Somewhere between “palm trees” and “Randy Newman,” add “film comedians making surprise appearances at concerts” to the list of Los Angeles’ advantages over New York. At a Swell Season performance earlier this week, the charismatically dopey Freaks and Geeks graduate Jason Segel presented an original comic ballad, accompanying himself on piano. The song, a celebrity come-on complete with Segel’s phone number, appears to be an untitled effort. “Remember when I showed my penis in Forgetting Sarah Marshall?” the actor emotes, plaintively. “Well, there were no special effects—so if you like what you saw, well, that’s exactly what I’m working with.” Ladies?

Welcome to Play Count, the Volume’s weekly mix of the best in recent hip-hop. In this edition, new music from Jon Hope, Daytona, Consequence, Joe Budden and more.

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This past May, a two disc compilation-mixtape, A Bugged Out Mix, landed stateside courtesy of British electro group Hot Chip. There was only one original song, “Take It In” (listen to it after the jump). Now, Hot Chip has a longer, remastered version of the song on the Interwebs. It’s the first single from the dance-heavy troupe’s forthcoming full-length, One Life Stand, which is out February 9. The song does what the band does best, combining a balladesque croon with a pulsating beat. It’s clubbing with a conscience. We’ve heard it before on Hot Chip tracks like “You Ride, We Ride, In My Ride,” “Colours,” and “Wrestlers,” but “Take It In” manages to sound vital and fresh. Take it in:

Click through for the original version…

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We’re betting R&B fan and musical polymath Dave Longstreth is pretty stoked about this one: Beyoncé’s li’l sis Solange has covered Dirty Projectors’ summer indie anthem, “Stillness Is the Move.” Unlike the DPs’ version, which starts off bare and then builds to a string-strafed climax, Solange’s reworking is slow and smooth, and has the singer backed up by a mellow bassline and a gorgeous tickly guitar hook. Check it out for yourself, here (thanks to Pitchfork.) After the jump: The official video with Longstreth and a llama.

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Welcome to Play Count, the Volume’s weekly mix of the best in recent hip-hop. In this edition, new music from Pill, Clipse, Wale and more.

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Yep, you read that right. As reported by Pitchfork earlier today, the entire forthcoming album from rock & roll ultragroup Them Crooked Vultures—which you’ve likely heard about either on the Volume or in TONY—is now streaming on the band’s YouTube channel. We’ve yet to digest the full beast, but we’re definitely digging the lean, muscular and thoroughly infectious “Dead End Friends,” hearable above.

Welcome to Play Count, the Volume’s weekly mix of the best in recent hip-hop. In this edition, new music from Lupe Fiasco, Kida, Chip tha Ripper, Beanie Sigel and more.

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You don’t have to be a fan of either Weezer or Kenny G to be at least a smidgen curious as to what the hell this strange collaboration would sound like. A couple of weeks back, Weezer taped five songs for AOL Sessions, with cameo appearances from rapper Chamillionaire, Sara Bareilles and pop-jazz icon Kenny G. Before recording began, G admitted, “I don’t know anything about Weezer—nothing. I’ve heard the name, but I never knew any of their songs [except] some song about a sweater…with the wool coming apart?”

But you know what the funny thing is? Kenny G’s funny little sax spot is easily the most interesting thing about the song. “I’m Your Daddy” is Weezer-by-numbers; power chords, hand claps and a bored-sounding Rivers Cuomo singing the line, “This ain’t predictable” (umm…). Maybe the band thought it would be hilarious to have cheesy old Kenny G play on the track, but musically it’s the creative highlight of the performance. Check it out!

After the jump: G’s diabolical “Songbird.”

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Called “an emblematic band for the 29th CMJ Music Marathon” by Jon Pareles of The New York Times in his festival wrap-up, West Palm Beach’s Surfer Blood is steadily rising to the top of a big ol’ pile of hype.

I didn’t catch them at CMJ, but the quartet’s upcoming debut, Astro Coast, is here on my desk. It’s full of catchy indie rock that’s lined with surf, light reverb and hooky guitars. The record doesn’t get Best New Music-ed by Pitchfork till January so check out “Swim” below and see them on Friday, November 13, with Art Brut at Brooklyn Bowl. And then brag to your friends about how cool and on top of shit you are.

Before CMJ becomes but a foggy memory, we’d like to get a mention in for one of its finest performers. Not some fast-rising, HOTT young band, but rather the soul veteran Lee Fields, who stormed the Daptone showcase at the Knitting Factory—check out the full review and slide show here. Fields strutted onstage in a tight, shiny suit, beaming wickedly, his awesomely ravaged voice backed up by a super-tight brass section and bongos. His finest moment? Undoubtedly the musky, romantic funk of “Ladies.” Ladies flocked to the stage, and Fields knelt down to hold their hands, whispering the song’s sweet nothings: “Young lady, what’s your name? Wow, I know your man’s pleased all the way down to his knees…” and so on. Speaking as one of these ladies, I felt like one of the screaming girls in Top Secret.

