Cookie Jar

The other day I linked to three free Sufjan Stevens Christmas albums. If that wasn't enough for you to gorge yourself on, I've stumbled across some other cool free stuff lately: • There's a high quality Pedro the Lion show from earlier this year, recorded at Calvin College. It's actually just frontman David Bazan playing solo. It's a great show, too, with a lot of unique stuff, including two Headphones songs (played acoustic!), covers of Randy Newman and Neil Young songs, a brand new song called "Track Review Mother Fucker," a hymn, and, most importantly, David's take on Blockbuster and the importance of having a beard. The show is only online for a limited time, so grab it while you can. • If you're up for a quirky Christmas album by some obscure artists you've never heard of, grab Krismus Karuls. If nothing else, snag the two Half-Handed Cloud tracks. He's on the same label as Sujfan Stevens, lives in Berkeley, and is amazing. Seriously, how can you go wrong with a song called "Asian Meteorologists Predicted the Heavens to Snow Down a Child to Us (Plant a Little Fir Tree)?" (And if you happen to live in Seattle, Half-Handed Cloud is playing at the Crocodile Cafe in early January. You should go. You won't regret it. You know who you are.) • Flux Blog has live tracks up by Kanye West and U2. • Zalm points to a live Over the Rhine show. Actually the Archive archive has nine OTR shows, a couple of which were recorded in Chicagoland. • Phenomenal L.A. rap act L.A. Symphony has a new Christmas track out. There aren't too many good Christmas rap songs out there, but this one isn't bad. Download it here. • Back in the early 90s a band called Chagall Guevara put out a really amazing self-titled album. They soon dissolved dues to problems with their record label. That album is now long out of print, but you can download the entire thing here. Think The Clash but more rock, less punk. That is all. Happy weekend.