The Best Thing I've Heard Lately

I'm a big fan of the Web show Live From Daryl's House not just because the music of Hall & Oates is one of my guilty pleasures, shoot me...I'm a fan of blue-eyed soul...but I also love people who can actually play their instruments and don't need some lame-ass Autotune computer program to sing.

The other great thing about the show is Daryl Hall's electic tastes when it comes to the artists he invites into his humble, Upstate New York abode. Over the course of the 35 shows he has touched on classics like Smokey Robinson, Todd Rundgren and Toots and the Maytals to up and comers like Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings and Finger Eleven.

The October episode features Fitz and the Tantrums, a high energy blue-eyed soul crew that smokes. While I don't get the bizarre, skunk stripe frontman Fitz sports, but I do get the fact the he and backing vocalist Noelle Scaggs can flat out sing.

Pickin' Up the Pieces the band's first full-length album, features a real throwback feel that comes courtesy, not of a big-time, high tech studio, but right from Fitz's living room. This is not stripped down, DIY affair, but a full-blown production full of horny horns and rip it up stompers.

Need convincing? Check out the band's website and snag a free download of the record's best track MoneyGrabber.