Budweiser’s going indie. The King of Beers tapped indie-troubadour M. Ward for their recent “It’s What We Do” commercials. The ongoing series features “Never Had Nobody Like You” — a duet with Ward’s She & Him partner, actress Zooey Deschanel, off of 2009’s Hold Time.
The syntax-challenged duo are set to returning with an aptly named [...]

The first MP3 from Monsters of Folk has hit the blogosphere – “Say Please.” This band practically defines the term “supergroup,” as a band comprised of Bright Eyes‘ Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James and singer-songwriter M. Ward is quite impressive, given their already-established individual reputations. The band’s debut self-titled album [...]

Merge Records just released a video for “Rave On”, the second single from M. Ward’s 2009 release Hold Time (read our review here). The video was directed by Mike Please and features backup vocals from Ward’s She & Him partner, the lovely Zooey Deschanel.

MP3:
M. Ward – “Rave On” [f. Zooey Deschanel]

Hold Time, M. Ward’s seventh full length album, was released today, although if Ward were to commandeer a time machine to 1958 and release it then, it’s likely no one would recognize him as an interloper.
The album is a sonic throwback on every level. It’s full of reverb-heavy Fender Stratocaster guitar work, and thematically, it [...]

As 2008 comes to a close, we at Stranger Dance are starting to look forward to what 2009 holds. A number of our favorite artists (Andrew Bird, Bon Iver, Jason Isbell, M. Ward, Wilco, etc.) have confirmed upcoming albums and even more are flirting with the idea.
A few things stuck out to us while compiling [...]

It’s finally here. Though the months of anticipation, Outside Lands-related posts and Radiohead worship have been fun here at the Stranger Dance, it’ll be nice to get this bitch done with, so we can have some fun. So, in the spirit of community, good citizenship and milking this high-traffic cow one last time, we present [...]

[Update: Looking for playlists for the 2009 festival? We've got you covered: Friday, Saturday & Sunday]
Here’s the second installment of three for our Outside Lands Festival preview. Today, we bring you songs by all of the artists appearing on Saturday of Outside Lands. You can find yesterday’s installments here: Friday lineup
With our fancy new media [...]

As promised, I will continue to bring you some of the best songs in commercials. In this Cadillac ad, M. Ward lends his assistance with “Here Comes the Sun Again.”

Got a song from an ad stuck in your head but can’t figure out who the artist is? Leave a comment and Vague Panther will be [...]

Here’s one for the weekend. Everyone loves a good mixtape, and everyone loves a good cover song, so here’s a mix I made of some of my favorite cover tunes.
The mix spans a good deal of genres (R&B, country, reggae, folk, bluegrass) and artists – from relative unknowns (Clem Snide) to legends (Ray Charles, Aretha [...]

While the folks at APE Concerts haven’t announced the schedule for the Outside Lands Festival [Update: full schedule now available here], most of the bands involved have which night they’re playing on their respective sites. So we did a little investigative journalism to cobble together a schedule.
According to their site, Radiohead is scheduled to headline [...]