It’s Monday and here in Boston it’s cold, wet and crappy outside, which means the weather is perfect for some Portishead (you try listening to them when it’s sunny out. It sounds…weird-er).

Anyway, the video comes from TheTripwire.com (and there are two more from the show on their post) and I think it’s a perfect way to welcome the week.

Songza isn’t a new religion, a made-up holiday or the latest profanity that Don Imus will utter on his show. No friends, it’s much cooler than that and more addictive than crack.

It’s a new music site that gives you exactly what you want: Music. Right now.

Visit Songza, type in an artist/band in the search bad, press enter and tracks quickly appear on the screen, all of which are ready to be streamed.

And it gets better. A lot of the tracks are rarities or live recordings (which is how I found the video above).

Other gems I’ve uncovered are:

-Elton John, Freddie Mercury and Axl Rose doing “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

-Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (from the movie “Once,” a must-see for music fans) performing “Falling Slowly” on Letterman and at Sundance.

-A rare freestyle with Eminem and the late Proof.

But there’s more. There’s a built in playlist on the right. So if you like a particular track, you can save it for later listens. There’s also a rating system which helps future listeners (giving it a thumbs up moves the track further up the list in searches).

The site was developed by 23-year-old Aza Raskin, who is the president of Chicago-based software company Humanized and the son of Apple Macintosh founder Jef Raskin. So yea, he’s kind of a big deal.

I’ve spent the entire day on this thing, searching for the odd, rare, and crazy (which are also good search words for the site).

Right now I’m listening to Pete Seeger. And I think next up is to look for some live Johnny Cash.

To be honest, some of this sounds like it’s taken from videos. I don’t know how that’s possible. But there’s one track, where Pete Seeger is explaining how he came up with “Turn Turn Turn,” that definitely sounds like it’s from a documentary…mostly because there are people talking who are never introduced.

Stop reading. Enjoy yourself on the site. I’m listening to a rare recording of Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone.”

And since there’s a host of live music on it, expect to hear more about it from us.

Till then, I’m going to continue wasting the rest of my day.

*UPDATE
OK in the process of writing this, I searched for “Secret Stars” and what popped up? The audio track from the Youtube video I shot a couple months back of Geoff Farina performing “Some Sinatra”  This explains the random interview-esque tracks that seem misplaced. So it’s kind of like a Google just for music? This is getting interesting…and a little scary that I’m involved somehow.

BTW: there’s a Firefox extension you can use with Songza.

Marc Anthony looks a lot like Skeletor. You have to wonder what J-Lo sees in the guy. Well apparently they share an intense love… for Journey.

Anthony performed his rendition of Journey’s least-powerful power-ballad Faithfully last week at the Staples Center in LA where he was double billing with his wife.

Look for Marc Anthony to compete in the upcoming Rock Star: Steve Perry Edition live from the gates of Castle Grayskull.

This was from a performance at Greensboro, NC on Sept. 29, 2007 and features the great Eddie Van Halen on a not-so-great guitar.

No one really knows what happens. Was it the amp? Was it the synth? Or did someone hand Eddie the wrong guitar (Gary Cherone, I’m looking in your general direction….and I KNOW you got time on your hands if you’re spending it celebrating a high school’s 150th birthday).

Or was it the scorned and original bassist Michael Anthony (he was replaced by Wolfgang, the 16-year-old spawn of Eddie)?

But here’s what’s impressive about this concert misstep. They keep going. They’re freak’n Van Halen and instead of saying “Whoa, that sounds weird” they continue the song possibly hoping that the horrible, irritable sound would right itself eventually (insert your Cherone joke here).

Instead, they plowed through it and embraced the bad situation. Because that’s what Van Halen does when something is wrong. They run the problem into the ground until everyone feels their pain.

Seriously, how did David Lee Roth not lose it on stage? Or is the problem worse? Can Van Halen not hear anymore?

Even more distressing than that is the giant, inflatable mic that Roth humps towards the end of the song and brings up on stage (and if you’re gonna do that, shouldn’t you change the chorus  to “might as well hump!” at least once?).

