To entertain myself I’ve been watching YouTube videos. Here’s one of Kermit singing LCD Soundsystem.

Reminds me of one of my favorite movies as a kid, The Muppets Take Manhattan. And I can’t tell from the video, but is that actually James Murphy at the end? Kind of looks like it.

Here’s the video:

The lyrics, according to songlyrics.com are:

Is it much to admit I need
A solid soul and the blood I bleed
With a little girl, and by my spouse
I only want a proper house

I don’t care for fancy things
Or to take part in a precious race
And children cry for the one who has
A real big heart and a father’s grace

I don’t mean to seem like I care about material things like a social status
I just want four walls and adobe slabs for my girls

The song is a manta on simplicity – something I’ve wanted to strive towards with often little success. The problem is I’m a fan of shiny pretty things – I even just wrote a post about the spiffy products I tried and liked in 2008. Moreover, I’m a pack rat by nature and there’s a whole storage unit back in L.A. full of my and Bronwyn’s “stuff.” But that’s all the more reason why this song appeals to me. Moving to Japan has shown me how little we need materially, having arrived with only a couple of suitcases and a bicycle and not acquiring much more since then. I’ve got the things I need at this point in my life. Four walls and my girl? Check. If I can remember that then hopefully I can keep clear of the clutter, and when we get back to L.A. maybe it’s time for a garage sale.

If you want to hear similarly horrible (or similarly awesome, depending on your tastes) non-traditional holiday music, I highly recommend giving SomaFM’s Xmas in Frisko internet radio station.

I’d say this is their best effort to date. They’ve put together a complex array of aural textures while still delivering simply blissful and balanced pop sensibilities. Meanwhile, singers Erin Fein and Tristan Wraight sound better than ever. Their first single off the album, “Cherry Tulips,” (mp3) is the finest example of all this. There is a constant layering and swelling of sound that is kept in a dreamy satisfying check with the wistful calls of the guitar slides and Erin’s lovely “woo-oo-ooh’s”. Anyways, here’s the video.

Headlights, who have amassed a stunning amount of tour dates since their inception, are currently on tour to support the new album. They’ll be swinging by the Silverlake Lounge in Los Angeles on March 19, after what will surely be a rocking good time for them at SXSW.