Alabama Shakes

Houston, we have a buzz band. Discovered by Patterson Hood of Drive By Truckers, Alabama Shakes has so much of the hype machine now running behind them, it threatens to actually run them over. Which would be a shame, because there’s definitely something here. We love this kind of record because it makes hypocrites out of radio guys who otherwise refuse to play the blues. Somehow they’ll argue this is something completely unrelated.

The band is from Athens, Alabama, and they used to just be called “The Shakes.”

Brittany Howard is the lead, and it’s coming out on ATO through RED. Check the lo-fi video performance for “Hold On.”

Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi, Featuring Jack White

In a better-late-than-never clip, this minor public radio hit now has an amazing animated video to accompany Two Against One…

MGMT

While we’re on the animation trip, here’s a different style, but equally compelling clip for MGMT’s All We Ever Wanted…

MGMT – All We Ever Wanted Was Everything

Ingrid Michaelson

This has been around a while, but in case you missed it, in a collage of stills, Michaelson and collaborator Deborah Lopez create a lyric video. Michaelson displays a beautiful pair of glasses, but also commits a classic no-no and turns her back to the camera.

Ghost sounds like a significant departure for the AAA fave…

Ray Manzarek and guitarist Roy Rogers interviewed for our sister site TheBluesMobile.com

Legendary Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek has teamed with bluesman/producer Roy Rogers for a new CD called Translucent Blues.

Manzarek’s resume is well known, but less so is that of Rogers — a critics darling on the blues circuit as a singer, songwriter, and slide guitarist. Rogers also has a stellar reputation as a producer, having revived the career of John Lee Hooker with the album The Healer in 1989.

In our conversation, taped for our sister site TheBluesMobile.com, the two talked not only about the album, which features lyrical contributions from Jim Carroll and Warren Zevon, among others.

Ray also talked about how he came to the blues, as well as the two conversing about Doors guitarist Robby Krieger — and Robby’s surprising first songwriting contribution…

We had cameras rolling.

On Translucent Blues…

On Robby Krieger’s first songwriting contribution to the Doors…

After initially getting tons of viral attention on MySpace and Youtube, the legal eagles stepped in and silenced the soundtrack. But a recent check shows the YouTube version back in action with full soundtrack — but no embed code allowing us to share it with you.

Proceeds from iTunes downloads for the first month will benefit the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society so the muting kind of puts a damper on things.

This is not Ledger’s first music video. He previously directed a clip for Ben Harper.

Check out the clip in full here.