Live from George, Washington

If you're anything like me, the music part of the summer music festivals sounds great, but the heat, crowds and camping is enough to make you barricade yourself in your air-conditioned apartment for three months. Thanks to NPR, those of us with nature aversions don't have to miss out on last weekend's Sasquatch Festival in George, Washington (yes, it's really called that.) NPR has archived many of the live performances on this page.

I'm particularly excited about Wilco, Death Cab for Cutie, Iron and Wine, and Sharon Jones, but with so many to choose from, you're bound to find something you love. Enjoy!

Where Soul Meets Body

I fell in love with Death Cab for Cutie the same way I fell in love with Wilco: at first I heard them in passing and thought they were totally nice, but we ended up going our separate ways. And then, years later, I woke up with one of their songs turning pages in my brain over and over again, so I looked them up again and fell madly, deeply, passionately in love.

I am eagerly awaiting the release of their newest album at the end of this month (see previous post), but while we wait...

Today for one day only, you can download their debut album Plans at Amazon for only $3.99. This includes arguably their first hit (if you can call any of their impeccably crafted songs "hits"), Soul Meets Body, as well as the darkly liminal I Will Follow You Into the Dark. I think my favorite from this album might be Crooked Teeth, however:

This fire grows higher

Eagerly awaiting the release of the new Death Cab for Cutie album at the end of May - only one more month to wait! In the meantime, I've had the early-release single "You Are a Tourist" on repeat.

In case you missed it a couple of weeks ago, they shot a video for this song in a rather ingenious way - they did the entire video (replete with laser light show, confetti and Busby Berkely-esque showgirls) in one take and simultaneously broadcast it via their website. The result is whimsical, witty and infused with a certain live-theater energy:



Pre-order the new album here, if you're so inclined.

A thousand hugs from 10,000 lightning bugs

Scanning the Red Eye today, I saw that Grey's Anatomy darling Kate Havnevick was opening for a band called Owl City last night at Metro in Chicago. Intrigued, I headed over to Owl City's Myspace Page and was quickly blown away.

Bright Eyes-style, Owl City appears to be the name of a one-man band, and that one man is Adam Young, a Minnesota native who creates the perfect poptronica sound I've been hoping for in other bands like Phoenix, Mute Math, and Passion Pit but have always been slightly disappointed by. Until now.

Among Young's listed inspirations are Imogen Heap, Sigur Ros, Cary Grant and optimism, four of my favorite things, so I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised that I love every single track I've heard so far. Young has a very similar voice to Ben Gibbard's (of Death Cab and Postal Service, among other indie exploits), but unlike Gibbard, Young uses his child-like, speak-songish tenor to perfect effect, balancing it with clean, light, happy, major-key electronic pop arrangements that get in your ears and bounce around happy in your brain for hours.

Further research revealed that Owl City's major-label debut album, Ocean Eyes, has a perfect five-star rating from 73 reviewers on Amazon, and the show at Metro was sold out last night, so the secret is out on Young, and yet somehow no one has ever heard of Owl City yet, either. If you fall into the latter camp, do yourself a favor and fix that situation.

Check out this witty video for "Fireflies" (it features a Speak 'N Spell!).

50 for $5

Christmas came early here at Lost Things Found: Amazon.com is currently offering the 50 top-selling new-release albums of 2008 in mp3 download format for only $5 a piece. This includes Paste's "Best Album of the Year:" Volume One, by She and Him, as well as titles from Radiohead, REM, Jason Mraz, Jack Johnson, Death Cab for Cutie, Fleet Foxes, Beck, Duffy, Vampire Weekend, Moby, Al Green, Mariah Carey, Mates of State, the Walkmen, Jamie Lidell and many, many others.

I don't know how long it will last, so get there fast!

LTF Playlist: The OC Soundtrack

Over the past few months, I have spent many of my free moments visiting Orange County, Calif., via the magic of DVD boxed set. I realize I'm a couple of years late on the obsession with Seth, Summer, Ryan and Marissa, but that's okay, because the very best part of the show - the music - has held up extremely well.

