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Jenn Grant's new video for "Baby's Been Gone" (directed by Andrew Stretch) is an ode to missing someone—perfect and sad and adorable, with a bit of a Michel Gondry feel. Take a look.

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Saturday, January 28 will be hereby known as the Night of the Ukes III. 1313 Hollis fills with little bitsy ukes and the sweet South Sea sound they make from 7:30pm on ($10 at the door).

The uke-loving gang proclaims: "Night of the Uke III features jazz, surf, blues and who knows what else from 4 of the Maritimes' uke-obsessed musicians. You won't believe your ears, or eyes for that matter."

Featuring the Urban Surf Kings' Rev Hank playing surf and jazz uke hits off his debut album Ukulele Surf King; Manitoba Hal, the legendary prairie ukulele bluesman, now based in Shelburne; Nigel D'eon and Crash Flagg, the only ukulele bass player east of Montreal.

So after Saturday, you've had a taste and crave more! more! more! ukulele magic. The Dartmouth Community Concert Association presents the third concert in their 2011-12 season with James Hill (ukulele) and Anne Davison (cello) (on Friday, February 17, 8pm. at Woodlawn United Church. $25/$20/$10). Fun fact: Hill co-authored the Ukulele in the Classroom series with J. Chalmers Doane and edits the iconic Ukulele Yes! quarterly.

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Directed by Brendan Dunlop and featuring a bunch of folks living the dream and pretending to be Cousins, this great video for "Speech" will make you smile or die trying.

COUSINS - Speech from Brendan Dunlop on Vimeo.

Four lucky winners have already won our weekly prizes of Grado headphones courtesy of Peak Audio—Rock Johnson, Troy Corbin, Hannah McLaren and Greg Farnell—but there is still time to enter your ballot to win the grand prize of a Pro-ject Debut III turntable, also from those nice folks at Peak Audio.

Click here and vote away. Then cross your fingers that our most random of random drawing techniques chooses your lucky mug for the grand prize. Keep those answers local, folks.

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• Kelly and Erin—prolly jammin' to In-Flight

In-Flight Safety's John Mullane proudly announced today that tonight's (Thu, Jan 19) episode of The Office will feature not one, but two, In-Flight songs: "Big White Elephant" and "Model Homes" (from 2009's We Are an Empire, My Dear). With Danny Ledwell's appearance on Letterman this week, I could almost consider this a streak for the IFS lads. Believe it or not, Mullane just found out today, because that's how fast TV guys move. "I think someone just dropped some songs on the desk of the people who do the show and they were all like 'yo, I like this stuff, let's use it'," says Mullane. "And that was that. Wow."

For the record, Mullane's favourite Office character is Andy. "Maybe because I like the first Hangover movie. I dunno."

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• Punk cat has no money to buy albums.

Like everyone else in the world, you are probably feeling the sting of January right now. The cold, frosty air. The light, moth-filled wallet. No need to add crushing silence to that list. Warm up your clicking finger and get an earful of these free local jams.

Old Man Luedecke and Lake of Stew (pay what you can): http://topsy.com/noisetrade.com/oldmanluedecke

Says the OML himself: "I got a CD of Lake of Stew and after singing along a few dozen times started listening in to the voices and imagining who they were. The Mini Pops, Glee, pish, this was the group I was born to join. Like me they are kitchen sing-a-longs, potlucks. old time juggy string bands of the mythological present. Loose and easy as true love well begun. They dropped by my house in Nova Scotia for a visit like the Carter Family visiting Jimmie Rodgers. We ate and hung out and sang together. We've never played a gig and had never played together. I didn't even know all their names at first. On little more than a whim we went to the old Confidence Lodge studio in downtown Riverport and put these songs together with a bit of joy and hard work."

Young Dartmouthian Cam Smith happily cranks out the rap jams for you. Smith produces all his own beats and his music can be downloaded for free at camsmithmusic.com. Start Line is his latest. Start Line download.

