I love NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts. If you haven't seen one and you want to see one, but only one, well I gotta tell ya - it's gotta be T-Pain's:
A short list of the incredible music I have discovered and fallen in love with via NPR's Tiny Desk concert series, in no particular order: - Pokey LaFarge - Lucius - Trombone Shorty - Alt-J - Moon Hooch - Shakey Graves - Rubblebucket - Trampled by Turtles Other performances from artists I already knew:
One of the few benefits to working at this shithole was that artists would come through once or twice a month to play for everybody so that we could be young and hip and know what to program for fuckin' Starbucks'n'shit (even though only like eight people there do the actual programming). As the guy with actual live sound experience, I did a lot of mixing. Which means me, on a 1202, no effects, no compression, fuckin' nothing except a 1202 and a pair of SRM450s, and a 500sqft lobby with max 100 people in it. And Kaki King And Pierre Bensusan And Colin Hay And Feist And Livingston Taylor
Beautiful World is the song that really made me understand what a truly great talent he is. Beautiful, funny, poignant, simple, singable... just wonderful.
He's a prince. Had a great story about touring with Ringo Starr on his private jet, eating caviar and drinking champagne, then the next week driving his own minivan on his own tour and stopping for gas in the Midwest somewhere. The cashier commented on his accent by saying "are you from a land down under?"
This one is one of my very favorites. She does looped violin pieces that are amazing.
This might have been the first one I ever saw of Tiny Desk Concerts. It's a shame T-Pain's use of auto tune became such a meme to his detriment. I'm still impressed by his vocals here. Definitely recommend to anyone stopping by here who hasn't seen it.