] It’s been quite some time since the 100th edition of Watch This went up on this site. There have been a lot of factors going into the extended interim but, as usual, a focal point of that absence was to make sure the preparation work was kept up to date. Full sessions, single song performances, DIY videos, and impressive turn-ins from radio stations abound. So, as always, sit back, adjust the setting, crank the volume, focus up, and Watch This.
1. Built to Spill – Good Enough (Joyful Noise)
Earlier this year, Built to Spill released their best record in over a decade. To help them celebrate that impressive achievement, Joyful Noise invited the band in for one of their Almost Live From… sessions and the band turned in a strong rendition of beloved rarity “Good Enough”. Weary, quiet, and and just about perfect, this is a powerful look at the current era of one of the most quietly celebrated acts in music.
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2. Radioactivity – Sickness/Don’t Try (Razorcake)
One of the fiercest basement pop acts of this generation, Radioactivity have built up an impressive reputation over the course of their brief history, rivaling that of their sister band, The Marked Men. While their sophomore effort, this year’s Silent Kill, was no slouch, the band’s self-titled debut remains one of the best records to emerge in this decade. Razorcake caught the band tearing through the two opening tracks of that debut at VLHS last month and (thankfully) posted the results so that everyone could revel in the frenzy.
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3. Ought – Beautiful Blue Sky (Radio K)
Back at the start of October, Ought put on a memorable set at Secret Project Robot that emphasized their off-kilter brand of nervous energy. “Beautiful Blue Sky” is the band’s most complete distillation of those tendencies to date and serves as one of many high watermarks for the quartet. Radio K recently hosted them for a session that saw the band turn in yet another inspired rendition of the song, which still feels as engrossing as it did when it was being road-tested as early as last year.
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4. Fern Mayo – Open Work (This Has Got To Stop)
I first came to know Katie Capri as a writer and admired her work in that field before being introduced to her musical project, Fern Mayo. Capri would eventually pen a memorable screed against the assumption that Brooklyn DIY was dead in a piece for the first installment of A Year’s Worth of Memories and I’d eventually be blown away by a few of her songs. One of those songs, “Open Work”, felt like the tipping point of a good band becoming something more meaningful. This Has Got To Stop shot an outstanding acoustic rendition of the song on a rooftop that highlights Capri’s natural magnetism as both a songwriter and a performer.
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5. Johanna Warren – Pin Oaks (Splendor Sessions)
A few of my fondest memories of 2015 involve time spent with Johanna Warren, whose gentle nūmūn ranks among this year’s finest offerings. Warren carries a tranquility with her that frequently tips over into a light serenity and that aspect of her personality informs her music, even in its stormiest moments. It’s that oddly specific sensibility that makes Warren’s solo acoustic performances feel like the purest presentation of not just her music but her entire being. Here, Warren turns in a characteristically captivating performance of “Pin Oaks” in a van that makes room for some gorgeous shots of the songwriter idling by a body of water. It’s an appropriately beautiful document of a moment that feels as if it’s only a few steps removed from being holy.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Due to the nature of these upcoming posts, a truncated version of this introductory paragraph will be appearing over the next several installments of this series.] It’s been quite some time since the 100th edition of Watch This went up on this site. There have been a lot of factors going into the extended interim but, as usual, a focal point of that absence was to make sure the preparation work was kept up to date. Full sessions, single song performances, DIY videos, and impressive turn-ins from radio stations abound. So, as always, sit back, adjust the setting, crank the volume, focus up, and Watch This.
1. Young Jesus – Every Little Landscape (The Trundle Sessions)
After a brief restructuring period, Young Jesus came out swinging in 2015 with one of the year’s finest records and an even more ferocious live show than they’d had with their previous iteration. As if that wasn’t enough, they’ve been teasing new material in their live sessions. “Every Little Landscape” is another look at the band’s promising future that showcases guitarist/vocalist’s enviable knack for songwriting. It’s a quiet, impressive moment that suggests the band’s far from done.
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2. Woozy – Gilding the Lily (Little Elephant)
Every once in a while, Little Elephant brings a band into their studio that challenges their preferred style of music while still adapting some characteristics of those genres. Utilizing elements of ambient, post-rock, ’90s emo, and a wealth of other genres, Woozy hit upon a career highlight with “Gilding the Lily”, a song that’s performed here with no shortage of focus or determination. A masterclass in dynamics and composition, it’s a deeply impressive look at a band well worth our attention.
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3. Ultimate Painting (3voor12)
After a strong debut effort in 2014, Ultimate Painting came surging back this year with even more formidable material. Utilizing the same breezy aesthetic, the band turns in a set of open-road anthems for 3voor12. The performances are uniformly strong and bristling with an almost paradoxical relaxed energy. Jangly, folk-informed basement pop at its absolute finest, this is another step forward for a band that seems determined to make a mark.
