Get smitten: "All For the Best" by Thom Yorke

Yeah it's a cover song, but it's still the best thing I've heard all year.

Get smitten: Moggs

I fucking love when this happens. I'm innocently browsing The List for some show of worth to take place the coming weekend, skipping over the same old same old all-punk/all-metal bills that dominate many a San Francisco dive bar lineup, scanning through the Celine Dions and the Coldplays stinking up the HP Pavilions out yonder until I can pare The List down to the nitty gritty: bands that I kinda sorta am familiar with yet am still hesitant about investing more time/money in, and bands that I know absolutely nothing about. This is how I found Moggs. How the hell I hadn't heard of the Petaluma duo before now is an anomaly seeing as how they've toured the Bay Area religiously since 2001. I spotted their scheduled appearance March 15 at the Hemlock Tavern and wandered over to their MySpace page, where I was blown away upon first listen of "Smoke, Mirrors," a brooding rock groove that conjures the off-kilter guitar riffs and percussive blitzkrieg of Slint along with the unemotive (a good thing) vocals and fuzzy shoegaze wash of Autolux. Clean and pure dirty art rock at its finest. I think some covert music society may have been keeping guitarist/vocalist Justin M. and drummer/vocalist Cara LP a secret to keep this totally sparkling local band all to themselves. It's good to explore the unknown ...

Disco - Moggs

Get smitten: The Airborne Toxic Event

Mikel Jollett once discovered the perfect complement to his band’s live stage setup in a junkyard.

The frontman of Los Feliz five-piece The Airborne Toxic Event had trekked to a local facility along with drummer Daren Taylor to sift through rubbish in search of a “big metallic sound.” With golf club and bat in hand, the two began banging until they stumbled upon just the right clunk: the hood of a 1969 Alfa Romeo, which would later be incorporated into the gaggle of L.A. shows that Airborne would play over the next year. Continue reading.

Get smitten: Thailand

“Change” may be the political buzzword of 2008, but it has always been a mantra for L.A. new wave/post-punk trio Thailand. Figuring out what works – and what doesn’t – took core members Marc Linquist (vocals, beats, guitar) and Staci Roark (synths, vocals) on an edifying journey through lineup additions and subtractions, new locales, fresh approaches to songwriting and a challenging transition from bedroom band to a live rock act that fearlessly uses a drum machine to create music on its own terms. Continue reading. *P.S. Must check out the track "Control Control" on Thailand's MySpace.*

Get smitten: Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin

Before you read the name of the next indie-pop sensations Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin, hop aboard the Joseph McCarthy ignoramus bus and deem them pinkos, take a listen and you'll quickly discover that the Springfield, Mo., quartet make up a quintessentially American, guys-from-next-door sorta group; the kind of band that could compose the perfect soundtrack to John Cusack films circa '86; that could introduce each and every song with "This is a song about love"; that shops for collars and khakis at Aberzombie and Fitch. Not too many indie-pop acts can claim victory in the battle of bland, but SSLYBY manage to overcome sugary sweet dullness with solid, irresistibly bouncy melodies and -- really -- massive testicular gravitas in an engagingly rocking live set. Think The Shins and Vampire Weekend. For all their sonic magnetism, I've got a non-musical quibble. Dudes: How about a shorter band name? Even SSLYBY ties the tongue. Oh well. Check out "Oregon Girl":

Get smitten: The Dodos

The two glist'nin guys and pints of sweat pouring from the stage should tell you something without having to hear a lick or beat: San Francisco's The Dodos are one of the hardest working - and most compelling - live acts around. I caught these guys opening for post-punk prom kings Les Savy Fav at the Great American Music Hall the other night and discovered why I keep seeing their name sprinkled among cognoscente indie music blog topics du jour. It's a symbiosis made in heaven: fanciful vocalist/acoustic-electric hard strummer/looper extraordinaire Meric Long and relentless drummer/mustache master Logan Kroeber. Their sound is hard to classify, but imagine a fairy tale folk pop hard rock mashup. The Dodos' hypnotizing, utterly rocking intensity is mighty worthy of bearing witness, even for those who wouldn't normally profess to liking bands that lay on the top hipster lists. Bay Area heads can check 'em out for free May 14 at Amoeba in San Francisco. In the meantime, watch The Dodos' live "Jodi":

Get smitten: The Mission Orange

Ooh. Few bands have me at hello, as they say, but I turned all 12-year-old girl at a Beatles concert circa 1964 the second I heard The Mission Orange, this noisy garage duo from Mount Vernon, Washington. You know - where George Washington was appointed the first president of hemp. Anyways, these two guys've got this totally infectious energy, and sound all dirty like Nirvana in the Bleach days: loud, fuzzy, distorted, melodious and way rocking, a sort of punk/rock hybrid, with the vocalist/guitarist Marcus Nevitt, who's still in high school, resembling Kurt Cobain in screams and Layne Stayley in yowls (there is a difference). Distortion + pop hooks = smittenness So check out their debut full-length album Seasick for 11 gobs of planet-sized loveliness if you're the type who can appreciate a little bit of sugar in their spaghetti.