Tiny Desk Concerts - Video

Bob Mould came alone, except for his 1987 Lake Placid Blue Fender Stratocaster. We provided the Epiphone Blues Custom 30 amp, which he promptly cranked. Needless to say, he announced his own Tiny Desk Concert without using the paging system.Mould isn't a shy man — his power chords will tell you that — but he's humble and gentle. Many know Mould from his days with Hüsker Dü, an awesome punkish band from Minnesota that laid the groundwork for the Pixies and more. His subsequent work with Sugar managed to do something none of his other records did so well: Copper Blue sold hundreds of thousands of copies.Beauty and Ruin is solo album No. 11 for Mould, and as you can hear from these songs, he's all amped up and ready to go. Sweaty and happy, he makes "Makes No Sense At All" his final calling card — classic Hüsker Dü.

The first time I heard it, Irene Diaz's voice stopped me cold: Her sheer power belies her compact stature, and her musical impact is simply immense. With her musical partner Carolyn Cardoza strumming away intently on ukulele, Diaz conjures a place where emotions run deep and beauty is unmistakable. Watch them perform these four songs at the Tiny Desk to see what I mean.

The Southern California band Quetzal recently celebrated its 20th anniversary with a blowout concert that seemed to attract as many musicians as regular people. The band has maintained such a strong presence in the SoCal Chicano music scene that its members could be considered padrinosand padrinas of that free-flowing musical community. Quetzal is respected and admired as much for its commitment to social justice, activism and education — lead singer Martha Gonzalez has a Ph.D — as for its folk-infused music, which gets a marvelous showcase in this Tiny Desk Concert. While the instrumentation is stripped down, the sound is full; the music penetrates the intellect even as it makes your hips sway. The group runs a tight ship musically: Gonzalez's voice could be heard well past the confines of the Tiny Desk, all the way to our web-designing neighbors; guitarist Quetzal Flores unplugged and worked the Mexican jarana for both rhythm and melody, often at the same time; violinist Rocio Marron wove blues licks into Mexican folk runs; bassist Juan Perez provided a nimble and melodic bottom end. Add it all up and you get a glimpse into a musical vision that inspires as much as it entertains. If you didn't know Quetzal before this video, now's the time to catch up. If you're a fan like me, you've already got a head start on looking forward to the next 20 years.  

One of the many instruments you may hear Saintseneca play — beyond the banjo, baglama, bulbul, balalaika, bowed banjo, baritone ukulele, bass and bouzouki — is a stomp box. Basically, it's a roughly 2'x2' plywood floorboard meant for pounding the beat. At a show just before this Tiny Desk Concert, craftily bearded singer Zac Little put his boot right through that floorboard. Saintseneca had its beginnings in the heart of a small Appalachian town in Ohio, and the band grew up at college in Columbus. This year's Dark Arc is a pastiche of gentle lyrical moments and punk anthems, often within the same tune and often with that aforementioned stomp, straight from a small wooden porch. After Saintseneca left the Tiny Desk, I pointed the band to a hardware store to replace its broken floorboard — only to get a note a while later telling me that the new board had been destroyed within weeks. Here's a good sampling of what the group does best, though you should be sure to see Saintseneca in concert, where its fierceness is afoot.

My first time seeing this Norwegian band was at a fairly soulless convention center in Austin, Texas. They transformed that big, open room into an intimate affair. So having them perform at the Tiny Desk, an already intimate space, was a thrill. It was also the first appearance of a flugabone here. Kristoffer Lo plays that mournful horn and Ingrid Helene Håvik compliments the yearning with words that are mysterious, somewhat dark and contain surprising twists. The song titles on their 2014 album Silent Treatment seem more like chapter headings in a crime novel. "Leaving No Traces," "I, The Hand Grenade," "The Man on the Ferry," "Science & Blood Tests" — you get the picture. But this band has a powerful pop side filled with drama made of drums, synths, guitar and the aforementioned flugabone and voice. So glad I get to turn you on to a new favorite of mine.

This is the second time Hamilton Leithauser has graced the Tiny Desk. Two summers ago, he and his band The Walkmen played a powerful set of songs from their final album for now, Heaven. The Walkmen announced an indefinite hiatus toward the end of 2013, and since then we've heard strong solo records from Walter Martin and Peter Matthew Bauer — and, of course, Leithauser himself, which is what prompted us to invite him back. These songs put Leithauser's voice front and powerfully center, even more than it was in the band. There's a more relaxed feel all over his new solo album, Black Hours, though a few full-throttle tunes get the most out of his huge voice — including the second song from this set, "Alexandra." Along with The Walkmen's Paul Maroon on guitar, Leithauser brought along Hugh McIntosh, who played drums in Leithauser's old band The Recoys. All in all, a fine re-introduction to a singer who's lost none of his power, even as he's matured and loosened as a performer.