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4. Alex G – Soaker + Rules (WXPN)
Over the past several years, Alex G has built up a surprisingly passionate cult following thanks to a string of bandcamp releases, the right connections, and relentless touring. The project had its breakthrough last year with DSU and reached greater heights with this year’s outstanding Beach Music. WXPN recently invited the band into their studio and they responded with impassioned takes on both “Soaker” and “Rules”, providing the station with one of their best sessions of the year.
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5. Julien Baker (OurVinyl)
Some artists just have a natural gift for creating transcendental moments and Julien Baker has carved out a spot in their midst. Sprained Ankle, her aching treatsie on mortality and human limitations, is comprised of nothing but those moments. Whenever a record like that comes into the public eye, it’s never surprising when the live performances buckle under the weight of personal expectation. On rare occasions, the artist responsible for the collection will actually enhance the emotional impact via a commitment to the material that can feel devastating. Baker belongs to the latter category and OurVinyl provides a (gorgeously shot) definitive document of those instances. “Something”, “Sprained Ankle”, and “Rejoice” are all chill-inducing and reaffirm Baker’s position as one of 2015’s most striking songwriters.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Due to the nature of these upcoming posts, a truncated version of this introductory paragraph will be appearing over the next several installments of this series.] It’s been quite some time since the 100th edition of Watch This went up on this site. There have been a lot of factors going into the extended interim but, as usual, a focal point of that absence was to make sure the preparation work was kept up to date. Full sessions, single song performances, DIY videos, and impressive turn-ins from radio stations abound. So, as always, sit back, adjust the setting, crank the volume, focus up, and Watch This.
1. Eskimeaux (Ithaca Underground)
Another full session from Eskimeaux as they continue to play out in support of the brilliant O.K., this particular session also stands as what may very well be Ithaca Underground’s finest capture. A DIY presentation, it catches a much less manufactured look at Eskimeaux’s tantalizing live show with their strongest lineup. Songs like “Folly” remain as breathtaking as ever, while the viewer has the added benefit of an actual spectator vantage point, making the experience a touch more immersive. As everything comes together, this quickly becomes a vital document of an important part of Eskimeaux’s history. It’s not just worth watching, it’s worth all of the inevitable return visits as well.
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2. Wet Nurse (BreakThruRadio)
Scrappy basement pop is the lifeblood of this site and that occasionally can bleed over into the realm of pop-punk. Wet Nurse manage to find a compelling middle ground that makes them a fascinating variable whenever they’re lumped in with either category. “Belly Hurts” might be the best example of that middle ground and this BreakThruRadio session captures it– and the band’s general identity– with characteristic verve.
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3. Courtney Barnett (Austin City Limits)
In addition to Torres and Girlpool, the only other artist to become a permanent fixture of this series’s coverage throughout 2015 has been Courtney Barnett. An unlikely mega-success, Barnett’s been racking up acclaim, sales, and new fans with abandon. One of the biggest aspects of the songwriter’s draw are live performances and this two song effort for her Austin City Limits session is a formidable example of that particular strength.
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4. Mall Walk (KEXP)
Weird, dissonant post-punk with garage trappings has popped up more than a few times on this site and will continue to pop up anytime it’s done as well as Mall Walk does it here. One of KEXP’s spikier sessions in recent memory, it’s a five song onslaught that finds the trio firing on all cylinders. Aggressively bleak, a little unwieldy, and unreasonably propulsive, it catches the trio at a crucial point of momentum building. Expect to be hearing their name a lot more sometime soon.
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5. Braids (3voor12)
Sometimes a performance comes along and reminds you why you ever started caring about music. This is one of those performances. Anchored by the band’s unconventional approach to composition, the band commits to this three song performance and winds up with a session that feels essential. Wildly impressive and strangely moving, this isn’t a session to be missed.
Over the past 100 weeks, this site’s dedicated itself to a variety of pursuits but the defining one seems to be the only recurring series that operates on a regular basis: Watch This. Ever since the first installment, this series has featured the very best live performance captures. Utilizing a wealth of resources that range from band’s personal accounts to radio stations that host high-quality session captures, like KEXP in Seattle or 3voor12 in the Netherlands.
Very rarely has that gaze turned inward, despite producing over 300 live videos in the past four months. With this series now at a landmark number and all of the CMJ reviews accounted for, it seemed appropriate to bypass the outside sources to focus exclusively on the crop of videos that was taken over the past week. Approximately 50 bands, 90 videos, and 100 songs, these clips will be presented in groupings according to which day they were filmed. A few slip out of focus, some start a little late, and some cut off just before their ending, and a few bands are missing due to unfortunate and/or unforeseen circumstance (a dead battery, lighting, and a maxed out sd card were the three most prominent issues) but as a whole, it’s a comprehensive look at the kinds of performances the festival has to offer. So, as always, sit back, relax, ignore any worries, adjust the volume, focus up, and Watch This.
