If you're in NYC and you love Transference, or any other pitstop along Spoon's reliably banging discog for that matter, you might want to head to Mercury Lounge like three hours ago. The band's playing a show at the 200-capacity E. Houston Street venue tonight, tickets available at the door, first come first served. If the line's already 200-people deep at this point (likely), the next best thing we can offer are sights and sounds from a similarly intimate session the band played for KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic in Los Angeles yesterday. Since the station's own studios were commandeered for a pledge drive, Spoon recorded at the Village Recorder, where Elton John and Ringo Starr happened to be passing their time. (Eno importantly reports on the look of Sir Elton's puppy. Report being: Cute!) KCRW kindly accommodated photographer Andrew Youssef, and AY kindly delivers this set of shots from the seven-song set (scorecard: five new, one Girls Can Tell, one Gimme Fiction). Stream it here, check the setlist and vid from the proceedings below, and somebody, anybody, please let us know the scene at Merc tonight.

Matador co-founder Gerard Cosloy lives in Austin when not taking care of business at the NYC-based label. If you recall, in 2009 his Lindell Avenue home burned down. Sad shit, but less than 12 months after that, he's put together the 19-track Casual Victim Pile, a compilation that documents what, to his ears, is going on musically in his hometown. Most folks know Austin as the site of SXSW, of course. People who like to connect things historically also know it is/was the breeding ground for 13th Floor Elevators, Butthole Surfers, Nice Strong Arm, Dicks, Scratch Acid, Averse Sefira, ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, Shearwater, Spoon, etc. Publicly nodding at Matador's 1991 underground NYC comp New York Eye & Ear Control and reminding me of the great regional label Datapanik or a Maxium Rock'n'Roll scene report, Casual Victim Pile includes bands much smaller and still on the rise than those listed. But it's not definitive. Or, as Cosloy notes, "This compilation is only meant to reflect what I like in Austin circa 2008-2010 and you can probably name the inexcusable omissions just as quickly as I can..." I've mentioned in the past that I dug Cosloy's old zine Conflict, so it's nice getting his salty two cents here:

The concept behind Peter Gabriel's forthcoming indie rock covers project is an intriguing one: it's a song swap, Peter singing over orchestral reinterpretations of songs from a staggering list of artists -- Bon Iver, Lou Reed, the Mag Fields, Radiohead, Bowie, Talking Heads, etc. -- with the intention of creating "a dialogue with the writers," paving the way for a companion piece in which a string of artists would return the favor. The first installment is Scratch My Back, which Peter put together with Bob Ezrin and John Metcalfe. Our first full listen is this take on Arcade Fire's "My Body Is A Cage," and unsurprisingly, its gothic bombast is a fine foil for Metcalfe's symphonic arrangement. It's the only song from the collection to feature a choir. Gabriel spoke in depth about the cover in this podcast, calling Arcade Fire a "self-contained" universe, and explaining both his take on the song and intention in reworking it. Here it is in Peter's words, along with the song itself in Peter's voice, which is something you should listen to fairly immediately:

Back in July we told you the White Stripes' Emmett Malloy-directed tour documentary Under Great White Northern Lights was appropriately premiering at the Toronto Film Festival. Appropriate because the film follows Jack and Meg's 2007 cross-country, all-province Canadian tour. If you missed it, no big deal: In March you can get yourself the documentary along with the duo's first-ever live album. The album features 16 songs, recorded at various shows, and will be out on vinyl, CD and in a special limited-edition box set. We have the tracklist and other details.