It’s too bad that Marnie Stern’s session with The A.V. Club’s “Undercover Series” wound up unusable due to technical difficulty, because I’d have been a lot more interested in hearing an interpretation of Huey Lewis from a very different artist.

However, with The Hold Steady, we do get to hear a couple of pretty solid, cheesy guitar solos from Tad Kubler and Steve Selvidge. Now close your eyes and try to re-envision “Back to the Future” through a Hold Steady lens.

Youth Lagoon — “July”
Youth Lagoon proved 2011’s most fragile new sound, and this song’s a textbook example. Watch a sad, bloody teenage drama unfold here. Also note the car driving on the wrong side of the highway near the video’s end.



Iron & Wine — “Godless Brother in Love”
Less fragile than delicate, this Iron & Wine video supporting the very-good 2011 album “Kiss Each Other Clean” goes camping. This one’s much more into celebrating youth than mourning it. Warning: chicks with armpit hair abound.



Craig Finn — “Jackson”
Here, The Hold Steady front man (who plays The Conservatory on Feb. 2!) plays a reminiscent, kinda downtrodden song off his forthcoming album, “Clear Heart, Full Eyes,” due out Jan. 24 on Vagrant Records. “It’s good” is all I have to say about it.



Phantogram — “Running from the Cops” live in OKC
I actively decided not to listen to dark-toned New York indie-synth act Phantogram prior to its NYE Freakout opening set, just to be surprised. Turns out I was overwhelmed. Here’s a trippy, strobed-out video I helped Nathan Poppe shoot on night one of the festivities. Nathan says he’ll have a video from Neon Indian’s night-two opening set by the end of the week.