1. CMJ: Day 2
To make things just a touch easier, each of these introductory segments will simply be a very brief recap including a link to the respective day’s official review and the list of artists that appear in the video. Having spent the first official day of CMJ preparing for the rest of the week, the timeline’s off by a day but had this been the first official day, the festival would have kicked off with a band. Splitting time between The Cake Shop and Santos Party House, I managed to get videos of performances from the following artists: Worriers, Hooton Tennis Club, Car Seat Headrest, Seratones, Nico Yaryan, Yung, Shopping, Protomartyr, Downtown Boys, Perfect Pussy, and Dilly Dally. The official review of the day’s events can be found here.
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2. CMJ: Day 3
Things kept moving along quickly on the second day, which included a long stretch at an early show over at Rough Trade before taking a brief pause to organize that show’s footage and prepare for the late show at Aviv. Between the two venues, the lineup was characteristically stacked and led to videos of performances from Shopping, Ezra Furman, Georgia, John Grant, What Moon Things, Mumblr, Meat Wave, Painted Zeros, Turn To Crime, and Yvette. The official review of the day’s shows can be found here.
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3. CMJ: Day 4
The festival’s exhausting nature started to creeping in on the third consecutive day of showgoing, though the deliriousness will always be worth the effort in the case of celebrating things like Exploding In Sound (who themselves were celebrating their fourth anniversary), Big Ups (who were celebrating their fifth year as a band), and Double Double Whammy. Once again splitting time between two venues– Palisades and The Silent Barn– I managed to get footage of performances from Leapling, Swings, Mal Devisa (backed by Swings), Dirty Dishes, Kal Marks, Washer, Stove, Palm, Greys, The Spirit of the Beehive, Big Ups, Palehound, Downies, Eskimeaux, and LVL UP. The official review of those events can be read here.
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4. CMJ: Day 5
Easily the most exhausting of the five day stretch, the fifth official day of the festival found me completely ignoring food in favor of sprinting a mile to catch one of my favorite acts four times over. While a fraction of the day was spent running to and from an official CMJ showcase and the AdHoc Carwash (which was detached from the festival completely but boasted one of the week’s strongest lineups), the effort proved to be worthwhile, as a large collection of bands delivered knockout sets and everything culminated in a triumphant moment for one of my closest friends. In all the back-and-forth, I was still able to manage to capture performances from the following artists: Protomartyr, Potty Mouth, Pity Sex, Dilly Dally, LVL UP, Porches., Perfect Pussy, Meat Wave, Mothers, and Cloud Castle Lake. The review of that day of relative mania can be read here.
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5. CMJ: Day 6
Despite the festival’s posted end date being the October 17, this collaborative showcase a day later between Father/Daughter and Miscreant was still billed as a part of the festival and felt like an appropriate epilogue; a summation of what’d come before and a fitting end-cap for a very strong run. Confined to just one venue, the sleep deprivation caused me to miss the first trio of acts (and quietly curse myself out for doing so in the process) but still show up in time for the final 10. On the final day of reckoning, I captured videos of performances from the following artists: i tried to run away when i was 6, Downies, Romp, Comfy, Vagabon, fern mayo, Bethlehem Steel, Diet Cig, Sports, and PWR BTTM. The official review of the festival’s final event can be read here.
Last week was another particularly strong week for live clips, with two of KEXP’s most memorable sessions of 2015 acting as bookends for this installment of the series. Since the majority of the previous posts introductions had been overflowing with content, this entry seemed like a reasonable time to allow the five featured clips to be the sole focus of the series. For roughly 100 weeks, Watch This has focused on the best live clips to emerge in a given week, so it feels appropriate that this particular volume features one of the most entertaining sets the series has run to date, a new name to the site, and a band that’s a series regular. All of it’s worthy of investment and serves as a testament of how good of a time it is for live videos. So, as always, sit back, adjust the volume, relax, focus up, and Watch This.
1. Mike Krol (KEXP)
At the end of last month Mike Krol threw down one of the best sets I’ve seen all year at Baby’s All Right and brought a lot of the same manic energy to this KEXP session, which features the live renditions of more than half of his latest album. While KEXP’s camera setup required a reduction of the intensity of their lights show, the band still showed up in full costume with an excess of razor wire. Fast, dirty, chaotic, and injected with a childlike glee, this is a KEXP session that the station members will probably be talking about for a long time to come.
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2. Mothers – No Crying In Baseball (Audiotree)
Every so often, Audiotree unearths an incredibly promising emerging act that make the most out of their session time. This time around, that band’s Mothers, whose “No Crying In Baseball” is a remarkably accessible brand of post-punk that comes loaded with enough pop sensibility to have a tremendously wide-reaching appeal. While the song border the virtuosic at times, the quartet plays it with the exact right blend of commitment and detachment up until its explosive, passionate finale.