From an indie lover's standpoint, the OC might be the best television soundtrack ever conceived, and I don't just mean the several volumes issued as "official" soundtracks on CD. I mean that every song chosen to run in the series was great and deserves its own spotlight. There are classics that have been woefully overlooked and mainstream music that was largely misunderstood. There are cutting-edge bands that ran on the series 2 years ago or 4 years ago that are just now beginning to get the airplay they deserve. There is Journey.

So in the interest of paying homage to this most seminal TV music lineup, I have compiled a new LTF Playlist: The OC Soundtrack.

It's such an extensive catalog that I'm still adding to the playlist, but I have enough to get you started, including songs by the Eels, Jem, Mazzy Star, Thicke, Fountains of Wayne, Guster, Iron and Wine, and Seth's absolute favorite band - Death Cab for Cutie, among many others.

Just click the player at right and give it a spin! (And check back as I continue to update the playlist!)

Oh, and...: For more music from the OC, visit www.musicfromtheoc.com and listen to 6 different mixes, including mix 6, which features indie bands covering the songs of other indie bands.

Feels good to be free

The problem with most break-up songs is that they're, well... pretty depressing. As a whole, musicians tend to focus on the soul-wrenching sense of loss engendered by a break-up rather than the possibilities and sense of freedom it opens up. But when Rilo Kiley sat down to make their most recent album together, Under the Blacklight, the not-so-distant break-up of leads Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett actually made for their best album to date.

The band has finally figured out something that Ben Gibbard (of Death Cab for Cutie) figured out long ago when he recruited her for his Postal Service projects - Jenny Lewis's voice sounds best paired with a maximalist's penchant for electro-pop. (To me, her voice sounds twee and theatrical when paired with the organic folk and Americana influences she has favored on side projects and earlier Rilo Kiley albums.)

As a result, Under the Blacklight sounds bright, edgy and perfectly balanced - early-era Madonna meeting Liz Phair, but always with that hint of cabaret vibe.

Not incidentally, the album contains the happiest break-up song I have ever heard, "Breakin' Up"(how is there no video for this song?):



And on the same theme, check out "Silver Lining:"



The whole album's good. Listen.

I like how the day sounds through these new songs

While visiting my favorite music store in the whole world this weekend, The Electric Fetus in Minneapolis, I discovered the album Three Flights to Alto Nido by Greg Laswell. It's perfect for right now. It's a solidly-crafted singer-songwriter sound but with a little more attention paid to production and uniqueness. (He's even got a song in 9/8 time!)

At times quirky and confessional like the best of Death Cab, at times expansive and uplifting like the best of Coldplay (those are words I never thought I'd say, but you've won me over, Chris Martin, with "Viva La Vida"), Greg Laswell's music is a really appealing mixture of very of-the-moment sounds with the general energy level of Counting Crows at their angst-iest. (You have to love any musician who proudly describes himself as "music to not run to.") I'm not surprised that, according to his MySpace page, his music has been featured on some of the more music-savvy TV shows and he is now touring with the Hotel Cafe tour in California.

Highlights include "It's Been a Year," "The One I Love," and "How the Day Sounds," two of which are available on his MySpace page.

Have a listen and see what you think!

LTF playlist: Mid-winter melancholy

Reason number 4 billion and 20 why I love the internet: when you're suffering from mid-winter ennui so severe you can barely blog, the internet will give you just the kick in the pants you need to get inspired about something again.

Case in point: a few months ago, I started a FineTune playlist of songs I had heard on KCRW's "Morning Becomes Eclectic," but I only got about five songs into it before I got distracted by something else and moved on. The playlist sat there untouched. Well, this morning, FineTune finally got fed up with that state of affairs and decided to finish the playlist on its own (using its "I'm Lazy" autofill technology.) The result is the perfect soundtrack to the mid-winter blahs.

You'll hear A Fine Frenzy, Death Cab for Cutie, Snow Patrol, Earlimart, Iron and Wine and plenty more - emphasis on melodic and melancholy.

I've added it at right - click the player to listen.