Video Diary: Lucius perform on NPR's Tiny Desk Concert

Four songs from the newly formed Brookly-based band, Lucius: Go Home, Don't Just Sit There, Turn It Around, Genevieve. I'm most struck by Turn It Around, which can be found at 8:11. Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig are on vocals. Danny Molad and Peter Lalish are on the cheap 60's era Sears Silvertone guitars (one made by Danelectro and the other made by Harmony) and Andrew Burri is on drums. Enjoy.

Song of the Week: "Nothing's Changed", Chris Isaak

Listen - Chris Isaak performs Nothing's Changed

Sometimes I have thought I was born in the wrong year. So many of my musical, design and fashion sensibilities seem to have often been stuck in a different time. Maybe a different place too. I should have been standing on the Sunset Strip the first time Arthur Lee and Love performed at the Whiskey. Or maybe I should have been at the Crawdaddy Club in london when the Yardbirds took over a residency from the Rolling Stones. Sometimes those feelings can make for a sad and lonely Mr. Flip. Like when I awoke from a wondrous dream in which I had been at the Monterey Pop Festival only to realize, that, no, I was still in a small apartment in Providence, Rhode Island and Candlebox had a hit on the radio. Then, every once in a blue moon you meet someone for the first time that you think might just feel the same way as you do. You'll never have a friendship with them, and may never see them again, but at least their is someone else out there that thinks like you.

That was what happened the other night when a generous friend of mine introduced me to Chris Isaak. I had long followed Isaak's music (I hadn't realized how long until I really sat down to think about it) and had seen him perform live a few times. It was, however, the first chance I had to make his acquaintance. I'm not going to make too much of our cursory time together (other than to say that it was awkward when he asked for my autograph on his chest and wanted to take his picture with me...it feels so invasive to always have to do that!). But I will say, that I got that feeling of someone else who also felt as if they are of a different time. Chris Isaak exudes it in his dress, his mannerisms and his music. But, and this is a big but, his music is not so rooted in the past that it becomes a song of the past in the instant that it is born. Instead, Isaak seems to walk that beautiful and difficult line that divides tipping his pompadour to the music of Elvis, Roy Orbison and Conway Twitty and putting out fresh, original music. It's not so time out of place as it is timeless. Not everyone can do it.

Today's SOTW comes from Isaak's 1989 breakout album, Heart Shaped World. The album was recorded with the extremely lyrical guitarist, James Wilsey, who would soon leave the band, drummer Kenny Dale Johnson and bassist Rowland Salley. The latter two are still with Isaak, which says a lot about all of the men and the music. The song is the gentle and beautifully restrained Nothing's Changed. The title of which seems rather symbolic of the theme of today's article.

Enjoy Chris Isaak & Silvertone performing Nothing's Changed.

Song of the Week: "Country Blues", The Tarbox Ramblers

Happy Martin Luther King day flip-siders. Me and the whole flip-side clan spent the day skiing and returned home to 65 degree temperatures...meaning lots of guitar, cigars and beer in the backyard. You thought I might forget about you today, didn't you? Never. Without further wait, on to our Song of the Week.

A number of years ago, when I was living the BlackBerry life in Washington DC, I found myself waking from a 6-hour sleep I chiseled out for myself on the way home from a 24-hour biz trip that took me to Tegucigalpa, Honduras. I landed at National Airport at about 10:30p on a Friday, wide awake and knowing my family would be sound asleep. "So", I say to myself, "let's see what's happening down at Iota", one of DC's best intimate music venues. I dropped $10 for a band I had never heard of before and headed for Iota's well stocked bar. About 90 minutes later I got through some crap-ass gloom and doom Emo bands and was starting to think to myself, "maybe it's time to call it a night and head home." But the equipment on stage had my interest piqued. There were two Supro guitars -- both with Montgomery Wards' Airline badge plates -- and a behemoth of a Silvertone twin twelve amp (I can't remember if Valco or Danelectro made these, but they are crispy-tasty).

About this time the headline band took the stage. They were, that night at least, a 5-piece band from Boston calling themselves the Tarbox Ramblers. The band lined up behind their instruments: a stand-up bass (always a good sign!) a minimal drum kit (again, another good sign), a fiddle player, a guest guitarist who looked like he was impersonating Dana Carvey impersonating Gary Busey impersonating Buddy Holly (you still with me?) and the owner of those Airlines, singer and guitarist, Michael Tarbox. The follicle challenged Tarbox sat down with a glass of whiskey in his hand, adjusted his red tartan flannel hunter's shirt and peered out from underneath his horned rimmed glasses. If ever someone was the living embodiment of a 1950's Truman Capote serial killer from the midwest, Michael Tarbox was it. The floor tom beat and the bassist tapped on a tambourine. The Buddy Holly dude took up the maracas and the band opened with a five-part harmony gut bucket version of Stewball that had me knowing the wait was worth it. Tarbox's deep, gravely voice scraped across the aural sandpaper as the band was already breaking a sweat at two minutes into the show. But it got even better. Once Tarbox took the open-tuned Airline's for a run with deft finger picking and effortless slide play, I knew I was...in love. There. I said it. (please don't hate me for it). There are a number of great slide players out there today -- Kelly Joe Phelps or Alvin Youngblood Hart leap to mind -- but Michael Tarbox plays with a grit that the others seem to lack. He oozes a primal passion for the music that makes every performance feel as fresh as a load of laundry done with two doses of Snuggles Brand fabric softener (and that is some mad, crazy Spring Fresh!).

Since that first spur of the moment night, I have probably seen the Tarbox Ramblers 15 times (though, sadly never here in Boulder, Colorado). I have NEVER been disappointed at one of their shows. Impassioned and well performed, they are a revolving cast of characters centered around Tarbox's ample original work and his bottomless song-well of traditional blues, gospel and hillbilly songs.

Picking just ONE of their songs is tough but today's Song of the Week is the third song on the Tarbox Ramblers second (of 2) album, A Fix Back East. The song is an old Dock Boggs number called Country Blues which the bottom-heavy Ramblers inject with a dose of caffeine and take it to blistering heights. I hope you enjoy. And I hope you get a chance to see The Tarbox Ramblers soon. And if you're real nice, they may even update the website with some new news and tour dates and even a new, ahem, album.