Benny & Zooey

Rock Turtleneck raises its glass to newlyweds Ben Gibbard and Zooey Deschanel, who were married over the weekend in Seattle. (My evite must have gotten mistakenly gone straight to my spam folder.)

In "indie" circles, this is the equivalent of a Royal Wedding. Ben is the very talented leader of Death Cab for Cutie and the Postal Service. His songs and singing have an R.E.M.-ish dreamlike quality and walk the line between experimentation and pop accessibility.

One of my favorite tracks from Death Cab's last album Narrow Stairs was "No Sunlight" seen here in a nifty version from the UK's cheeky Black Cab Sessions:



Zooey, in addition to being an on-the-rise talented comic actress (her film (500) Days of Summer was a big hit) and top-shelf eye candy, is a talented singer-songwriter in her own right.

Her band She & Him, with indie svengali M. Ward, had one of the most charming debuts in recent memory with last year's Volume One. It was surely one of the best albums by an established actor, and one of the only ones I can think of that is completely unembarassing in any way. Here are She & Him casting a very Linda Ronstadt-like vibe in a nice performance of "Change is Hard" on the Craig Ferguson Show.


Now that indie rock has a bona fide prince and princess, perhaps it's time to put together a 21st century Fleetwood Mac, with equally talented collaborators Ward, Jenny Lewis, Jakob Dylan and elder statesman Elvis Costello, who is a fan and mentor to all these artists, as seen in this version of "(What's So Funny About) Peace, Love and Understanding" from his great IFC show Spectacle.