Jane, Lu and I drove to Mozambique for a few days in Jane’s green car, which developed a penchant for honking randomly at the least (or most) opportune times. We went to Maputo and Praia do Bilene. Here are some photos:

Things I wish I had photographed:

• The scuba shop owner with the toe tag tattoo
• The “Africa” nightclub in Maputo
• The two sketchy guys who followed us around Maputo after the nightclub
• The old islamic teacher I met from Swaziland
• The border crossing
• Jane and Lu
• The green car

Another really quite amazing video from Ok Go.

Ok Go – All Is Not Lost

Purchase from iTunes, Amazon

I’m looking forward to an official release of this. It sounds as if the mp3 below was ripped from the video, so it has the sound effects. They feel right in the video, but less so in the audio track.

Lana Del Rey – Video Games

Via The Awl.

UPDATE 7/29: See? Marina Diamandis likes her too. We think alike.

Could not handle @LanaDelRey’s beauty tonight. She is 1 of the true beauty queens. Listen to her music. Love u, gf.

Austra is a band from Toronto that owes much to Siouxsie and the Banshees. I think you will like it.

Austra – Lose It

Picture taken by Leah Lin at Music Hall of Williamsburg. The show was amazing.

Sleigh Bells – A/B Machines

Pulp – Common People

There are so many magic moments in Girl Talk’s new album All Day, released yesterday on Illegal Art, but IMO nothing tops Radiohead vs Wu Tang Ol Dirty Bastard at 3:11 on the track below.

Girl Talk – Jump on Stage

A full list of samples is on Wikipedia.

Update: On this site you can listen and see the sample credits as it plays.

Beautiful, transcendent show at Mercury Lounge last night. Opening band was The Dig, who were great and are having a record release party at Mercury in early June.

They also played a new song, Popinjay, video is below. I’ve already posted too much TJF so here’s a link to get the song on Amazon.

The Grates played an an amazing show at Brooklyn Bowl last night. I took some photos with this Sony CyberShot Leah is lending me, but I haven’t quite figured it out yet. Flash or no flash? There was this one part where Patience rode someone’s shoulders out into the crowd and it was a great moment but dark. The only shots I got were when I overlapped with someone else’s flash. Anyway you can see at Flickr.

The Grates: Inside Outside

It was an excellent show tonight at the Bell House. I think she noticed that I knew pretty much all the words to all the songs. It was her first show in the US! It was a big excited crowd and a warm welcome.

Update 4/7 Ok so obviously she noticed. From her blog:

I had 2 sold out shows in new york which may have been the most enjoyable experiences of my life.