A few select descriptors from NPR music writer Michael Katzif’s write-up of Givers’ Tiny Desk Show: bright, tropical, polyrhythmic, slinky, wild, loose, fun, buoyant, raw, celebratory, Afrobeat, crisp, alluring, spirited, sunny, exuberant, and bobbing.

I feel like that just about says, it don’t you? That and singer Taylor Guarisco’s hilarious white boy head-bobbing. Dude moves like a drug-addled parakeet.

OOPS: It appears you have to surf through to NPR's site to get more than just the audio. Please do so. It's a very spirited, very fun desk show.

So the guy who plays Lindsay Lohan’s memorable gay friend in “Mean Girls” goes into a haunted house accompanied by his two hipster buddies, and they all get murdered by a couple of indie QT ghosts, but it’s OK! ’Cause they’re QTs!

“Now we’re all ghosts, let’s dance!” they seem to say. All this one’s missing is an appearance by one Scrappy Cornelius Doo.

Stillwater band Other Lives is about a month away from opening for the guy who’s the odds-on favorite for album of the year right now (can you say national exposure?). But currently, they’re about to jet off to Europe for a string of festival and small-venue dates. It appears that it’ll be a few months before they perform in Oklahoma again.

But fear not, friends! KEXP Radio in Seattle shot five live-in-studio performances by Jesse Tabish and company. “For 12” is my favorite here, but please watch them and let me know what you think. I can’t overstate how great it is that Other Lives is representing Oklahoma to indie audiences across the country and Europe right now.

“For  12”


“As I Lay My Head Down”


“Dark Horse”


“Weather”


“Tamer Animals”


Kudos to Oklahomarock.com, who first pointed this out on their news blog!

A little while back, mopey indie rockers The National contributed the song “Exile Vilify” to the “Portal 2” soundtrack. The video game teamed up with the Brooklyn band to host a contest to find the best fan-made video for the song. We now officially have the winner of that contest.

I give you the world’s saddest hand puppet:



You can watch a bunch of other fan vids on the “Suggestions” bar of the YouTube page for the hand puppet video. But I don’t recommend it, as listening to “Exile Vilify” more than once will completely eviscerate your spirits.

You can follow the band on Twitter here.

“I can see for miles, miles, miles,” Justin Vernon coos three different times during “Holocene.” Director Nabil first syncs this line up in the below video with a beautiful wide shot of what seems to be Icelandic landscape. Everything seems infinite in that little moment.

Watch as a bucktoothed kid in a hooded sweater explores the beautiful country outside of his home.