Amoeba is helping to sign voters up before the Oct. 22 deadline to register or change your address information. You can register here if you haven't yet registered to vote in the Nov. 6 election, or Amoeba has voter registration forms at the stores you can pick up and we’ll mail it for you. Visit Rock The Vote for more voter information.

As part of Amoeba's Rock the Vote effort, Murs & Fashawn and Band of Horses turned out excellent live shows at Amoeba Hollywood and across the street at Space 15 Twenty. Murs & Fashawn's energetic live show, which was streamed live for a webcast on Amoeba.com, drew a huge crowd, thanks to Living Legends member Murs’ loyal fanbase, Fashawn’s rising notoriety and their recently released collaborative album, the fine This Generation. The duo performed songs from the album, such as the uplifting “Heartbreaks & Handcuffs,” trading rhymes and pointing to one another and generally having a great time riling up an enthusiastic crowd. Murs picked up a baby at one point like a politician, remarking that there were a lot of babies in the audience, which there were, along with teenagers who shouted suggestions to Murs and clamored over one another to pick up free T-shirts they threw into the audience (one jumped on my head!). “If you’re smart, you’ll be registered to vote and to get married by the time you leave here,” Murs said at one point. “If a girl’s at our show, she’s probably pretty cool.” Later, Murs more pointedly said: “It doesn’t hurt to believe in something a little bit. Don’t be so apathetic.”
 
“As I got older and evolved as a person, I realized there’s a point [to voting],” Fashawn chimed in. “Today, I’m gonna register to vote.”

Album Picks:
 
Melody’s Echo Chamber – Melody’s Echo Chamber
 
My favorite new band out right now is Melody’s Echo Chamber, whose enchanting self-titled debut is a study in ebullient dream-pop perfection. The story goes that Melody Prochet hooked up with Aussie psych-rock greats Tame Impala, calling on the band’s Kevin Parer to beef up her beauteous, French-pop-inspired arrangements with the kind of soaring sonics employed by that band. What comes out is indeed a perfect marriage. It’s one of those records where the cover perfectly captures the mood: mysterious, colorful and ethereal, you get lost in the folds of this record and don’t want to come out. Fans of Broadcast and Blonde Redhead, take note. The only downside is that aside from a few strong standouts, like the garage rocky opener “I Follow You” and lush (and Lush-esque) “Endless Shore,” the record blurs together. No matter — for fans of this kind of thing, you won’t know where the time has gone. As with like-minded peers A Sunny Day in Glasgow, the emphasis is more on album as experience, following dissociative dream logic in which melodies and arrangements are allowed to meander and linger and flow into one another in a singular happening. In a word, divine.
 
 
Chris Cohen – Overgrown Path
 
Chris Cohen is one of the great underappreciated guitar players of our generation — listen back to Deerhoof records from when he was in the band for proof of his and John Dieterich’s insane riffery and interplay. Since leaving that band, he’s spent time with projects such as Cryptacize, but now on his first solo album and John Cale Paris 1919 moment, we get to see what a strong singer, songwriter and arranger he is, as well. “Monad” opens the album with the sort of skewed guitarwork that will make early Deerhoof fans squeal, but that quickly fades into a brisk, smart soft-pop track punctuated by splashy drums, not unlike one of Yo La Tengo’s more ornate songs. Cohen packs his intricate guitarwork into skilled compositions, such as the Latin-psych vibing “Caller No.99,” in a way that was never as apparent in his flashier Deerhoof contributions. Though his voice is unremarkable, its nice-guy pleasantness carries listeners swiftly through mellow but tricky compositions, avoiding the sort of fussiness that could have resulted with punchier performances. By the time you arrive at the sweet “bum bum bum bums” of the irresistible “Optimist High,” you’re floating on a cloud of contentment and ready to follow Cohen just about anywhere. Overgrown Path is really the perfect fall album, cozy and warm and subtly, almost magically, life-affirming.
 

1) Jay-Z Blueprint 3 (Roc Nation/Atlantic)

2) Fashawn Boy Meets World (Loud)

3) Sean Price Kimbo Price (Vision Mktg)

4) Del the Funky Homosapien & Tame One Parallel Uni-Verses (Gold Dust Media)

5) Sene & Blu A Day Late & A Dollar Short (Shaman Work)

Clearly Jay-Z is the king of the world, or at least of hip-hop right now. Not only is the phenomenally successful and popular artist number one (still) on the Amoeba Music chart with Blueprint 3, an album that came out almost two full months ago, and one that is doing equally well elsewhere, but last night Jay-Z along with Alicia Keys wowed the baseball world with a moving four minute performance of "Empire State Of Mind" (video above) during the World Series at Yankee Stadium. As a diehard, decades long fan & supporter of hip-hop music and culture from back when the genre was still being dismissed as a "passing fad," I found last night's well received performance another wonderful bit of validation and endorsement of a music form that I love and respect so much. In fact, so moving was last night's performance that it no doubt inspired the Yankees achieve their 3-1 win against the Phillies, which puts them at a tie, in this second game of the Series, which shifts to Philadelphia over the next three games, starting tomorrow, Saturday.