And then I discovered that the track had been remixed by Jay-Z–signed rapper J. Cole! The delicious hooks are all there, plus some hilarious “romantic” moments: “Come hop up on this ski jet, you scared of that water or you just scared to get your weave wet? Good lord.” It’s all too much.

Trust us when we say that countless otherwise sage people have sacrificed years of their lives trying to accurately summarize the music of Kayo Dot. Singer, composer and chief conceptualist Toby Driver once allied himself with doom metal’s experimental wing. But over the course of three extraordinary studio albums made with ever-shifting lineups, Kayo Dot has become a protean entity that draws equally upon goth rock, free jazz, prog, contemporary classical music and much, much more.

Coyote, Kayo Dot’s forthcoming album, finds the group continuing to break new ground. Recorded in Seattle with engineer Randall Dunn (Sunn O))), Earth, Six Organs of Admittance), the session features a wind-heavy lineup that combines the pulverizing force of early Kayo Dot with the extraordinary finesse and attention to detail found on the band’s last album, Blue Lambency Downward. In addition to Driver (on bass guitar and vocals) and Kayo Dot mainstay Mia Matsumiya, the group now includes multi-instrumentalists Daniel Means, David Bodie and Terran Olson, plus special guest trumpeter Tim Byrnes. Coyote is due out in early 2010 on Hydra Head, but thanks to the band, the label and Solid PR, the Volume is proud to offer an exclusive preview track: “Whisper Ineffable,” 11 minutes and 15 seconds of shock and awe that could have come only from Kayo Dot.

The thing about Drink Up Buttercup is that it revels in madness. Jumping around at Cake Shop last night, the Philly band felt like an integral part of the audience, and vice versa (which is an admittedly easier task to achieve at a club where the stage is part of the floor). Its music is psychedelic, anthemic and loose. Recordings do not do justice to the quartet’s live act, but all the same, here’s Drink Up Buttercup’s first single on Yep Roc, “Even Think”:

Throughout the set, the group tore at the Christmas lights on the ceiling, banged the walls, the ground, whatever… But toward the end of the performance, the revelry came to a halt when a member paused to take a photo of the audience, which he said he was going to tweet then and there. Sure, all sorts of questions come to mind about whether or not audience members can pay full attention to a group while on Twitter or Facebook, but this was a new one for me. Perhaps it’s not that big of a deal, but it—quite strikingly and poignantly—made me long for a time without cell phones, digital cameras and iPhones at concerts. How can the audience be expected to be fully engaged when the band may not be?

(By the way, make sure to follow me on Twitter for CMJ updates!)

Click through for a cool widget where you can download both sides of Drink Up Buttercup’s new single, and see the rest of the band’s CMJ schedule and beyond.

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Last night at Cake Shop, the California duo known as Best Coast began its performance by saying, “Tonight our drummer is a MiniDisc player. It’s a lot cheaper than the real thing.” Bethany Cosentino and Bob Bruno’s performance didn’t suffer, though, and Best Coast breezed through a lo-fi set full of stoned, surf buzzes and fuzzes.

Check out a recent tune by the group, “Sun Was High (So Was I),” which is set to clips from the 1966 French film A Man and a Woman:

Like many rock musicians, Tim Rutili fell into a singing career while sniffing out other artistic pursuits—in his case, filmmaking. Music has proved a creatively lucrative sideline for the Chicagoan, pilot of the storied ’90s band Red Red Meat and its quieter ’00s spin-off, Califone. Rutili’s worlds collide in All My Friends Are Funeral Singers, which doubles as the new Califone album and a feature film written and directed by the singer. The movie involves a fortune-teller, ghosts of old vaudevillians and a band portrayed by Califone itself. The soundtrack, on Dead Oceans, includes the band’s typical fare: murky, multilayered songs that can seem comforting or disturbing, depending on one’s perspective or mood. On October 23, Califone plays a special concert at 92YTribeca, where the band will perform a live soundtrack to Rutili’s film. Here is one of the album’s ballads, no doubt informed by Califone’s Chicago origins, “Polish Girls.”

Exactly when Michael Jackson penned and taped the rough demo of “This Is It,” the new single released to the world via the Internet at midnight last night, may never be pinned down. What must surely be the case, though, is that the bittersweet ballad—treated to a slick arrangement with strings and his brothers’ backing vocals—is probably just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to unreleased studio tracks from the late pop icon. This one is particularly timely, given that the title was also to be the name of Jackson’s planned 50-concert series in London; now, as you’re probably well aware, the title has been attached to a new documentary film based on rehearsal footage, which opens October 28. The soundtrack album arrives in stores a day earlier, and will surely leak to the the Net before that—dig around hard enough right now and you can already find your very own copy of this single, which (according to official word) won’t be released on its own. It might not be first-rate Michael—but it’s previously unheard Michael all the same, and worth the tiny pang of remorse it’ll certainly stir in anyone who listens.

