[embedded YouTube video; if you can’t see it, click here]
If your family holidays are characterized by everyone gathering in the living room and watching large, heavily-armoured men crash into each other (that would be American football, for our non-US readers), and that’s not exactly your speed, I commend to you some counter-programming.
On opposite sides of the English Channel (known by the rather less possessive La Manche on the other side), two groups are making short videos of indie music that are characterized by a common bare-bones aesthetic. In London, there’s the Black Cab Sessions – as the name suggests, it’s all bands filmed playing a song in the back of a black cab (given the rather stringent space limitations, sometimes it’s only part of the band, like the Spoon video above that is just Britt Daniel). In France, La Blogothèque has a video podcast called Les Concerts à Emporter (The Take-Away Shows, better translated as ‘The Take-Out Shows’ on this side of the Atlantic). There’s masses of cool stuff in both sets, including The National, The New Pornographers, and Amanda Palmer.
So gather up your like-minded relations, ignore the cheers coming from the living room, and huddle around the glow of the LCD screen to watch some great indie music unfold.
zed equals zee 