No, this is not an early April Fool's joke. Nicole Belle and I have chatted before about how Phineas and Ferb is one of the funniest shows on tee vee, and this is the number one most requested song from the show in a recent online poll. (I would have chosen Destroyed Dreams for its amazing Bollywood parody but that's me.) It's impressive that a half-hour kid's cartoon has a full-length song incorporated into the plot of every episode. And there's a reason this show re-airs at 9:30 at night...for the grownups, dude.

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Usually I try to find reasonably off-the-beaten track videos for LNMC -- and I usually prefer live stuff -- but every now and then it's fun to dust off the ol' faves.

At one time this video was considered the best studio vid ever made. I expect that's no longer true, but I'd like to know what you all think would be the videos that surpass it. Post some nominees in the comments, I'll sift through them, and run some of the better ones. Obvious and well-known ones like this are welcome too.

Live from Lincoln Center, New Year's Eve, December 31, 2005.

I did an LNMC last year featuring Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova and their Academy Award-winning song from the movie, Once.

Hansard (late of The Frames) and Irglova have formed a new band, The Swell Season, and their album, Strict Joy, was released in October of this year.

Here they are singing an acoustic version of Feeling the Pull and a studio version of Low Rising, both from Strict Joy.

Ever watch a movie and go "Meh" but absolutely fell in love with the soundtrack?

I happened to catch the Steve Carell vehicle "Dan in Real Life" last week on cable. When I'm working, I tend to keep the TV on as background noise (occupational hazard of being from a big family and having kids--silence is distracting). Normally, I tune it out, but I found myself completely entranced by Sondre Lerche's music. It was quirky, charming and really deserved a much better movie than the one in which it was featured.

Wish I could recommend the movie, but I do strongly recommend the soundtrack.

Any other movie soundtrack knock you out?

Two major distinguishing factors that make Eddie Harris an innovator had to do with his teacher at DuSable High School in Chicago, and his use of the Varitone Saxophone. It’s a pickup for saxophone. If you look closely at the video, you’ll see he’s got a line going from his instrument to a black box, and that he fiddles with it from time to time. This was a now defunct piece of technology invented by H & A Selmer, Inc., in an attempt to give the saxophone the same versatility as other electrified instruments.

His teacher was Walter Dyett was the kind of music teacher many serious musicians would love to have. Many of his students were successful professional musicians: Gene Ammons, Nat "King" Cole, Bo Diddley, Dorothy Donegan (and Dorothy Donegan again), Julian Priester.

Which old standards (players or pieces) have your ear?

Note: Our sister site Newstalgia has Backstage Weekend with Massive Attack - Live at the Phoenix Festival 1996.

"I Try." Such a terrific song.

Whatcha listening to this weekend?

Jack White has always done his own thing, finding new ways to create funky, unique guitar tones. I went through a White Stripes phase, but that project didn't move me as much as his work with The Raconteurs. This live version of Consoler Of The Lonely from 2008 is loose and angry -- White's stock in trade.

If you didn't catch it, Jack was featured along with The Edge and Jimmy Page in a documentary about the history of the electric guitar, called It Might Get Loud. It's definitely worth checking out.

Pomplamoose (it means "grapefruit" in French) is a Bay Area indie jazz-pop band and is compromised made up of Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn, who do what they call VideoSongs.

For those who don't know, a VideoSong is a new medium with (as Jack puts it) two rules:

1. What you see is what you hear (no lip-syncing for instruments or voice).

2. If you hear it, at some point you see it (no hidden sounds).

The unsigned band is fast picking up steam through social media. This is only one of their many interesting covers, but they have lots of cool, original music, too. (Oh, and they do a cover of a Gordon's Jewelers ad, which is amazing because in so many ways, they remind me of the late, lamented Huffamoose - whose name also ends in "moose" and had their song "I Want To Buy You A Ring" used in a jewelry commercial!) Like, synchronicity, man.

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Does the world need a second coming of Kate Bush? I have no idea, but I'll take the second coming of anything if it can make a record as good as Bat for Lashes' Two Suns, which will close out the year on the top of my best of '09 list if some unseen masterpiece doesn't fly out of nowhere in the next seven weeks.

"Siren Song" (here's the studio version, which truth be told has an edge that's hard to capture playing live on the radio in Santa Monica at nine in the morning, as Bat for Lashes, nee Natasha Khan, does in this clip), is a subdued yet menacing terror with perfectly bare lyrics, and all without ever developing a steady beat. An artist this capable = someone we'll still be talking about ten years down the road.

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A wispy voiced girl can't swing a guitar around New York City without getting compared to Cat Power, as Rebecca Schiffman inevitably does by anyone who doesn't get that her whimsical tunes are way more fun. "The Rabbit Habit" belongs in the canon of great songs of a certain subject matter like "Pump It Up", "She-Bop" and "Longview". You know what I'm talking about.

LNMC's 50 State Strategy is C&L's ongoing series to showcase a top act from every state in the union, alphabetically by state. Know a band or artist that you think is the best in their state? Email suggestions to latenitemusicclub [at] gmail.com. Next up: North Carolina.