Don’t you love Christmas music? I’m Jewish so mostly it makes me feel like I’m in a mall. But don’t you love malls? I’ve been trying to get my daughter to listen to The Nutcracker, and that’s been pretty easy because she’s only three and doesn’t have a choice. But if Tchaikovsky’s not your speed there are always new XMas jams from indie rockers to keep you in the holiday spirit. Once again we’ve collected this year’s free additions to the canon since it should only be a Sufjan Christmas so many years in a row. (And once again we are using the term “indie rock” a bit loosely.) The 2011 crop is heavy on covers — there are four versions of Vince Guaraldi’s “Christmas Time Is Here” alone (one courtesy of AVClub‘s excellent Holiday Undercover ’11) — though there are plenty of originals, too. Props to Summer Camp for covering my two favorite modern XMas pop songs at once. Merry downloading.

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Last night, vintage-soul revivalist Mayer Hawthorne took his color-coordinated outfits and his choreographed dance steps to the stage at the Late Show With David Letterman. Hawthorne sang “The Walk,” and Dave made fun of his sunglasses. Watch it below.

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Lollapalooza celebrated its twentieth anniversary in Chicago over the weekend with headline performances by Eminem, Foo Fighters, Coldplay, and Muse. It was the support acts, however, that really excited us. So like he did at Bonnaroo, our tireless photog/artist wrangler Graeme Flegenheimer (with help from The Impossible Project) distributed Polaroid cameras and film to 23 bands — 24 if you count Eminem, who dropped out at the last minute (I forgive him) — to capture exclusive behind-the-scenes moments. The snaps reveal how our favorite bands passed the hours in Grant Park, from shotgunning beers (Black Lips) to meeting Elijah Wood (Tennis) to dry humping backstage (that first photo of Arctic Monkeys above). Many bands took shots of the audience from the stage so now you’ll know what it feels like to be a Car. Some of these Polaroids include scrawled notes; Grouplove get extra credit for decorating theirs with cartoons. Take a look at each image’s caption to learn from whose vantage point you’re looking. There’s a lot to sift through, though, so you can use this handy list to jump ahead to the band(s) that interest you:

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How did you celebrate July 4th? On a rooftop BBQ listening to our summer mix? Maybe you stayed in and watched old episodes of Hoarders on Roku? Maybe I stayed in and did that. There is no way to know. But all across this great country we do know there were fireworks to be seen and Beyonce to be heard singing “God Bless America” live on TV.

Via the magic of Twitter we also know some of our favorite musicians spent the day overeating, overdrinking, watching Independence Day, and in two cases, recklessly planking. I’ve posted the best tweets below chronologically, and collected any attached photos in a gallery above. Click through for pics of Bethany Cosentino’s boob coozie, the National and Beirut sharing a meal, Mrs. Wayne Coyne topless with Cheetos, and a photo of outdoor fireworks from Ducktails intended to rub it in to those of us you who spent the night inside watching Hoarders. Whoever they may be.

Oh, and FlyLo dropped a free 2hr24min MP3 mix of his favorite songs for summer, so don’t miss the DL link in his tweet.

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Mayer Hawthorne, aka Andrew Mayer Cohen, is releasing his six-track Impressions covers EP online this week. It includes takes on songs by Jon Brion, The Isley Brothers, and Chromeo. All the songs have stories around their selection, whether about how they were recorded (Cohen’s dad plays on one track) or how he discovered the original (through record store hunts, friends, or label head Peanut Butter Wolf). He recorded this cover of ELO’s “Mr. Blue Sky” “… live, in one take, in a tiny makeshift tent, at a festival in Dour, Belgium” with his band, The County. Listen/download below:

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When we posted the Outside Lands festival lineup, we mentioned how the San Fransisco festival tried to fit it “between a jam and a rock space,” especially with Further (featuring the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir and Phil Lesh) and the Strokes headlining on Saturday. According to our photographer Graeme Flegenheimer there was a hippie/hipster divide on day one, with most of the former camping by the Further stage to get a good spot for the night. People who stuck to the Strokes stage got a six-song encore — maybe not a Grateful Dead-length show, but 17 songs total. The next day dedicated fans did the same for Kings Of Leon. Fortunately the weather/vibe was, according to Graeme, “sunny and fun.” He finished up Sunday by catching the Outside Lands afterparty at The Mezzanine, where Jimmy Cliff headlined.

