It was hard not to notice the prominence of indie bands featured in this year’s Super Bowl commercials. We had heard that NFL licensed Wake Up from Arcade Fire and that all proceeds would go to help Partners in Health in their Haitian relief efforts. But we were surprised to find Arcade Fire’s song used as the NFL anthem, with several versions playing throughout the game.

Then to hear Grizzly Bear’s Two Weeks in the backdrop of a VW commercial that featured Stevie Wonder? This one caught me off guard.

Keeping in mind that just a few days ago Vampire Weekend was #1 on Billboard’s Top 200 charts, fans of indie music are asking questions.

Is this a signal of the rising stature of indie music in this new decade? Does it show us that indie music is seen as commercially valuable to our society?

Please share your thoughts.

Related Posts:

• December 18, 2008 — Arcade Fire release Neon Bible archive film
• January 25, 2010 — Efterklang: Magic Chairs
• November 7, 2009 — Grizzly Bear: Read, Able video
• September 13, 2009 — Grizzly Bear: While You Wait for the Others video
• May 26, 2009 — Here We Go Magic: Grizzly Bear tour and Daytrotter session
• November 13, 2008 — Zach Condon of Beirut to release dual EP

Kanine Records posted a new Surfer Blood video for Swim, the second track on Astro Coast. Directed by Kevin Chapados & Chunwoo Kae, the video follows John Paul Pitts, the vocalist for Surfer Blood, in what seems to resemble a crazy dream where he finds himself running through the streets in his skivvies as mascots create mischievousness.

Swim was listed #34 in Pitchfork’s 100 Best Tracks of 2009, so the video was fittingly debuted yesterday on Pitchfork.tv.

Surfer Blood – Swim

via YouTube - Surfer Blood ‘Swim’ official video .

Related Posts:

• February 4, 2010 — Songs for a Wintery Day

The first song is by Surfer Blood, an up and coming band from Florida that is creating a buzz with their debut, Astro Coast. Glint is a new band from Brooklyn, and this song is from their self-titled EP. Peter Gabriel recorded an album of covers, surprising Bon Iver with his take on Flume. Archeology is a Portland duo that are answering their five EPs with their first full-length,Memorial, on March 16.

Surfer Blood – Floating Vibes
Glint – Freak (Radio Edit)
Peter Gabriel – Flume (Bon Iver cover)
Archeology – By the By

Related Posts:

• February 6, 2010 — Surfer Blood: Swim video
• December 1, 2009 — Peter Wolf Crier: Inter-Be
• August 27, 2008 — Bon Iver Joins Okkervil River’s “The Stand Ins” Project

In October, 2009, a new video filtering site was launched, called TubeRadio.fm. Focusing on music, TubeRadio is a tool where you can search YouTube according to artist name and TubeRadio creates a video playlist for you in a web app player that resembled iTunes.

The developer explains in their introductory video:

“TubeRadio is a music player for the web, built around YouTube. So it has the largest music library in the world because you can have access to anything that’s up on YouTube. And YouTube has millions and millions of songs.”

Searching for Fleet Foxes brings up album covers that the band has released. Clicking on the album cover and then selecting “add albums to playlist,” and TubeRadio creates a video playlist of the album. While you’re watching the playlist and you’re not happy with a video it selected for a particular song, click on the gear and select “find replacement”.

You can also create video playlists by searching for songs or artists, and then dragging/dropping the video into your playlist. Once you finish your playlist you can share it with others.

TubeRadio also integrates social aspects into the site. You can subscribe to other users, for example, post shout outs, view their public playlists, etc.

While your’e watching a video, you can browse other releases by the artist, read the artist’s bio, or browse similar artists (these features are powered by Last.fm). You can also view the lyrics of the song you’re listening/watching.

Seeing that YouTube has become a lake of videos that are merely songs with a photo slideshow, TubeRadio is a great tool for finding music on YouTube when you’re not necessarily wanting to watch music videos or live footage. This could be a cool way to stream videos on a backdrop at an event or party.

Currently TubeRadio doesn’t support embedding playlists on other websites, but they informed me via Twitter that they’re adding an embedding feature soon. This could be a great tool to manage embedded video playlists on blogs, and we’re seriously considering to integrate TubeRadio playlists for the next Puddlegum website design.

TubeRadio is also finishing an iPhone/Touch app (and dare we say iPad?), so you’ll soon be able to carry TubeRadio in your pocket.

Check out their introductory video, then visit the site: www.tuberadio.fm

Related Posts:

• December 5, 2009 — Five reasons why Apple wants Lala
• November 22, 2009 — My obsessions with the year column
• June 2, 2009 — The Beatles: Rock Band will land on 09.09.09
• May 26, 2009 — Ten weapons of a Modern Fanboy
• September 5, 2008 — Kaiser Chiefs: Never Miss A Beat video
• September 2, 2008 — Eight Ways To Improve Your Band Website
• August 6, 2008 — Amie Street: not the typical digital store

TW Walsh is going to broadcast a live mixing session of a new David Bazan song, starting at 8pm. The video will be streaming from Walsh’s Ustream.

To watch TW Walsh live mix and chat with other viewers: ustream.tv/channel/tw-walsh

Broadcasting Live with Ustream.TV

Last weekend TW Walsh stated on Twitter that he was going to broadcast a live stream, and turned on his MacBook camera while mixing a song. An hour later fifty people were peering into Walsh’s basement, asking questions and chatting. Fans were noticeably excited as TW showed his mixing and mastering equipment, answering questions from eager friends. He briefly surprised the viewers with ten seconds of a new Bazan song, but wasn’t in a position to reveal any information about the song.

TW Walsh is most widely known for his involvement with David Bazan in Pedro the Lion. He also has a solo project called The Soft Drugs. Last year he mixed/mastered David Bazan’s debut solo album, breaking into the Billboard 200 for the first time.

Artists and record labels TW Walsh has mixed and/or mastered for includes: David Bazan, Ra Ra Riot, Rocky Votolato, Asthmatic Kitty, Rosie Thomas, J. Tillman, Barsuk Records, Jade Tree, Secretly Canadian, Saddle Creek and many others (the complete list can be found on his website).

Related Posts:

• September 30, 2009 — David Bazan: tour with Say Hi in a new van
• October 1, 2009 — Say Hi: One, Two … One video
• August 26, 2008 — Ra Ra Riot – Ghost Under Rocks video
• August 23, 2008 — Rocky Votolato: A Brief History re-released
• August 16, 2008 — Bazan: Alone At The Mic
• July 28, 2008 — The Soft Drugs – Get Back (side a)
• November 2, 2009 — More about the Bloomington music scene
• October 5, 2009 — Lowell Brams and Sufjan Stevens: Music For Insomnia
• September 13, 2009 — Sufjan Stevens: The BQE film, Run Rabbit Run and a tour
• August 26, 2009 — The Wooden Birds: Hometown Fantasy