 Marisa Anderson knows where American guitar music has been and where it is now, and probably possesses an inkling of where it can go. She's studied the history and musical nuance of blues, country and folk music through and through, and ingests it all in a style that's as raw as it true. But mostly, Anderson just wants to kick up some dirt — which isn't easy here, given that the NPR Music offices are relatively clean. (Mind the towering stacks of CDs, though. They could topple over at any time.) In 2013, Anderson released two albums. December'sTraditional and Public Domain Songs contains exactly what its title suggests; as she says, "I thought of these songs like our national parks — they belong to all of us. If we don't use 'em, we'll lose 'em, I reckon, or someone will buy 'em." At the Tiny Desk, that includes Stephen Foster's parlor song "Hard Times Come Again No More," in which she slowly builds the melody with a violent shake. Mercury came out six months prior, and it side-winds through Americana off and on the beaten path. She plays "Sinks and Rises" on the lap steel; it's an ode to a Kentucky swimming hole. Quick to defer to the influential musicians before her, she pays tribute to blues guitarist Rev. Gary Davis with a deconstruction of his song "Hesitation Blues." Anderson's version has a bit more pick-up — and, since she doesn't sing, finds clever ways to mimic Davis' jokey speak-singing style. Just when the gospel songs of "Canaan's Land Medley" set us in meditative mood, Anderson whips out a baby-blue Stratocaster for "Galax." It's got that chicken-pecking-at-corn rhythm, egged on (sorry) by a wild slide. If it sounds like 12 simultaneous hoedowns, that's by design: The song came to Anderson while she stood in the parking lot of a bluegrass festival, overwhelmed by everything hitting at once.  

Truth be told, Holly Williams brought me and many of my hardened colleagues to tears. The singer-songwriter has a magnificent way with words and phrasing, not to mention a country-music lineage that fills her with pride and guides her poignancy and subject matter. Country is in her blood: As the daughter of Hank Williams Jr. and half-sister of Hank Williams III, she's also the granddaughter of the ultimate country legend, Hank Williams Sr. That said, it was a song about the other side of her family, "Waiting on June," that brought us to tears that day. It's a song about her grandparents on her mom's side, married for 56 years, and it tells a tale of love and unwavering dedication; of two kids meeting in a cotton field and the love that fills their lives through war, birth and death. We were slower than we used to be The nursing home told June and me That we'd have separate rooms side by side Oh, what I'd give for one more night of sleeping with my wife Since '45, I've touched her skin in the middle of the night So I'm lyin' in this single bed until they cut the lights That's when she'll sneak in and I'll be fine Holly Williams came to the Tiny Desk still able to hide her pregnancy behind her guitar. She's married to musician Chris Coleman, and it's easy to imagine that some years down the line, their offspring will sing new songs about ageless feelings of love and hurt, happiness and tragedy. Country music doesn't die.

John Grant's songs don't mess around: The music isn't complicated, while the lyrics function as darts of retort and thought. His album Pale Green Ghosts is decorated with synthesizers, his voice often drenched in reverb; those tools and textures help make the record strong and everlasting. So when Grant came to the Tiny Desk with just an acoustic guitarist — and wanted to play piano himself — I feared that the power of the songs I'd come to love wouldn't translate amid such bare sounds. I was wrong, and his music was just right. The lyrics rush forward and hit hard. Try this line from the first song he performs, "Where Dreams Go to Die": Baby, you're where dreams go to die I regret the day your lovely carcass caught my eye Grant is known to some as the singer from the Denver band The Czars, but these days he lives in Iceland. He recently helped translate the best-selling Icelandic album from Ásgeir Trausti into English. Pale Green Ghosts is his second album on his own, though he did have help from the band Midlake when he recorded Queen of Denmark in 2010. The two solo records and much of his writings are deeply personal, touching on his sexuality and his battles with drugs and alcohol. Stripped to its core, this material gets even stronger — and here's proof. 

People ask me all the time to name my favorite Tiny Desk Concert. It's my desk and I've seen almost all of the nearly 400 concerts up close. So you'd think this would be easy. Moon Hooch have made it a lot easier. Up there with the ear-shaking voice of Adele, the desk dancingof Gogol Bordello, the stripped down version of Phoenix — not to mention magic moments with Alt-J, Angel Olsen andLucius and more — Moon Hooch blew me away with just two saxes and a drummer. Their music is a mix of the best jazz, EDM and rock have to offer. It's out there, it's danceable and you may find yourself feeling a sense of reckless abandon! The band is saxophonists Mike Wilbur and Wenzl McGowen, and drummer James Muschler. They all studied in New York at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, and every single moment of every song I've ever seen them perform has been full throttle. They call their music "cave music," taking the best elements of electronica — the brutal stops, starts and shifts — and performing those unnaturally precise hairpin turns organically by blowing on horns and banging on drums. This for the boldness in all of us. Embrace Moon Hooch.

