To my very pleasant surprise, Boilen emailed me back quickly and invited us to join him and the staff at NPR headquarters. And to my great chagrin, something that's lost to the fog of time came up and we were unable to attend. Our great loss.
Boilen announced his resignation from NPR after 35 years in which he built a formidable and influential music program effectively from scratch. In addition to Tiny Desk, he was the driving force behind All Songs Considered, which is an excellent and eclectic ongoing review of new tunes. He and his colleagues dove deep at South by Southwest, encouraged new artists, and generally celebrated music of all kinds.
As even casual readers of this blog know, I love Tiny Desk. We've dropped 13 posts featuring Tiny Desk shows, ranging from Juvenile to the Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet to Jason Isbell to Tash Sultana - just a taste of the diversity Boilen programmed. But the program aired more than 800 live performances, and there's no way I'm qualified to choose the best, so I checked with the experts. Herewith a very partial compilation of terrific tiny shows.
Dua Lipa's 2020 home-based performance holds the top spot in terms of number of views, but the show that led those stats before she took it is widely lauded as the best ever:
I've long been partial to these guys:
And these dudes are a G:TB standby:
Great band, and they recorded this at 10:30 am the morning after a show:
Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings:
Most of the cognoscenti dig this Anderson.Paak performance:
Another one from the G:TB Wheelhouse:
And another:
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12 comments:
almost an expensive lesson in getting out over your skis, hype-wise, for the buffs last night. with hunter out a few weeks, oregon and usc may lay the wood to them.
Worst cheap shot malicious bullshit hit I’ve seen in a long time, maybe ever. Broncos fucker needs to be sent away for a while.
sahith theegala's maiden pga tour win was well received in my home. been a fan of that dude since watching him on the first drive doc series.
They Might Be Giants doing the live Tiny Desk version of "Fingertips" (as embedded above) is just wonderful.
For the unfamiliar (basically all of you except rob and Squeaky), "Fingertips" is a song from their 1992 album Apollo 18. Well, it's actually a collection of 21 short (mostly 5 to 20 second) songs mashed into one track covering four and a half minutes. It's weird, quirky, and utterly unique. One of my favorite novelties in the TMBG catalog. And I figured impossible to do live. I was wrong.
More about Fingertips here.
i believe we saw it live at the 930 once
mel tucker just lit $80+m on fire. what an amazing lapse in humanity and judgment. i'm starting to think a lot of big-time college football coaches might be sociopaths.
i was listening to carseat headrest this weekend! good stuff
Seems like we might need a review of Chick-fil-A’s new Honey Pepper Pimento Chicken Sandwich, eh?
Marls?
i'm your huckleberry
had a spatter incident while making brown butter sage sauce this evening. be careful out there, friends.
Hope you all took advantage of National Cheeseburger Day.
I know Marls would love to see the Mets knock the Marlins out of Wild Card contention. I still enjoy his venom for his namesake ballclub.
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