My Morning Jacket, after the fact

The youtube comment boards are one of the best sources of unintentional hilarity, ignorance and pure, old-fashioned unbridled stupidity. I was browsing through a few My Morning Jacket videos when I stumbled upon the place where seemingly every "American Dad" fan landed after googling the band's name after its appearance on the show last week.




What might be the saddest thing is that so many people who immediately love MMJ's sound managed to be totally unaware of their existence even after several stellar albums (two of which, "Z" and "It Still Moves" make my best of the decade list), not to mention sub-headlining slots for a half decade at Bonnaroo. How are promoters/marketers failing to find these people? How is music this good not on the radio? Why can't I watch MMJ videos on TV? Why does it take a Sunday night cartoon to introduce young Americans to a band that made its best music closer to the beginning of this decade?

A sampling:

"saw them first in American Dad and i must confirm they are great!
thanks!"

"just seen them in 'american dad'.they're pretty cool :)"

"American Dad! I know, so unoriginal, i thought they just made up this band, but at the end with the clip, that is hilarious."

"holy shit i thought i was the only one i looked up this band because i just saw that episode~ "

"I was hoping that this band really exists when i was watching the episode, their music is really fantastic! not the first band i got to know through a tv show, but definitely one of the best! thank you american dad :D"

MONSTERS OF FOLK

The first track from indie roots-rock collective, the Monsters of Folk (My Morning Jacket's Jim James, Bright Eyes' Connor Oberst, M. Ward and Mike Mogis), is available for free download on the group's Web site:

http://www.monstersoffolk.com/

The track has the trademarks of M. Ward's production - warm, layered acoustic guitars and reverbed vocals, with a fuzzed out electric guitar solo melting the top of mix (complete with a Jack White-esque octive-shifting wammy-pedal affect).

It's a track that would have livened up portions of both My Morning Jacket's last LP "It Still Moves," or feel at home on a Wilco record. James sounds like the principle singer on this track, but the quartet chimes in for the chorus.

The LP is due Sept. 22.

Scavenging

Here's all the best stuff I found on Stereogum and other places today:

1. This benefit album is pretty sick: the cover artists are mostly covering the seminal acts they are always compared to Beck singing Dylan, Hold Steady singing the Boss, etc

http://www.warchild.org.uk/heroes/tracklist

2. Unreleased Arcade Fire track:
http://stereogum.com/archives/new-arcade-fire-lenin_049202.html

3. New My Morning Jacket track here:
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/download/148858-new-music-my-morning-jacket-el-caporal-stream

4. I'm not a big fan of Scarlett Johansson's baritone, or her Tom Waits cover CD, but here is her covering some Jeff Buckley song. Looking at that picture posted of her while listening to the song makes it a little bit, um, more enjoyable.

http://stereogum.com/archives/scarlett-johansson-covers-jeff-buckley_048421.html