While on a world tour to support their fourth album, Love in Flying Colors, The Foreign Exchange stopped by the Tiny Desk to rev up a Friday afternoon. I've followed Phonte Coleman and Nicolay in their 10 years as a band — and it's evident their writing and production are honest and downright pungent at times. But when it's time to perform, it's all about fun. Backed by keyboardist Zo! and percussionist Boogie, Phonte, never short for words, lays down some quick ground rules. He then proceeds to interpret lyrics to meld three stripped-down highlights from their latest LP, including one of our top sleepers from last year. Enjoy this Tiny Desk Concert that also serves as a church sermon and stand-up act.

For 23-year-old singer-guitarist Lydia Loveless, gritty, countrified blues-rock is a palette broad enough to include literary drama — complete with fatalistic references to the doomed French poets Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud — and a plainspoken plea for oral sex. In fact, "Head" and "Verlaine Shot Rimbaud" (both of which appear on this year's terrific Somewhere Else) pop up back-to-back in this subdued but seething three-song Tiny Desk Concert, which Loveless recorded with the help of her full touring band. Loveless follows "Head" and "Verlaine" with "Mile High," an even newer single (released with a cover of Kesha's "Blind" as a B-side) she'd just put out as a 7" on Record Store Day. Taken together, the three songs — performed, as Loveless notes wryly, with very little audience eye contact — paint a smart, no-nonsense picture of a smart, no-nonsense talent.  

Tracy Silvermanhas been called the greatest living exponent of the electric violin. But we're not talking just any electric violin. After he graduated from Juilliard in 1980, Silverman designed his own six-string instrument, creating new musical possibilities and inspiring some of today's greatest composers to write for him — including John Adams (The Dharma at Big Sur) andTerry Riley, who says, "Tracy's violin is like an orchestra in and of itself." Silverman's instrument looks a little like an electric guitar, a mini Stratocaster complete with frets. To achieve his orchestral sound, he works with looping pedals. They record what he plays, then send the music back out so he can add new layers. On the opening piece, "Matisse: La Danse," notice how he starts with a few simple riffs that soon become the setting for a series of improvised countermelodies all flowing at once. A self-described NPR junkie, Silverman adores the theme music from NPR's various news shows. He couldn't resist cooking up a new piece, a little theme and variations, teasing familiar tunes from All Things Considered and Morning Edition. (He also couldn't resist filming a selfie.) In Axis and Orbits/Mojo Perpetuo, Silverman's closing number, pizzicato notes set up a foundation for mesmerizing, long-bowed melodies, expanding out into deep space like planets in orbit. With distorted electric guitar sounds and reverb, he finally segues to a more virtuoso section reminiscent of a Paganini Caprice. Who knew that with a little ingenuity, imagination, six strings and a couple of pedals one could conjure such an enormity of sound from a single instrument? And who knows where Silverman will take his versatile violin next?  

Conor Oberst's new album has fast become my favorite of the Bright Eyes singer's solo projects, so having him come to NPR and perform a few of these songs at the Tiny Desk was especially exciting. The new music on "Upside Down Mountain" contains the sort of personal songwriting that got me loving him in the first place. His backing band for this tour is the roots-rock group Dawes, which has a huge following in its own right. At the Tiny Desk, Dawes brothers Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith joined in on beautiful harmonies, guitar and some light percussion. It was an especially sweet day — a rare weekend Tiny Desk Concert that had friends and families present, including Oberst's wife (Corina Figueroa-Escamilla) and his father Matthew. Oberst actually began making music on his dad's four-track cassette machine more than 20 years ago. Now 33, Oberst seems much happier, if his songs are any indication. You may even see that on his face as he performs these stripped-down and soulful songs on a beautiful Saturday afternoo

Eliot Fisk looks like the happiest man on the planet. Watch that face as he plays guitar. Between performing music by J.S. Bach and partnering with the world's best flamenco guitarist, Paco Peña, Fisk can barely control his joy. I find his exuberance and their performance undeniably brilliant, inspiring and so completely universal. The repertoire here ranges from Baroque compositions by Bach andDomenico Scarlatti to present-day flamenco. And what happens when these two master players get together is a mix of meticulous and improvised, with Fisk leaning toward the former and Peña toward the latter. Fisk was a student — in fact, the last student — of the great Spanish guitarist Andrés Segovia. Peña was born in Spain and is a composer in addition to being a gifted performer. On these tunes, and with Fisk, Peña tends to never play the same thing quite the same way. It makes for music that's filled with craft (watch those fingers fly!) and surprise for both the player and the audience.