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3. Worriers (BreakThruRadio)
ImaginaryLife, Worriers’latest effort, has managed to stand out in an astonishingly overcrowded 2015. The band recently stopped by BreakThruRadio’s studios for an interview and to perform a few songs from the album, providing an effective reminder of its strength. The live sections are spirited and the interview’s illuminating, cementing this clip’s essential viewing status.
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4. Screaming Females – Triumph (Radio K)
It’s been stated before that Screaming Females have been appearing on Watch This for around as long as the series has existed. Nearly every piece of praise that can be directed towards their live performance has already been directed at their live performance but they still don’t seem content and are continuously topping themselves. Every time this band is on any kind of stage, it’s a signal to buckle up and brace for impact. Radio K invited the band in to their studios for a recent performance and the band obliged with a characteristically exceptional performance of “Triumph”.
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5. Wimps (KEXP)
Wimps have slowly been racking up interest for the past few years and that interest seems to be nearing a fever pitch. Releasing records at a startling rate tends to be an attention-getting tactic but, outside of Robert Pollard and a very small handful of others, it’s rare that kind of over-saturation has much artistic merit. Wimps belong to the small handful that are the exception to that rule. Every single one of their releases has been ridiculously enjoyable and they’ve only sharpened their craft as they’ve progressed. That maturation’s very evident in this entertaining KEXP session that already seems to be earning the band a few converts. This is the kind of party that people kick themselves for missing.
The recent swell of outstanding live clips should be evident by now, with the overflowing packets of honorable mention selections that characterized the last two entries of this series. It’s not a trend that tapered off pushing forward, either, as the 98th installment of Watch This was a similarly contested battle. While the five clips featured below are well worth featuring, there were also deserving clips from Funeral Advantage, J Fernandez, DMA’s, Afterpartees, Gary Clark Jr., Glen Hansard, Noveller, Greg Holden, Teen Men, Watkins Family Hour, Galgo, Grave Babies, and Wire. One of the more eclectic volumes of this series, the 98th entry includes a third consecutive appearance from a site favorite and the Watch This debut for a band comprised of some artists whose work influenced more than half of the bands that get written about on this site. So, as always, sit back, adjust the volume, wind down, focus up, and Watch This.
1. Cayetana – Madame B (Little Elephant)
The second Cayetana clip to be featured from their Little Elephant session finds the trio digging into “Madame B”– one of the best songs in their discography– and laying into it with an abundance of feeling. Throughout the clip, it’s easy to see each individual member get completely lost in the song at various points throughout, each seemingly succumbing to some sort of trance without ever losing any of the determination that characterizes their music.
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2. Deerhoof (MOWNO)
Deerhoof is an insane band that’s always veered away from conventionality and their live show underlines both of those defining aspects. MOWNO was on hand to film some of their performance at the Teriaki festival in Le Mans and the results are incredibly engaging. Impassioned, off-kilter, and wild-eyed, not a second of this clip is worth missing. As inventive as it is fierce, this is the perfect presentation of Deerhoof’s current era.
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3. Meat Wave – Too Much (Audiotree)
Returning once again to Meat Wave‘s Audiotree session, this particular performance finds the band reaching back to their shockingly under-discussed self-titled debut (which remains one of my favorite records of all time). Venomous, grim, and surprisingly atmospheric, it shows the band firing on all cylinders, showcasing an impressive dynamic sensibility in the process. Brooding and much darker than usual, “Too Much” is the sound of a band establishing its identity.
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4. Lady Lamb – Millions of Eyes (OnAirstreaming)
“Billions of Eyes” was one of last year’s most charming songs and marked Aly Spaltro’s arrival at large. Since the release of that song, Spaltro’s Lady Lamb project severed “The Beekeeper” from its title, released a very well-received record (After) on Mom+Pop and set about touring on the release. Here, OnAirstreaming catches Spaltro delivering a rare solo performance of the song and clearly exhibits an endearing affection between the songwriter and the work. It’s strangely uplifting and immensely enjoyable.
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5. Big Star’s Third – Blue Moon (The Current)
It’d be a maddening exercise in futility to try to cover the artists who have had their careers directly impacted by Big Star’s work. The powerpop icons have been continuously cited as an inspiration by all varieties of punk and pop bands since their emergence in the early ’70s. Everyone from The Replacements to Elliott Smith to Cheap Trick has written songs about the band or covered them directly. Members of the band recently toured with a collective of friends to perform Big Star’s seminal Third and, accordingly, provided the project with Big Star’s Third as a moniker. The Current recently hosted the project where they performed a gentle, honest version of “Blue Moon” and the end result is lovely beyond reason.
Heartbreaking Bravery 