Kevin Bronson on August 5th, 2009

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[A pair of new videos from Los Angeles artists:]

Crash Kings make the kind of Linda Perry-approved (her Custard Records released their debut), Zach Braff-endorsed (he blogged about them) blues-rock that might be palatable to classic rock mavens and audacious enough for the indie crowd. How the Los Angeles trio makes it, though, is special: Look, Ma, no lead guitar! Tom Beliveau (joined by brother Mike on bass and Jason Morris on drums) wields keyboards and a clavinet fitted with a distortion pedal to create the big riffage on their album, released in May. Above, their video for “Mountain Man,” which played pretty well in Vail. Crash Kings have back-to-back tours ahead, supporting David Cook on one (including Sept. 9 at the Music Box @ Fonda), and then Mason Jennings (including Sept. 19 at the El Rey Theatre).

If I had to guess, I’d say that Nikki Monninger is a much better at playing bass than tennis. And Peter Walker knows his way around the baseline. The Eulogies frontman is joined by the Silversun Pickups bassist in “Two Can Play,” a clever video and a great change-of-pace track on Eulogies’ recent sophomore release, “Here Anonymous.” The smartest thing about this little game of call-and-response is that the song runs only 2 minutes 21 seconds. Just right.