The The - Love Is Stronger than Death

The The (and Matt Johnson) have been around since the late 1970s. I know them best from their album, "Hanky Panky," covering a handful of Hank Williams' songs. This nugget from Wikipedia is classic:

In November 1977, Matt Johnson placed an advertisement in the NME 1977, asking for 'Bass/lead guitarist into Velvets/Syd Barrett'. Johnson later placed a second advert in the NME, stating his new influences as 'The Residents/Throbbing Gristle'.

Big ambitions, indeed. This clip is suitably poppy for the first day of the semester.

Planet Caravan

Emma Russack covering Black Sabbath. Not much to see in the video - the live version won't embed - but well worth it.

Madness

Song about school, "Baggy Trousers." Funny story: AO attended the same primary school in London as these guys had a few years earlier. She claims that an early album had a picture of the nearby Tube stop on the cover. Six degrees, man, six degrees.

The flying saxophonist is a big hit with the kids.

Other Lives (Kunek)

Doing a Leonard Cohen song.

Husky Rescue

Ambient-pop from Helsinki.

PJ Harvey & Thom Yorke

Radiohead's Yorke helping Harvey sing her song "This Mess We're In."

I'm serious

Anyone who opposes health care reform and a public option/single payer should pledge to forego Medicare and Social Security.

And why aren't Democrats out there letting EVERYONE know that these very popular programs were brought to you by Democrats!

Digital Refugee

I haven't really been keeping up with the Denial of Service attacks on Twitter and Facebook, except to note that Twitter fared worse in the event. But apparently it was a politically motivated attack by Russia to silence one blogger. One blogger! From Andrew Sullivan:

The Thursday outage on Twitter and Facebook that left millions without access was the result of a cyber-attack against a political blogger from the Republic of Georgia. The blogger, who goes by the name "CYXYMU," accuses the Russian government of trying to silence him. FP's Evgeny Morozov has been tracking CYXYMU's campaign of dissent for many months now, dubbing him the first "digital refugee."

It's a smart strateg by Russia. These platforms are probably perfectly happy to remove individual troublemakers, which in turn threatens the whole ideal of free speech on the internet. It also suggests that these services have become something much more than trivial social networking.

War

Legendary groove band, with Eric Burdon of the Animals. This is one for the archives.

Car Seat

Nashville Pussy

Continuing our informal series, "Girls with Guitars," here's some absolutely facemelting Southern hard rock from Atlanta. This clip was filmed in Paris, of all places.

more Old Crow Medicine Show

I know that not all of their songs are about drugs, but every one I seem to be listening to these days addresses the attractions and torments of drug use. It's a high percentage of drug laments. This song is high on my playlist, mostly because of the slow banjo licks. Its cadence is almost like a pedal steel in a more "country" song.

Bumper sticker

Seen today on a shiny ess-you-vee: "The Internet Will Make You Stupid"

Ray Lamontagne

Folky version of the brilliant Gnarls Barkley song.

Icky Thump

Live version by the White Stripes.

Nikki Talley

Just back from Asheville. Here's some local talent -- Nikki Talley -- doing a Dolly Parton cover.