It's Monday. You need a little lunchtime music love. You know you do. The Avett Brothers are just fun, fun, fun. (If you're unfamiliar with the Avett Brothers, picture a trio-sometimes-quartet of punkers playing bluegrass-influenced rock.)

These aren't the most slickly produced videos on YouTube, but they're a pretty good idea of what the live show must be like.

The sound quality of the second video isn't that great (lots of noise) but catch it about three minutes in to see Joe Kwon shred his cello bow over the course of a single song. The third video is the same song with better audio quality, but it's not quite the all-out stompfest of the version in the second video clip.

Via Colter, here's what I'm humming tonight, courtesy of Nashville duo Swan Dive:

I think I'm going to need this album...

Back in 2003 I wrote about the experience of seeing a then unknown-to-me Damien Rice at WorkPlay, my favorite little music venue down in Birmingham, AL:

About halfway through the show, I realized what I was seeing. There are two different ways to interpret the word 'performance'; the first implies a simple recitation of a memorized work, and the second implies a live artistic expression. This guy was not just performing, in the latter sense of the word, he was brilliant.

It's rare to see something so breathtaking, and even rarer to recognize the fleeting breath of genius when it whispers in your ear. I put down my camera, draped my chin over the retaining wall in front of me, and listened, constantly fighting the urge to concentrate by closing my eyes. I could listen anytime I wanted, at home, but this was my only chance to see.

I admit, this is a shameless reblog from SassyBlonde's YouTube Roundup, but I'm with her on this one: Oren Lavie's video for "Her Morning Elegance" just makes me happy and I can't even explain why.

For those of us who spent the past eight years muttering that Bush scared us so much we could barely sleep at night, we now know where the sleep deficit went. I present Sarah Palin, who slept through the past eight years straight:

[direct link to YouTube]

I usually save the political stuff for solecist, but I look at her and think, if the Republicans win in November, the only thing keeping this kook from the presidency is the heart of a 70+ year-old man with a spotty health history.

Jeff and I watched this in mingled horror and amusement. Up to a certain point, it describes how I have been awakened almost every morning for seven years now. (Also explains why my first words every morning are usually some variation on "Dammit, Tenzing.")