Township, "Sandy" (Flophouse Sessions, Feb 2008)

Jen and Andy, the betrothed Somerville duo behind the fantastic Band in Boston Podcast, have recorded many of our favorite local indie bands for their "Flophouse Sessions" -- a series taped live in the pair's living room, on stripped-down gear, and given away free on teh internets.

DOWNLOAD: Hooray for Earth, "Warm Out" (mp3)

Hooray for Earth: odd band. Get 'em drunk, and they're liable to belt out a Justin Timberlake hit, or maybe one of Jacko's. Left on his own, their singer has been known to crank out Magnetic Fields covers. In their own right, HFE have carved out a unique niche that's equal parts indie breadth and metal brawn, like a second coming of Queens of the Stone Age.

DOWNLOAD: White Hinterland, "Dreaming of the Plum Trees" (mp3)

Back when she was studying at New England Conservatory, Casey Dienel put out a demo called "Grandmother Rock," a quick suite of songs suggesting rocking chairs more than rock-n-roll, a genre you'd coin if you were precocious, shy, and out of love with your generation.

Sure, it was only two songs. (Turns out they had a third ready to go, but decided against it. What, the applause wasn't loud enough? "Exactly," said Chris Brokaw.) But since this was the first time Come have performed since their 2 1/2-hour farewell gig at the MidEast's downstairs room back in -- what, 1998? -- well, this was pretty fucking rad.

Our old pals (and former PHX tourbloggers) Tigersaw are off again, this time to Europe (dates below for our Continental peoples), but they threw down at PA's Lounge before embarking, and trotted out a new song, "Words Not Used In Books," that'll be on their next album.

We've watched those Dead Trees kids since they were but little pups playing far better Pavement knbockoffs than a bunch of 16-year-olds had any right to

Hard to believe it's been ten years since Aaron Turner started Isis -- and eight years since we wrote this. Back then, Aaron was still at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, his LP sleeves were redefining the aesthetics of metal, Isis had released all of one EP (on Escape Artist, a label then-Relapse publicist Gordon Conrad had formed specifically to put out the Isis demo), and Hydrahead was home to Cave In and Converge.

From KinoDV's awesome archive of punk- and postpunk-era vids -- captured by MIT geeks with some of the first portable video equipment at a slew of long-lost Boston rockdives -- comes this month's treasure: Mission of Burma performing "Manic Incarnation" live at the Underground in 1980. If you ever wondered where Shellac and Big Black got their guitar sound, now you know.

It wasn't that long ago that the National sold out the Roxy, so we didn't expect to see them back this soon: turns out they came back for a fans-only gig put on by WFNX -- which, as frontman Matt Berninger acknowledged from the stage, is one of the few commercial radio stations to play their music.

If it's good enough for JoJo, it's good enough for emo.

Over the summer we brought you Foxboro's favorite teenage pop-tart launching her comeback with a cover/rework/response to Sean Kingston's "Beautiful Girls," itself a thinly-veiled cover of the Boomer national anthem, "Stand By Me." Stop the presses: now Casey Crescenzo -- formerly of the Receiving End of Sirens, now leading his own band, the Dear Hunter -- has issued his own cover of Kingston's chart-topper.

Here, in its entirety, is the set Spoon played to a roomful of about 30 WFNX listeners and friends-of-OTD last week at First Act, prior to their big shew at the Roxy. By now everyone knows the single, but if you listen to only one of these we highly recommend "Black Like Me," which kills and feels like the "What Goes Around" to Underdog's "Sexy Back."

DOWNLOAD: Sleepyhead, "Whoville" (mp3)

Before Low and Bedhead made playing really slow an act of indie virtue (and virtuosity), there was Sleepyhead: a not egregiously sleepy band, but one whose noisy, shambolic-yet-deliberate pop felt identifiably post–Sonic Youth. Their nine-year run ended in '99; co-leaders Chris O'Rourke and Rachel McNally got married, procreated, and moved from NYC to Boston.

DOWNLOAD: Magic People, "Laundry Night" (mp3)

On its face, the latest bit from avant-psychpunx Magic People is a wobbly, passive-aggressive love song to the girl whom ringleader John Manson bumps into at the washing machine every week. But like many Magic People songs, it moves quickly from the mundane into a vast, scary, existential crisis: Manson could’ve called this one "Judgment Night" if the title weren’t already taken.