Friday got us dancing with LCD and Jay-Z, Saturday featured less clothing, and Sunday closed things out with a generally mellower lineup (plus more amazing weather). It was fitting the reunited Pavement played “In The Mouth A Desert.” Because the desert is where people were watching them. Even if it didn’t feel especially arid. Less great? The crowd they drew was sparse. Sparser than last year’s loveless gathering for MBV. (Another “influential” band who won’t sell out MSG.) Regardless, the faithful were present and Malkmus & Co. opened with “Silence Kit,” did “In The Mouth,” an moved forward to “Stereo” and “Frontwards” and onward. It wasn’t as long a set list as the band’s pre-Coachella warmup in Pomona — still, plenty of jams. As far as folks from the ’90s who don’t have to worry about packing a place, Thom Yorke/Atoms For Peace‘s set was excellent: You don’t know how much The Eraser is missing Flea until you hear Thom performing The Eraser with Flea. (Yorke dedicated “Atoms for Peace” to Pavement, which is basically dedicating your band to another band, right?) After Thom and his Atoms worked through The Eraser, he returned with a solo “Airbag” (on guitar) and “Everything In Its Right Place” (on piano), then brought the band out for “some mad shit.” (Speaking of mad shit, what’s up with Sly and his extended delay/on-stage lawsuit tirade?) (A: Sly was just being Sly.) Another big finale set came via Gorillaz, who had a pre-recorded Snoop Dogg as well as real-life De La Soul, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, and Bobby Womack to help them bring their Plastic Beach to Indio. They also had strings and gay sailors. There was actually tons of this kind of cross-pollination and guesting: Justice did a set as part of Club 75, at the Sahara tent, Spoon brought Bradford Cox out again, etc … Sadly, though, no Beck for Charlotte Gainsbourg. Otherwise, regrets were few. As these photos — taken by lenses abler than ours — illustrate.

“Green Eyed Love” is the downbeat album-closer from Michigan soul singer Mayer Hawthorne’s Stones Throw debut LP, A Strange Arrangement. On first blush its lyrics seem to suggest he’s got a thing with a tempestuous, ill-advised green-eyed girlfriend. Or with weed. The twist is that Mayer’s green comes not via girls or herb, but through slotted spoons and sugarcubes. A fix of absinthe later, Hawthorne’s watching lips grow out of bathroom tiles and girls get multiplied and colorized; not your average look for soul-rooted music, coming from a guy who’s not your average look for a soul-rooted artist.

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At Seattle’s biggest music festival, rain is not unexpected; still, the downpours at Bumbershoot ’09 were scary even for this neck of the Pacific Northwest. No bands got electrocuted, but the sound cut out during Black Eyed Peas’ set, so that’s something. Franz Ferdinand and Modest Mouse were huge draws as the three-day event came to an end last night: Isaac Brock even claimed he was performing with a cracked rib, “but I did it to myself.” The previous day, Yeah Yeah Yeahs enjoyed a rare break in the weather and introduced a new touring keyboardist named Jessica. Other highlights: kids crowd-surfing on an inflatable turtle during Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head, the reunited Os Mutantes at the KEXP Lounge, and De La Soul covering Gorillaz’ “Feel Good Inc” with a full band. Photogs Josh Bis and Josh Lovseth were on hand to capture all the excitement.

Los Angeles-via-Ann Arbor singer/DJ/producer/multi-instrumentalist Mayer Hawthorne basically does everything on A Strange Arrangement, his debut full-length for Stones Throw. He has a sort of throwback Detroit soul sound and cites Isaac Hayes, Curtis Mayfield, Barry White, Leroy Hutson, Smoke Robinson, etc., as influences. It’s smooth stuff that ought to be enjoyed by a wide demographic. Maybe the Strange in the album title comes from the fact that the somewhat nerdy Hawthorne isn’t your usual soul crooner? As the copy at Stones Throw puts it:

Few expect such heartfelt sentiment to come from a 29-year-old white kid from Ann Arbor, but he has caught the ear of his family at Stones Throw, as well as BBC Radio 1 host Gilles Peterson and producer/DJ Mark Ronson.

Of course, Ronson. As an introduction, we have A Strange Arrangement‘s “Your Easy Lovin’ Ain’t Pleasin’ Nothin’” as well as the Henry DeMaio-directed video for “Maybe So, Maybe No.”

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