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Scarlett Johansson, the musician, was last seen being loathed for Anywhere I Lay My Head, her Dave Sitek-assisted suite of Tom Waits covers, a project that was probably doomed (critically, anyway) by her incredible beauty and success way before it even got started. But that record was better than it had any right to be: Sitek got his Phil Spector moment, building an ridiculously lush production landscape out of rich source material; and Johansson, it turned out, could basically sing--in a limited range, and with limited affect, maybe, but with grace and a bit of an emotional charge as well.

Just hanging from the ceiling, with a towel on: funny part is that isn't even my pantless friend

Last fall, we awarded the Best CMJ Foot-Soldiering PR Hustle of 2008 to the Hermit Thrushes, five Philly psych-folkers whose shaggy-haired drummer approached this here SOTC correspondent at the Fader Fort, passed along his band's press kit in the hopes for some spilled ink, and then proceeded to drop his pants by the door. I happily posted about such antics on the Internet--pantless people make for solid blog entries, you may've noticed--and now feel compelled to share this from the inbox (via Impose), in a press release regarding Hermit Thrushes' upcoming Slight Fountain, due out on Joyful Noise Recordings this June 23, from the band's official bio:

The band released their debut, Benaki on Single Girl Married Girl in June of 2008, followed by a 7" record, a cassette tape, four national tours, and a notorious CMJ Marathon appearance involving a pants-less drummer and a Village Voice reporter.

And once again, for that and that alone, we give you Hermit Thrushes new song, which, once again, is surprisingly good.

In semi-related news, Nick Thorton from Islands is missing his pants.

Hermit Thrushes, "Snowflake Heart" (MP3)

Newsweek, of all cultural edifices, is the sole US possessor of the streaming audio to the title track of Bob Dylan's new album I Feel A Change Coming On--until tomorrow, anyway, when it hits the man's own website. The Times Online, overseas, pairs their copy of the mp3 with an inspired interview conducted by Bill Flanagan about the man who likely inspired the song.

BF: You liked Barack Obama early on. Why was that?

BD: I'd read his book and it intrigued me.

BF: Audacity of Hope?

BD: No it was called Dreams of My Father.

We're going to go ahead and say we can't at this moment think of a worse, more painfully graphic song title in the history of dumb, brain-punning song titles than "I Poke Her Face." Kanye can't save this. [h/t 2DopeBoyz]

Scoot on over to bobdylan.com and avail thyself of "Beyond Here Lies Nothin'," the first track to emerge from his imminent Together Through Life, due out April 28. (The free download is conveniently offered as a zip file, should your computer be really tempermental.) At first blush it's a pleasingly loose affair, the horns just a shade drunken-sounding, the drums appealingly overbearing. As accompaniment Bob's site also offers a 10-page interview (hey, we all need the clicks) with questions like "Say you wake up in a hotel room in Wichita and look out the window. A little girl is walking along the train tracks dragging a big statue of Buddha in a wooden wagon with a three-legged dog following behind. Do you reach for your guitar or your drawing pad?" You'll be happy to know that Bob gives this a lot of thought.

Left to right: Michael Lachowski, Curtis Crowe, Vanessa Hay, Randy Bewley; photo courtesy of Pylon

Jordan Stepp, a/k/a Athens Music Junkie, is reporting via Twitter that Pylon guitarist Randy Bewley died shortly before 5pm today. (Now confirmed here.) Bewley had a heart attack while driving Monday in Georgia--his car drifted off the road and tipped over--and was rushed to the ICU, where "his family and bandmates were there by his side." Last December, Rob Trucks interviewed both Bewley and bandmate Michael Lachowski via video chat. "We're kind of back to where we started," Bewley told Trucks about Pylon's most recent reunion. "The first time it was for us. The second time it was kind of driven by external forces. Third time, just because we want to do it." This is very sad.

Pylon, "Cool" (MP3)

Estimate the combined cost of those haircuts.

Buoyant French fluxpop artistes Phoenix return May 25th with Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix; as that's a ways away yet, please accept a free MP3 of the excellent track "1901," which deftly anticipates springtime and, like, the band's best work, boasts a sugary sweetness but never gets too twee, too cute, too frail, too smug, its twittering guitars undercut nicely by farting synths. Sofia Coppola is bound to make a lovely video for it.

Pylon headlines WNYU 35th Anniversary Celebration's at the Knitting Factory this Monday, December 15. Tickets are available here.

Left to right: Michael Lachowski, Curtis Crowe, Vanessa Hay, Randy Bewley
photo courtesy of Pylon

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Pylon, "Cool" (MP3)

In the beginning there were the B-52's, Pylon and R.E.M. (in that order). And soon after Athens, Georgia, a once proverbially sleepy college town where bars closed at midnight, momentarily became the home of more bands per capita than any place in America.

All four Pylon members--drummer Curtis Crowe, lead singer Vanessa Briscoe (now Briscoe Hay), bassist Michael Lachowski and guitarist Randy Bewley--still live there, playing in their third incarnation (seemingly final breakups in 1983 and 2001 didn't quite take) of one of indie-rock's most important collectives.

Before just their sixth and final show of 2008, a headlining slot at Monday's celebration of WNYU's 35th anniversary at the Knitting Factory, we settled into a long winter's history lesson with co-founders Lachowski and Bewley via video iChat, the band's very first interview with the new technology (as well as ours), which began with Lachowski creating a backdrop of clouds, and then polka dots, for our viewing pleasure. --Rob Trucks

Boy Crisis: check that weird man-ponytail

Oh, Great Depression, if there's a silver lining to you murdering all our livelihoods, putting our friends out of work, instilling unspeakable fear in those of us who didn't follow Jesus into carpentry, it's the hope you will stop songs like Boy Crisis's "L'homme" from coming into this world. This track is everything that's wrong about the Lower East Side--it is I CAN HAS DOWNTOWN compressed into MP3, the Rivington smokers' battalion depicted in a click--pieced together by New York types who mistake weird man-ponytails for creativity. The lyrics are Babelfish doggerel masquerading as witticism: "I feel like a monster truck at the Botanical Garden." Funny, listening to this song, I feel like a Corvette at the dump.

Can you find Ash Bowie? Picture by Brad Searles, kindly borrowed from Bradley's Almanac

Of all the mental hallmarks from the hugely important year that has been 2008, a personal favorite is the Marshall-stack battalion at My Bloody Valentine’s first US reunion show this past September, an amp wall so menacingly and meticulously arranged onstage that it seemed like, as a friend there pointed out, "It could scramble molecules." Certainly felt that way once Kevin Shields and company first kicked into “I Only Said,” one of Loveless's more beloved whale-song pedal washes that, come to think of it, had the miraculous effect of making my nerve-endings ooze. Yep, sorta like that election thing except completely inconsequential, no iPhone snaps or vacation-carousel reverie will do that night, or those amps, or Kutsher's lobby carpeting, justice. (Sorry.)