I’m not sure what’s more ridiculous: that I went to YouTube this morning expecting to find video of Rob Dickinson’s show at the Rogue from Friday night — a mere 10 hours or so after it ended — or that it was actually there.

So far, the only clip I can find of the former Catherine Wheel singer’s set is his cover of the Smiths’ Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want, which he released as a single earlier this year. But I did see one guy take video of the entire show … so, come on, guy, get it up on YouTube already!

Speaking of the show, Dickinson unsurprisingly drew heavily on the Catherine Wheel catalog, especially 1997’s Adam and Eve. From what I can remember off the top of my head, he played at least four songs from that album: Future Boy, Delicious, Phantom of the American Mother and Thunderbird.

I’m not much for logging set lists, but I can tell you other Catherine Wheel songs he performed included: Heal (the opener), Crank, I Want to Touch You and Black Metallic, for which he generously invited a member of local opener Thousand Yard Stare to play with him.

While I’m fond of the acoustic setting and Dickinson’s solo venture — he, of course, dipped into tracks from the 2005 album Fresh Wine for the Horses — it’s hard not to think that he’s itching to plug in and crank the amps the way Catherine Wheel tracks should be heard. Or maybe that’s just me. Either way, I’m still hoping for a new Dickinson album in 2010.

UPDATE: The Rogue Bar has uploaded pretty much the whole damn show to YouTube. Check it out.

If a video could perfectly capture a band’s style and temperament, look no further than the Adam Stafford-directed clip for The Twilight Sad’s Seven Years of Letters, the new single from the standout 2009 album Forget the Night Ahead.

In typical unnerving Twilight Sad fashion, this video is gray and bleak — some might even say downright haunting. Though seemingly cathartic in the end, the means to reach it are fairly chilling.

Between losing our iMac for a day (hard drive kicked the bucket) and Dreamhost acting wonky (again), everyone got a break from the blog today. Fear not: I’m back.

I’m catching up on this one, too: The Twilight Sad recorded a couple songs for a Laundromatinee – the sister session site of My Old Kentucky Blog – at Monolith Festival.

As it stands, with list season fast approaching, The Twilight Sad’s Forget the Night Ahead likely will land in my top 5 of the year, if not crown the list altogether. I’ll have more thoughts on that when I actually put together said list. Until then, enjoy a couple stripped-down tracks by the group.

• The Twilight Sad | I Became a Prostitute (on Laundromatinee)
• The Twilight Sad | And She Would Darken the Memory (on Laundromatinee)

Though I foolishly overlooked Port O’Brien’s 2007 album All We Could Do Was Sing (I’m making up for that now), I’m happy to have spent plenty of time with this year’s excellent Threadbare.

The Oakland-based band closed a tour run with Sea Wolf on Friday at a sold-out Modified in Phoenix, and Port O’Brien brought a lively energy that I’m guessing won over some of those people who were there just to hear that one song by that other band that’s on that Twilight soundtrack. (Electric Mustache has some photos of the show.)

On its way back through California, Port O’Brien played a session for KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic, in which bass strings are broken and singer Van Pierszalowski discusses life as a commercial fisherman.

Alex Brown Church brings Sea Wolf to Modified on Friday, a day before Halloween, which makes this new video for Wicked Blood – the leadoff track on the album White Water, White Bloom – all the more timely.

Delivered in black-and-white, the visuals play out like some beauty and the beast tale, set against the backdrop of a haunted cemetery. We can only hope ABC’s band plays Friday in those skeleton suits.

Reminder: Port O’Brien is one of the openers (Sara Lov is the other), and I fully endorse the band’s new album Threadbare.

Though I spent the better part of Tuesday’s Kurt Vile show at Modified lamenting my habitual inability to remember earplugs, I couldn’t help but be pulled in by the lo-fi psych-rock of Vile & the Violators.

The songs, mostly from his 2009 LP Childish Prodigy, went from loud to louder – riding a crescendo of feedback and distortion. I’m not sure I buy the comparisons to Tom Petty and Neil Young. A more apt (and modern) peer might be something along the lines of The Black Angels – mop-haired stoner jams for a new generation.

Even better, Vile takes a tune like Freak Train – “this one’s a big hit for us on the charts,” he says, jokingly, through his curtain of hair – and anchors it to a pulsating 808 beat, adding a saxophone flourish for good measure.

When nobody was looking, Editors went ahead and released a new album. In This Light and On This Evening is available digitally with a physical U.S. release due out on Jan. 19.

After a few spins, I’m not sure what to make of this new, synth-heavy direction the band has taken. The dark/industrial undertones are ripe for remixes and singer Tom Smith’s voice sounds even more affected and theatrical than normal.

Check the video below for the first single, Papillon, featuring a bunch of dudes running … and running some more. Lots of running.