Fake Eastern European Music Is Keeping It Real

A Hawk And A Hacksaw plays Fernando's Giampari in the Aligre region of Paris (The Leaf Label)

Jeremy Barnes played drums in Neutral Milk Hotel and this is his solo baby. Looks like he's been living in Europe, Mexico and Albuquerque for the past few years (currently residing in Budapest--excellent). That's pretty nomadic. His violinist partner is Heather Trost, and I'm liking her sound. Summer 2008 tour information (yay--they're coming to Portland, Seattle and San Francisco).

Death By Blonde by Daron Nefcy. Music by DeVotchKa.

This is Daron's second-year film at CalArts. The DeVotchKa song is from their album "Una Volta." DeVotchKa are from Denver. They started out playing in burlesque shows, toured with Dita von Teese, and scored the soundtrack to Little Miss Sunshine, which got them a 2006 Grammy nomination. Clearly, DeVotchKa are not fucking around.

Camper Van Beethoven in Pittsburg, 2006

I'm not familiar with this song but one of the things I always liked about CVB was all their fun world-music instrumentals. Throwing together a little Balkan, South African, and ska was part of their mix from very early on. The Santa Cruz world-beat influence was strong and ripe for some gentle parody. Once when I told Jonathan Segel that I wanted to transfer to UCSC and work at the radio station he looked at me and said very earnestly, "I hope you like Celtic music." I'm glad to see them back together again. Their 25th Anniversary show will be at The Fillmore on June 28th.