Music

When Bloc Party performed this live session for KCRW, it was the first time any of us had heard songs from the band's latest album, Four, aside from the single "Octopus." While "Octopus" is a driving, punk-infused dance track similar to Bloc Party's previous work, the rest of Four seemed more influenced by '90s rock and metal. It was one of the loudest live sessions KCRW has hosted in recent memory, and that's a compliment.

Here's the band's performance of "Octopus."

It turns out people really like The Beatles! Every record we've featured from the fab four have consistently rated higher than any other albums in these polls. According to last week's, 85 percent of you love Revolver.

For Tell Me More's occasional "In Your Ear" series, guests of the program talk about songs they go to for inspiration or just to let loose. Comedian Bill Bellamy turns to Maroon 5's "Moves Like Jagger," and goes into Risky Business style dancing in his living room.

We were about to call it. The band was running late, our phone service wasn't working well backstage in the remoteness of the Sasquatch Music Festival in rural Washington state, and the next band was about to begin on the main stage nearby — thus making the prospect of a Field Recording impossible. Then, suddenly, a white van rolled up, straight from the main gate, and out popped six musicians with stringed and brass instruments.

The strike going on in Chicago is serious: 350,000 students are locked out and we brought you the news in a post from this morning.

We'll get back to real news in a little. First, here's a bit of levity:

There is a picture from the picket lines on Monday that had Daniel Strauss, who tweeted it, saying, "Civility has disappeared in Chicago Teachers Union protests."

Kelly Hogan is a professional backup singer who spends a lot of time on the road with her friends Neko Case, Jakob Dylan, Andrew Bird, Robyn Hitchcock and many others.

The folk-rock band Delta Rae makes its first appearance on Mountain Stage, recorded live in Huntington, W.V. A six-piece band with four powerful vocalists, Delta Rae was formed on and around the campus of Duke University in Durham, N.C.

When Lydia Hoglund sings, her words convey the ache of an old soul. She unspools her melodies in big, booming somersaults that sound both effortless and ageless, her elastic delivery recalling emotive singers like Jeff Buckley and Sharon Van Etten. Yet Hoglund is only 17 — just beginning her senior year at Central High in St. Paul, Minn., and just beginning her journey into music.