Pictou County’s The Wides (featuring ex-PIG drummer) are releasing their 2nd EP, +ß@, like, any second now. In the meantime, listen to the first two tracks of the six-song EP on thewides.bandcamp.com

Sans Serif are an 8-piece indie pop band, “a ramshackle bunch of phd neuroscientists, medical student, engineers, and a guy a who lays a lot of pipe in Dartmouth” (in their own words) with such career highlights as “playing to a crowd of legally deaf people and having The Raging Grannies open for us.” Download I'm not in Love (I'm in Dartmouth), at sansserif.bandcamp.com  

The end of December had an unofficial release of Gigas' album, download only for now. They are currently looking for the right label before physical copies are released. “When we make our music, we try to separate ourselves mentally from the rest of the music being made in the city and try to put an emphasis on spacey/droney aesthetics while maintaining a unique danceability,” says Gigas’ James Gaudet. “We like reverb and pad synths, and try to throw in tropical vibes whenever we can. These things will be reflected in our next releases which are in production at the moment. We basically just try to impress each other at jams by finding that perfect synth patch or that crazy sample and throwing it all together, it's fun.” Download AQL at gigas.bandcamp.com

Crackin Up Tapes has complied both Word On The Street tapes for the low, low price of $3 here. Or if you are really Januaried and need something free, go to wordonthestreet.bandcamp.com and get pumped to near-inhuman extremes with their hardcore styles.

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Steven Bowers, in town next week for the In The Dead of Winter Festival (Thursday, January 26 at Eyelevel Gallery w/Kev Corbett and Mary Milne, 8pm, $10), was kind enough to share this sweet homemade video with us.

"I just wanted to share a homemade music video I put together with my wife. We were visiting her family in High Priaire, Alberta on Christmas Day and went for a quad ride," says Bowers. "We found a lake that was frozen over and decided to make a little music video using our point and shoot camera, and I just sang along to my mp3 player. Hope you dig it. That's her father doing the fancy spinning across the lake on his quad."

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• Daniel Ledwell
• Daniel may not appear exactly as shown

Our own Daniel Ledwell (of In-Flight Safety, Music Nova Scotia producer of the year and general Ledwell fame) will be on Late Night with David Letterman tomorrow (Tuesday, January 17) accompanying Kathleen Edwards. Just another stop on the ol' tour. Fun fact! Edwards' first appearance on Letterman was nine years ago—to the day—tomorrow. Spooky!

It is my sincere hope that Letterman sees something special in Ledwell and requests an exclusive interview about Halifax. Stranger things have happened, folks!*

*Not true.

Missed it? No problem. Click and see how great it was! With an Obsolete Records t-shirt, no less.

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Ryan Delehanty's amazing radio show, Bourbon Jungle, has hit a milestone as of yesterday—an impressive two years of weekly music-slinging on CKDU 88.1FM. Download the latest episode here, like the Facebook page here (help BJ hit 200!) and sit back and listen to the show every Thursday at 9pm on CKDU 88.1FM here. Or your own house.

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• A classic

I'm not sure if the children of today are still excited about seeing themselves onscreen, what with the YouTubes and the Weblogs and the computers with the FaceTime and the InterCaps, but if you still long for your 15 minutes, this weekend is a good chance to account for like 10 seconds AT LEAST.

Tonight at the Seahorse, Like A Motorcycle will be shooting footage for an upcoming video, at their show with Three Sheet and The Lucy Grays (10pm, $10). Wear that distinct t-shirt you own, for ease of pointing yourself out later.

Tomorrow at some manner of Hind Legs HQ (9:30pm, 1274 Barrington, apt. #1, across from Bearly's) there is a shoot of a much more messy description: A paint fight and a birthday party, all rolled up into one. Bring a white button-up shirt and a water gun/balloon/spoons/thing with which to huck paint. Hind Legs will provide the paint (and a button-up shirt, if you really don't have one). All you have to do is get covered in paint, smile and congratulate drummer Ben Deinstadt for getting another year older.

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• Pigeon Row give and give

The tireless champions of local music at Pigeon Row have put together a delicious free comp for you featuring the music of Quaker Parents, Cousins, Cold Warps, Old and Weird and lots more. Click here to download and let the heady feeling of how lucky you are to live here wash over you.

While you are at it, click on The Outsider List (again organized by Pigeon Row's Matt Charlton and Darcy Spidle). The blog focuses on avant garde and experimental music and lists shows for those genres happening on our coast. Because we do ok for that here.

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You may have missed Jay Mayne's show at the Seahorse on January 4, but there's no need to sob about it. Download a whopping five free mixtapes—including the latest, #ChopTrees 3—from Mr. Mayne and have a look at his many previews, promos and videos all conveniently located at JayMayne.com (yeah, there's a bit of drug stuff so it's possibly NSFW, depending on your W).

Not only should that tide you over until next show, but you'd also be supporting a legend as he's just had his wisdom teeth out and I heard he did it completely drug-free*.

*Just joking. That's ridiculous, no one does that. Especially not this dude.

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• Hasta mañana

The Coast office is closed until January 2 and unless some of Santa's tireless elf bloggers take up the task, this blog will be a little bit stale. Just like that fruitcake that you'll be regifting. #obligatoryfruitcakejoke

Deuces, people.