After the band bows, the massive mic is left on the stage and, after a while, starts to look like a penis without a party to go to. Which, if you want to be a little poetic on a Monday morning, could be a nice description of the reunited Van Halen.

At the very least, the video brightened my Monday morning. Rock on friends.

I believe in rock and roll again.

For a long time, I assumed it was dead, that the music industry had finally choked it to death, leaving only bands like Nickeback and Hinder as a cruel form of punishment like an obese stripper who has convinced you to pay for a lap dance.

Minutes before the Kings of Leon took the stage, the smell of cannabis floated through the air, as if it were introducing and welcoming the band at the same time.

But the buzz from the cannabis and $9 Harpoons (seriously, $9? WTF??) was soon replaced by the Kings’ brand of seductive and penetrating rock that inspires women to lose their morals, convinces men to buy $40 t-shirts, and incites random violence in Bank of America ATM vestibules after the show.

If your surprised to hear this much praise, it probably means you haven’t heard the Kings latest album “Because of the Times,” a stark departure from their other work. How do I know? Because I was once like you, passing on the Kings, thinking they weren’t anything special. Now I know better.

What other band can write a song about seeing a girl in a Camero and eye-fucking her at the intersection as you rev up your bike? (”Camero”) Or a song about waking up on the ground with your faced busted in, seeing a girl glance at you and be convinced that, from that small interaction, that she suddenly wants you? (”Arizona”)

Yes, they sound like silly premises for songs, but when played with the right combination of guitars, bass, drums and deliberate bravado, you have a dangerous mixture of awesomeness that can’t be contained, controlled or properly described.

In an effort to dispense with the inane babble, I’ve incorporated videos from the concert so you’ll somewhat understand what I’m talking about. Watch them and just pretend that there’s skinny, stripper-esque women around you dancing to get the full effect. Also, check out out Flickr photo group where I posted pics from the show.

Kings of Leon “Fans”

Kings of Leon “On Call”

Kings of Leon “Knocked Up”

Here’s a quick vid that a co-worker show from the Rilo Kiley concert over the weekend. It’s the end of the song “Breakn’ Up” off their new album “Under the Blacklight.” According to him, she’s pounding on a cowbell on stage which, as any fan of Christopher Walken will tell you, songs can never have too much cowbell. If anything, they need more.

Here is an interesting take on a “live” performance. It is a highly choreographed “backwards” performance from the band MuteMath on Jimmy Kimmel Live. It’s the band’s attempt to duplicate their music video for “Typical” in a live setting- sort of an interesting experiment- definitely entertaining. Check out the video of their performance on Kimmel & the Actual Video. If you haven’t checked out MuteMath’s self titled release- do so- very solid- reminds me of The Police.

Live on Kimmel

Actual Music Video

This comes from The Tripwire and, unfortunately, their video doesn’t have complete songs. But, at the very least, you get a sense of what it was like to be at the Austin City Limits.

Someday I’ll make it down there. Either that or SXSW. Maybe I should quit my job.

Check out more videos from the festival here that include The Arcade Fire, Bjork, The National, MIA, Spoon, Wilco, Bloc Party, Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah,  the Decemberists, Ghostland Observatory,  and LCD Soundsystem.

This week Peter Bjorn and John put on a surprise show at the First Unitarian Church in Philly before officially kicking off a new North American tour the next day. I already had tickets to see The National play on the same night so I had to skip it.

But I’m sure PB&J did not disappoint, The National set was great, and YouTube has video from both bands.

Videos after the jump … Read the rest of this entry »

Since I bailed out on posting last week’s late night TV music roundup, here are some of the highlights of what I would have watched this week.

Dinosaur Jr - Been There All The Time - Conan O’Brien 9/5/2007

Gogol Bordello - Wonderlust King - Jimmy Kimmel 9/4/2007

Rilo Kiley - Dreamworld - Jimmy Kimmel 9/5/2007

Did I miss anything else worth seeing?