Booker T. Jones & the Tiny Desk

 "I'm pretty sure this is the coolest thing we've ever done behind the Tiny Desk." – Bob Boilen

Booker T. Jones was recently featured on his Hammond B3 organ for NPR's Tiny Desk concert series. This stripped down video series is a personal favorite of mine for its raw and personal qualities, but it also should be commended for its focus on all music – no genre withstanding. What I enjoy most about Booker T. is the look of sheer joy that he exudes while performing his opening piece "Green Onions." The man wrote this song when he was seventeen and he is still in love with it. We are all lucky to be able to share in his passion. The set list continues on with performances of Born Under a Bad Sign, and Down in Memphis. If you're not already obsessed with this concert series, reset your priorities and dig the archives, you'll like what you find. 

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Kenton Dunson

Kenton Dunson – Rolling Stone (Ft. Garrett Anderson)

Kenton Dunson – Firestarter (Ft. Ryan Kellie)

I love stories like this. Guys giving up the job they've been successful at for years but never had their heart in, in order to pursue a true passion in life. I can get behind that. Life's too short to be forcing yourself to do a job you dislike while you're true calling lies dormant, ammirite?

These stories are all made even better when the person is seriously talented at the thing they left to pursue. Kenton Dunson worked at an investment firm before coming to his senses last year and deciding to pursue his love of music. Lucky for us he did, because in a relatively short span of time, he's developed a unique sound and put out some great tunes.

It's always impressive to see guys write, produce, and MC and Dunson's definitely the triple threat. He has a Lupe-meets-John Legend sound that can be silky smooth or hard hitting, often in the same song. 

Kenton Dunson just realeased his new album Creative Destruction 2  and you can pick it up over at his website for nothing more than an e-mail address.

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Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. – Higher Love (Steve Winwood Cover)

The boys of Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. know how to do a cover. Last year, they made a name for themselves with their take on the previously un-fuck-with-able Beach Boys love song "God Only Knows". Now, they're taking care of business with that Steve Winwood tune that you always hear on 80's radio stations and gradually turn up louder as the song goes on while looking around cautiously to make sure no one's watching you. Don't lie to me, we all do this.

(Cheers to MOKB and MonkeyEatsMonkey)

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Jonny Corndawg: Stray Dawg

After seeing Jonny Corndawg open up for J Roddy Walston and the Business a couple months back he has become the surprise hit of my summer listening so far. 

I was immediately enamored by this bearded, country singing, leather working, marathon running, self-proclaimed "big drinker of little juices". His album I'm Not Ready to Be a Daddy has been on perpetual spin on my turntable, his ode to fitness, Exercise, his become my adopted running theme, and the documentary film Stray Dawg about his marathon quest is a unique component to a clearly multilateral man. 

Enjoy the film. 

Jonny Corndawg: Exercise

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The Wire

The Wire is easily one of the greatest shows to ever be on television. Furthermore, an integral part of the series as a whole is the mood and environment in which it exists. This mood is established in large part from the music selections for the opening and closing segments; which bookend each episode and help to characterize the great city of Baltimore.

All contributing writers (Dave, Kyle, and Steve) of TWD are not only massive fans of the show, but Dave is also a real live Baltimore city resident. You can follow all of his Baltimore related musings in 140 characters or less via twitter at DaveWhoDigs.

Today's Scenes and Songs examines music from The Wire, and takes a hard look at the music surrounding the show which took a hard look at the city.

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Icarus Himself – Digging Holes

Icarus Himself – Digging Holes

I'm sure a good portion of you are aware of the turntable.fm phenomena by now. If you haven't heard of it, it's a fun communal space to listen to music and chat with your friends. I have to say I'm thoroughly hooked. I was never a huge Pandora guy because I always end up wanting to hear all of the album as soon as a good song comes on, but with turntable.fm the social features make you giddy for what's next and give you motivation to constantly show up your friends.

Other than being the most addicting thing since Starcraft when I was 13, turntable.fm is a great place to discover music. Odds are, you're going to end up in a room with people with similar tastes and it's only a matter of time before someone plays something you haven't heard that's right up your alley. On my first day DJing, someone played "Digging Holes" by Madison, Wisconsin's Icarus Himself and I realized how great turntable.fm could be.

"Digging Holes" is one of those songs that crept up behind me wearing camoflage before taking me down like I was a lazy guerilla. It starts out with a dramatic keyboard/synth section that sets the mood before a bouncy bassline and steady organ drop in. And then comes that guitar. Oh, the guitar. It pops in and crashes out, all lazy chord strums and full note blasts. The interplay of the instruments is a thing of beauty while Nick Whetro yelps a tale of self-destruction. The song continues to build and evolve until it erupts in horns, slows down again, and returns to whence it came.

Pick up Icarus Himself's album, Mexico, for only 5 bucks and check out turntable.fm. Warning: prepare for heavy addiction to both.

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Blake Mills

Blake Mills – Hey Lover

Blake Mills – Winter Song

On a total whim (inspired by my friend Matt Dyson), I recently bought Blake Mills' "Winter Song/Hey Lover" 7" without having previously heard more than 30 seconds of Mills' music. I had totally and unfortunately missed his debut, Break Mirrors, last year and after devouring the single I picked up the full-length and have been in love with his brand of smooth, low-key, sometimes tongue-in-cheek indie rock.

Mills started his career with the boys of Dawes and went on to play guitar for everyone from Cass McCombs to Kid Rock. He also has the greatest/worst retro website you could imagine. He's a serious young talent and I hope his name continues to grow.

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A Change is Gonna Come

After the departure of dailybeatz from the blog game (you'll be missed!) and a discussion I had with some lovely bloggers on turntable.fm today, I came to somewhat of a revelation. Here's the thing: I love blogging and I love what Those Who Dig has become. The problem is, we started this site with a major focus on writing and analysis and for me, personally, the amount of time and energy it takes to flesh out a single post has become unsustainable. The crazy amount of things life tends to throw at me means that I don't always have the time or mental capacity to write deeply every night. There's such a huge amount of music I want to share and drop some thoughts about, and I end up having so little time to share it that I need to change things up.

So from this point out, I'm going to be switching up the way I post a bit. I'm going to be focusing on more frequent content and shorter, to-the-point write ups. This doesn't mean any of our features, articles, or in-depth band reviews will go away. They'll just be supplemented by a (hopefully) quicker and more consistent flow of all the weird, wild, and wonderful tunes I think all of our dear readers should be tickling their eardrums with.

I'll be shooting for a happy medium between a quick-post Tumblr style account and the in-depth, thought provoking style you've come to know and love at Those Who Dig. This will be a good thing for me, since it means the blog will start to be less of a chore, and a great thing for you, since it means more awesome music comin' atcha.

Hope you guys are into it. We have big, big plans for the future at Dig Central so keep on diggin'.

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