What Animal Collective Sounds Like in a French Shopping Cart

Animal Collective recently popped up on the French blog, Take Away Shows, offering 2 videos for our viewing pleasure. With the band about to begin a Japanese and European tour, and not having played locally since last fall, this might ease your pain for lack of experimental freak out pop.

Not enough? Well the band is rumored to be releasing an EP called Water Curses with all new material sometime in early April. Need more instant gratification? Head on over to NPR.com for a complete stream of their last show at the 9:30 club.

For those that are unfamiliar with Take Away Shows, please familiarize. These guys film and record quality artists in random parts of France, usually outside amongst unsuspecting people. Some of my favorites include the Menomena one where 2 toddlers are feeling the groove towards the end of the song, and Zach Condon of Beirut taking a stroll while singing and eventually stumbling upon the rest of his band in the depths of a bar. There's like 7363267 other good ones, so check it out.

Real Emotional Awesomeness

There are those that have said Stephen Malkmus hasn't been as good since he was with Pavement, and to that I say, poppycock! His last two albums, Pig Lib and Face the Truth, have been ridiculously superb indie rock records and his forthcoming Real Emotional Trash shows no sign of decline.

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks release their new record March 4th on Matador. I was blessed with an advance copy of this release and have been rocking out ever since, which has lead to people looking at me kinda funny in the library at the moment.

The album includes a track titled "Baltimore" which can be found here, however my highlights so far include "Hopscotch Willie" and "Cold Son". You can catch Stephen and the Jicks at the 9:30 club March 28th, with John Vanderslice opening.

What Do a 14 Year Old Asian Kid, Dan Deacon, and Footage of a Giant Panda Walking Around to Salsa Music Have In Common?

They all can be found on the new video bar! I added a feature that randomly chooses videos based on the keywords I gave it, and rotates constantly. Naturally, I typed in the names of a bunch of artists that have roots in Baltimore.

However the keywords are searched on all kinds of miscellaneous sources including Youtube. This allows us to watch anything from actual footage of a panda bear, to some random young'un fondle the Spank Rock album and give us his commentary.

In fact this clip provides some riveting insight to the record including a chronological walk through of each song's title, quotes like "so pretty much this album is really explicative there's cuss words like pretty much all the time", and a recommendation that you can probably pick it up at Best Buy for, like, 10 bucks.

Um, thanks.

The only other disclaimer is that I do not pick each specific video, only the keywords it searches for. So whether you enjoy watching clips of an animated lizard ramble on about chairs and floors he didn't pay for, or you like music, this new feature should have ya' covered.

Ah, To Be Young and Canadian

Born Ruffians are the latest youthful band of the rock and/or roll variety to get all kinds of rage and hype, without even putting out a full length album. But these young bucks plan to stop teasing us come March 4th when they release their first proper LP titled, Red, Yellow & Blue. The album comes via Warp Records stateside, and will be released on XL in Europe on May 26th.

The spunky Ontario trio have been touring extensively and will be stopping in Baltimore at the Ottobar March 5th, right after the release of their album. They will also be hitting DC9 in Washington the day after. Both dates offer the support of Cadence Weapon, a Pitchforker and blogger turned hip hopper who ain't all that shabby.

However on the downside, they may be performing without a snare drum due to a recent thieving "crackie" breaking into their tourvan and snatching the percussion instrument. Well at least we all know they'll be safe here in Baltimore where crack isn't used at all, HBO didn't make a whole epic series about it or anything.

21 Days Until My Speakers Are Devoted to Beach House

Baltimore's own Beach House will release their second LP titled Devotion on February 26th. The album will be released on Carpark Records in the US and on Bella Union in Europe and Australia. The dreamy dream pop duo has released a sample track from the album titled "Gila", and can be found here at their website.

The forthcoming album has already gotten plenty of hype due to their previous highly acclaimed self titled LP, and many folks who have been lucky enough to preview the new record have similar praise.

Beach House begin a 2 month North American tour 2 days after the release of Devotion in their hometown at GSpot. The Papercuts, who put out a stellar folkish rockish album titled Can't Go Back last year, will open for them throughout the tour. The roadtrip conveniently ends in D.C. on April 4th at the Rock and Roll Hotel.

The band also promises music videos involving fishbowls, sand boxes, and lit plastic. Hopefully the lit plastic isn't as creepy as that old SoundGarden video with the burning Barbie. That would be weird.