By Skylar Smith
Daily Titan Opinion Editor

Do you spend three hours a night browsing YouTube for music videos and little hidden bootleg recordings of your favorite artists? Do you relish those little DVD extras on concert movies that show the band doing an intimate backstage performance? Well, here is a Web site meant for you.

Blogotheque.net is a french music blog focusing on much of the world’s indie scene. Once google has finished translating the page for you, there are several well-written articles about some bigger-name bands, some indie bands and several French bands you may not have heard of at your disposal. While all of that is great, it isn’t the best part of the site.

La Blogotheque’s most popular feature is a sub section called “Concerts A Emporter” or “Take-Away Shows.” It’s essentially a collection of videos of bands performing in non-traditional venues. From the rooftops of Paris to crowded trollies in San Fransisco, La Blogotheque has some of modern musics’ best up-and-coming stars performing their favorite songs in a way that only a small camera and an embedded video could create.

The great thing about “Take-Away Shows” is that each video has a blog accompanying it, describing how the band found the location and how the blogger convinced the band to perform. It also includes any potential run-ins with the law or other fun anecdotes and facts that the band might have. These bits of storytelling add a depth to each video that lets you in on that band’s life for a brief moment.

Even big names like Sigur Ros and Cold War Kids have graced the camera and revealed a bit of their own personality.

Although I could write an entire page describing my favorite videos and highlight their best moments, I think you would tire of my fan-boy rantings, so here are just a few of my favorites:

For an introduction to what “Take-Away Shows” is all about, I love showing people video number 10. It features now immensely popular and beloved band Grizzly Bear, but back in 2006, when they made videos but almost no one had heard of them. The first video is of them performing their song “Shift” in a small bathroom in France, with only the most basic of instruments at their disposal, and with lead singer Ed Droste crouched in a bathtub singing to only a cameraman and a mostly-empty apartment.

The second video is an amazing a cappella version of “Knife” from their second album Yellow House, as they walk down a busy sidewalk dodging lamp posts, mailboxes, fire hydrants and pedestrians.

Another great concert is by the band Cold War Kids. Highlights from their video include a bare-bones performance of “St.John” as they are wheeled on large loading crate through a warehouse. They later perform their song “God, Make up Your Mind” to a bus full of students in a dark parking lot.

Some of my other favorites are: Beirut preforming “Nantes” with his full band next to a café in France; Delta Spirit performing “Strange Vine” in a carpet shop where they purchased a harmonium from the owner; Seasick Steve wandering the streets of France telling stories from when he was a homeless; and The Tallest Man on the Earth performing a cover of the Nico song “These Days.”

So if you’re alone in your room at 10 p.m. and have the concert video bug, or even if you’ve got a half an hour to kill with your laptop between classes, head over to blogotheque.net and enjoy hundreds of fantastic videos of some artists you have heard of and possibly discover a new favorite band.