A few years ago, the actor and singer Charlotte Gainsbourg released 5:55, a lovely slip of an album featuring songwriting and performance contributions by Jarvis Cocker, Neil Hannon and Air. Though she did not play New York concerts following its release, Gainsbourg essentially took up residency at the Angelika, with roles in The Science of Sleep, I’m Not There (she purred “Just Like a Woman” on the soundtrack) and, of course, the new Lars von Trier rom-com. Next year, the French artist returns to music with the album IRM, which will be released in January through Because Music/Elektra. She has found the ideal producer in Beck—who, as with Cocker, seems to relish playing Lee Hazlewood to the world’s Nancy Sinatras. (Or is that Serge Gainsbourg to its Jane Birkins?) Beck and Gainsbourg share similar backgrounds: Both are half-Jews from an arty lineage, and both radiate detached cool, hers Parisian and his Californian. Today, Gainsbourg made the LP’s title track available on her website. Where her previous album seemed designed for a Sunday nap, “IRM” grooves, with big, busy drums and the aloof vocals of a nightclub. Click here for TONY’s 5:55 review, here for TONY’s Beck interview and here for the new song.

Beloved local world-pop preppies Vampire Weekend have a new record, titled Contra, which comes out in January of next year. The band has put out of a new track, “Horchata,” full of much of what we’d expect from them: cultural references (we also enjoy horchata!), African percussion, string accompaniments and…wait, was that a fart joke?

One thing that is noticeably absent from the song is, for lack of a better term, catchiness. It’s just not very hooky or memorable—this coming from the crafters of never-leave-your-head tunes like “M79″ and “A-Punk.” We’d say Contra is beginning to smell of sophomore slump, but it’s too early to tell. Maybe they just ate a bunch of Mexican food this summer.

Download the track here.

Welcome to Play Count, the Volume’s weekly mix of the best in recent hip-hop. In this edition, new music from Homeboy Sandman, Diz Gibran, Theo Martins and B.o.B., and more.

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The world remains hypnotized by the latest batch of Beatles reissues, which have given fans and critics alike the opportunity to reassess the Liverpool band: As it turns out, the Beatles were good! Yet the newly reissued disc that I cannot stop playing is by another venerated rock quartet, the Feelies—specifically, the Jersey band’s 1980 debut LP, Crazy Rhythms, which has been given a new life by Hoboken’s Bar/None Records. I heard this album from time to time over the years, but for some reason never fully connected with it until now. The Feelies are worth the fuss—they are wired, nerdy and particular; wholly individualistic without reaching for eccentricity. While the band predated contemporary indie rock by years, its mannerisms course through sundry albums of the past ten years, perhaps most lucratively those by the Strokes and Interpol. Here is the one track on Crazy Rhythms not penned by the Feelies’ Glenn Mercer and Bill Million. (Its original version appears on another popular 2009 reissue.)

Welcome to Play Count, the Volume’s weekly mix of the best in recent hip-hop. In this edition, new music from Jadakiss, Sha Stimuli, Royce da 5′9″, Consequence and more.

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Consequence ft. Rick Ross - “The More I Get”
Queens MC Consequence links up with Officer Ricky for a feel-good tune about hustling and the constant want for more. Cons has always had an exuberant work ethic leading up to new projects, and appears to be back to the grind for the upcoming Cons TV.

Royce da 5′9″- “Taxi Driver”
Nickle Nine gets on his storytelling tip, taking you on a journey with his passengers, “hip” and “hop.”  Careful listeners will pick up the hints in Royce’s wordplay and borrowed flows, revealing the travelers as caricatures of the late greats, Pac and Biggie.

Sha Stimuli ft. Freeway & Young Chris - “Move Back”
The latest leak from Sha Stimuli’s next project, My Soul to Keep, finds the MC hooked up with stars from the once-great Roc Dynasty, including superproducer Just Blaze.

Mike Dreams - “Gettin Ours”
An upbeat tune about focusing on numero uno, while ignoring the ever-prevalent “haters” of hip-hop.

Sir Aah ft. The Clipse - “Let’s Go”
DMV’s Sir Aah brings in talented Virginia duo the Clipse, who impress once again with their ability to catch and flow on any beat.

Charles Hamilton ft. Show Tufli - “Long Socks”
After local rapper Charles Hamilton was dropped by Interscope, his unreleased major-label debut, This Perfect Life, found its way to the Internet. Although the album was overshadowed by controversy over Hamilton’s personal life, the project still shows signs of the talent that impressed throughout his Hamiltonization Process, and has been missing for months since.

Vibes - “Fly”
Newcomer Vibes may have some top talent on the mike (Tanya Morgan, Royce da 5′9″) to draw listeners into his mixtape, The New Generation, but it’s his solo tracks and stellar production from Trackfiends and 6th Sense that make this a standout project.

Jadakiss - “Take Me to NY”
Kiss spits a short dedication to New York. Great as it is to hear new Jada, it’s still a far cry from Hova’s “Empire State of Mind.”