NPR's "Tiny Desk Concert" series is a staple of the world of musical social media. Artists head into the Washington, DC offices of NPR and perform stripped down versions of their songs to the assembled NPR staff. There have been some great ones. Off the top of my head, I can think of recent performances by Beach Slang, Hop Along, and Mitski. T-Pain gave a particularly revelatory performance. Basically, if your favorite artist has been in the midst of an album cycle at any time in the last several years, they've probably played at the Tiny Desk.
Last year, NPR gave unsigned, undiscovered talent the opportunity to vie for a spot at the desk when they launched the "Tiny Desk Contest." Bands submitted a new video and were entered for the opportunity to perform their own Tiny Desk Concert. Fantastic Negrito took the title, but there were tons of great submissions. Just this past Monday night, as a matter of fact, I got a little misty watching YJY perform as I thought back on the fact that my first introduction to them was through their Tiny Desk Contest video for "Through Being Hip."
In that spirit of discovery, I figured I'd share a few of the local-ish submissions with you here. If you or your band have done a video for this year's contest, let me know and I'll try to post it up here. If you haven't done one and would like to, I think you have until February 2nd.
This batch includes the upbeat folk pop of Fun While You Wait, the amazing solar-powered, homemade prog of Homeless Apians, the hippy pop of The Porchistas, and the epic alt rock of Wyland.
Head over to the Tiny Desk Contest site to check out the rules and to browse through all the videos posted so far. You may find a new favorite band.
Fun While You Wait (Freehold), "Target"
Homless Apians (Asbury Park), "Keeps"
The Porchistas (Montclair), "Apolitical Science"
Wyland (Kearny), "Without You"
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