At a recent San Francisco stop on the Portlandia tour, Thao & Mirah joined the show’s two stars, Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen, to cover Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It,” basically one of the most perfect songs in the history of the English language. It’s impossible to tell whether they’re joking, but everyone seems to be having fun, so whatever. Watch it below.

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Thao & Mirah just released their excellent self-titled debut as a team. The album was co-produced by tUnE-yArDs’ Merrill Garbus and features several Bay Area musicians assisting multi-instrumentalists Thao Nguyen and Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn at John Vanderslice’s Tiny Telephone studios. The pair also visited New, Improved Recording in Oakland to record this live session. It includes three tracks from their album, as well as this nicely reconfigured version of Pat Benatar’s “Love Is A Battlefield.” Watch video of the live in the studio cover, and grab an MP3 below. Grab the rest of the tracks at the New, Improved, LIVE sessions website.

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This past Saturday and Sunday was the third annual Treasure Island Festival, on San Francisco’s Treasure Island. We sent Josh Bis to capture the weekend in photos.

Although Thao Nguyen’s Get Down Stay Down is a trio, on the just-released Know Better Learn Faster the lineup swells considerably, and with some considerable talent, including Andrew Bird, Laura Veirs, Eric Earley (Blitzen Trapper), Horse Feathers, Steve Berlin (Los Lobos), Jenny Conlee (The Decemberists), and Merrill Garbus aka tUnE-yArDs. None of those fun faces turn up in the video for “When We Swam,” but some others do as the Get Down Stay Down emerge from the water and pilot a loopy beach dance party that ends with an unfairly matched tug o’ war and Thao finding herself buried in the sand. There are metaphors to parse and play with there, but the sunshine and smiles paired with Girls’ similarly sandy clip from earlier in the day have enough appeal on a cold NY day like this one on face value alone. Start planning your beachwear and heartbreaks for summer 2010 and dig in:

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When Jessica sat down with Thao Nguyen for a Progress Report, we were told to expect songs about a real-life breakup on Thao With The Get Down Stay Down’s third album Know Better, Learn Faster. (Note the celebratory heartbreak piñata on the cover.) As far as the sounds, Jessica noted:

While the new record isn’t exactly cathartic, it’s got a stronger rhythmic drive–songs use stomping and clapping, and a new edge to Nguyen’s smokey voice, to convey what she calls, “an undercurrent of frenzied helplessness.”

It’s the perfect description for this barreling title track.

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NAME: Thao Nguyen
PROGRESS REPORT: Releasing her third album, Know Better, Learn Faster, on October 13. Recorded at Portland’s Sound Foundry and Jackpot! Studios, and producer Tucker Martine’s Flora Studios.

If you saw Thao Nguyen with her band, The Get Down Stay Down, more than once during their nonstop touring, you’d see a band getting more comfortable with their own performances. If you saw them late in their tour, you’d also have seen what Nguyen calls “the bro-down showdown,” a rowdier audience responding to the rowdier band. “I think one of our strengths is a more energetic show. Or that’s what we aspire to. It was a goal of mine to kind of convey that energy on the next record,” she says. But there were less fun things she wanted to get across on the record too.

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Thao Nguyen’s We Brave Bee Stings And All last yielded the Play-Doh romp of “Bag Of Hammers.” In “Swimming Pools” the kids are still going wild, but it’s more a Beat Street-style graffiti war (in a lo-fi sense). The clip, directed by Clyde Petersen, who also did “Bag Of Hammers,” moves between friendly neighborhood bike rides, bouncy cowboy boot-accented performance footage, and various stencils and cut-out props (clouds, lightening, rain). Thao manages to get her tag up on a few storage sheds and the like, but her backing band, the Get Down Stay Down, are always there to steal the thunder (or, KRS hoodies in tote, at least share some of the lightning). No worries, she gets ‘em back in the end. As she herself sings, “We don’t dive, we cannonball.”

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Thao Nguyen’s sophomore album We Brave Bee Stings And All has some real jams — see, for instance, “Beat (Health, Life, And Fire).” Maybe the most immediately addictive is “Bag Of Hammers,” packed as it is with Thao’s cathartic “Shake the frame of this house. Distress the wood, make it shout” chorusing and “As sharp as I sting, as sharp as I sing. It just soothes you, doesn’t it? Like a lick of ice cream” riddling. The colorful Clyde Petersen and Forrest Baum-directed video for the song involves lo-fi claymation, starring pesky pre-Gumby kids armed with guitars, the strength to lift houses, and a hardcore jonesing for ice cream. They bathe in the stuff.

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Not too long ago we premiered Thao Nguyen’s “Beat (Health, Life, And Fire),” taking the opportunity to also post her beloved The Sound The Hare Heard track, “Feet Asleep.” Remember? Well now, making a bit like a more camera-stationary Take-Away, the Virginia-born Kill Rock Stars singer-songwriter belts out a seaside rendition of Aretha’s “Baby I Love You” for the first episode of a new iMeem series, The Hive.

Future Hive installments include Emily Jane White, Blu & Exile and a focus on the Seattle Hip-Hop scene. And, speaking of Aretha, the organization MusiCares is honoring her with a big ol’ celebration on 2/8 as their Person Of The Year: If you want more info on the organization, which to quote “provides a safety net of critical assistance for music people in times of need,” or the event, which doesn’t include Hootie, mosey on over here.

Before that happens, though, Thao’s second album We Brave Bee Stings And All is out 1/29 on Kill Rock Stars. There’s lots to love over at her iMeem, including an album stream and another seaside performance video. And if that‘s not enough, check that space on the release date for her track-by-track commentary on the LP. But Thao’s all folks.

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