phenomenal video saturday

Phenomenal Video Saturday: The Swell Season covers Neutral Milk Hotel

I’ve been a fan of the A.V. Club Undercover series for months now, and I feel like it hasn’t really caught on like it should, considering the incredible quality of a couple of entries. The premise is some artist or band comes in to the publication’s office and covers another song they chose from […]

Jon

Phenomenal Video Saturday: Hans Zimmer and Johnny Marr do Inception

For all eight of you who haven’t seen Inception yet, well, this week’s video has nothing to do with the plot, so don’t worry: no spoilers here. But you guys should probably see the movie. It’s super good, and isn’t Leonardo DiCaprio a HUNK? I’m asking rhetorically, of course. I don’t know.

The video […]

Jon

Phenomenal Video Saturday: Glissando

This week’s PVS is a band I’m particularly fond of, Glissando, performing an abridged version of its magisterial “Floods” at a London Chapel. The song is slow and brooding — all we have is a pair of gorgeous voices, a slow piano and a guitar for coloring — but it’s very lovely all the […]

Jon

Phenomenal Video Saturday: DeVotchKa

Welcome, minions, to Phenomenal Video Saturday. I’m using the video I have this week to make a point. A very important one, too.

See, there’s a school of thought out there of people who saw Little Miss Sunshine, a fine film, and latched onto DeVotchKa‘s “How it Ends,” the song that begins the movie. […]

Jon

Phenomenal Video Saturday: There Will Be Fireworks

I’ve written about There Will Be Fireworks before, and how much of a fan I am of the band’s Explosions In The Sky meets every Scottish band ever sound, though it gives me sadface that they only have one, self-titled album.

But holy tantalizing previews of new songs, Batman, it’s a tantalizing preview of […]

Jon

Phenomenal Video Saturday: LCD Soundsystem

Seeing LCD Soundsystem open for Arcade Fire in New Jersey years ago is still probably one of the best shows I’ve seen (also on the lineup that day? Les Savy Fav and Blonde Redhead). James Murphy brings so much energy to his songs, and makes even the most repetitive structures seem exciting. The fact […]

Jon

Phenomenal Video Saturday: Modest Mouse

Can you imagine that it was five years ago when this was recorded? I feel so old. And I’m not so old, which makes it weirder that I feel that way.

Whatever. This is a live performance of Modest Mouse’s “The World At Large” that seems to have aired on PBS in 2005. It’s […]

Jon

Phenomenal Video Saturday: A band covers Guided By Voices

Hey, anyone out there a fan of Guided By Voices? They’re pretty cool. They have a cool song, too, called “The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory” from 1994’s Bee Thousand. You should listen to it sometime.

Aaaaand how about now? For this week’s PVS we have a surprisingly decent quality video of a band called […]

Jon

Phenomenal Video Saturday: Scott Stapp wills the Marlins to WIN

Scott Stapp sits down on the plush chair in the corner of the living room — the one with the flowers — and takes a sip of his Monster energy drink. A few feet away, a microphone stand has just come to rest. Gobs of spittle drip from the microphone’s casing onto the carpet. […]

Jon

Phenomenal Video Saturday: Feist has friends

I’m admittedly not much of a fan of Feist, and the fact that “1234” was played to DEATH EVERYWHERE doesn’t help my appreciation of the song. But her performance on Letterman from a while back is not only awesome, it features a choir of every cool person ever. By that, of course, I mean […]