Crazy French guys, Stephen Malkmus, and the Great American Music Hall

One of the fangirl highlights of my Noisepopping this year was meeting some of the hilariously crazy French guys behind the La Bloqotheque site, home to those dizzyingly wonderful “Concerts A Emporter” (Take Away Shows), which feature exclusive content of musicians in random everyday settings playing their blessed little hearts out.

Whether it’s The Shins on the springtime streets of Paris, The National nestled near a French chapel hidden up in the mountains, or Elvis Perkins serenading from an ornate lobby staircase, each of these is so wonderful that I anxiously await the next one. Therefore it was really hard not to gush like a moron when I met the pretty cool Vincent Moon (did you see his work on the new REM video?) and his enthusiastic associates (bonjour Chryde!).

My french language skills –yeah, not so much . . . but it looks like the Blogotheque team were busy bees during their week in San Francisco. I missed the show with Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks on Wednesday night, but look what they made for us! A montage of off-the-cuff R.E.M. covers, set to panoramic shots of one of the coolest live music venues in San Fran. Ridiculous:

Watch the rest of the Malkmus performances here, and what I can piece together of their other writing on the site almost makes me want to take a French class. Oui.

The Shins rove the streets of Paris

La Blogotheque has one of the coolest concepts of capturing live music out there, alongside Daytrotter. Both are run by independent music lovers who entice fantastic bands to perform exclusively for them in a natural setting for the enjoyment of their readers via the magic of the internet.

They coax these intimate and laid-back performances from a range of folks, and then share the resulting songs with us. I could not help but smile for this whole bouncy, swirling, impressionistic serenade from The Shins as they walked the streets of the Montmartre district of Paris with their acoustic guitars, like the best kind of strolling troubadours. Sheer brilliance.

#44 – THE SHINS – PART1
Uploaded by lablogotheque

And the audio rip:
Gone For Good (Montmartre acoustic street version) – The Shins