Here's something pretty special, if we do say so ourselves. It's Death Cab For Cutie's live performance of their New Moon soundtrack single, "Meet Me On The Equinox" from the 2009 mtvU Woodie Awards!

Introduced by David Cross -- one of the many bearded bros at the Woodie Awards -- Death Cab plows through the song as if it'd been a staple of their live sets for years. I wonder if guitarist Chris Walla was thinking about his favorite Twilight character (Bella's dad!) while he was jamming away there.

Watch the 2009 mtvU Woodies Friday, December 4, at 10 p.m. ET on mtvU, MTV, MTV2, and Palladia.

The bearded men of Death Cab For Cutie were lucky enough to have the first single from the New Moon soundtrack with "Meet Me On The Equinox." And aside from making them extremely popular with the Twi-hard crowd, it's automatically immersed them in Twilight lore and philosophy.

In this video interview, taken during Death Cab's mtvU Woodie Award rehearsals (that's The Dead Weather rehearsing in the background), guitarist Chris Walla and bassist Nick Harmer sound off on a few Twilight issues.

Chris declares his preference for Bella's unassuming dad out of all the Twilight characters, while Nick drops some knowledge on Twilight's larger appeal, relating it to the current political climate and consumerism.

Nick Harmer then opens a HUGE can of worms by openly speculating on the chances of a Twilight musical. (As opposed to Twilight the Musical, the YouTube parody.) Wonder if Death Cab would be up for scoring that?

Sure, you can meet them on the equinox. But before you head over there, can you pick up some clippers on the way? Death Cab For Cutie, pictured above, were just some of the bearded boys marauding last night's mtvU Woodie Awards. Seriously, Jason McGerr and Ben Gibbard had the Death Cab Starter Beard, but Nick Harmer was rocking the straight-up new-school Colonel Sanders.

As if a don't-shave mandate went out two months prior to last night's Woodies, we saw everything from the "Captain Ahab"/"Robert Shaw from Jaws" (rocked by David Cross) to the "late-period, drugged-out Brian Wilson" -- demonstrated on the face of 3Oh!3's Sean Foreman, who later dressed up like Lady Gaga -- to the awesome evil beard, which Tech N9ne wore so right.

Behold the beauty and the beards of the 2009 mtvU Woodie Awards below.

David Cross

Sean Foreman (3Oh!3)

Tech N9ne

+ Check out all of the Woodie Awards 2009: Bearded And Beautiful Photos here. And watch the 2009 mtvU Woodies Friday, December 4, at 10 p.m. ET on mtvU, MTV, MTV2, and Palladia.

The floor of the Roseland Ballroom, where the sixth-annual mtvU Woodies will be held tonight, is very much not ready yet. Set pieces are being unwrapped, the stage is being polished like a knob, the lights are being tested, and burly crew guys in black are still doing lots of heavy lifting to prep for tonight's show. But all of that doesn't seem to bother Death Cab for Cutie -- as a band that's been together for the past 12 years, they're the veterans of this year's Woodies, a well-oiled artistic machine that communicates on stage without speaking, putting the same amount of concentration and consternation into their "New Moon"-soundtrack single that they've played with every time I've seen them perform live in the past near-decade.

To be sure, while Death Cab for Cutie has become part of the "New Moon" zeitgeist, the "New Moon" zeitgeist doesn't seem to have really become part of them. When asked which character he most related to, Chris Walla picked Bella's dad, and Nick Harmer was just as eager to talk about his hopes for the Obama administration and the residual effects of American consumerism.

Check out more photos of Death Cab rehearsing for their live woodies performance, and watch a brand-new interview with Chris Walla and Nick Harmer for an advanced liberal arts discussion about music, literature, politics, and pop culture, straight from the 2009 mtvU Woodie Awards.

(Credit: MTV/ Kareem Black)

The Temper Trap are a small band with a big sound from down under. We already gave you the buzz on Temper Trap a while back, but here's a refresher course.

Think U2/Coldplay anthems meet Death Cab subtlety. Their song "Sweet Disposition" has been gathering a lot of steam, appearing on (500 Days) Of Summer soundtrack and popping up on TV all over.

In this MTV Discover & Download interview, Temper Trap talks about their humble beginnings, the various permutations of band names they went through (before they settled on The Temper Trap), and the Melbourne, Australia music scene.

You'll also find out more about their "Sweet Disposition," video, the concept for which  revolves around them playing live... in outer space. Boldly go where no man has gone before, and check out The Temper Trap at Discover & Download. And check out "Sweet Disposition" below the interview.

+ Check out the entire set of The Temper Trap photos here.

When you type "Owl City Sound Like Postal Service" into that magic little Google contraption you get 280,000 results. Now, I'm sure some are about owls. Some are about cities. And I bet a bunch are about the mail.

But even if you siphon off some of the results, this is clearly a hot-button issue. I, personally can't believe that 60 Minutes hasn't jumped on this already, but we'll take it on here at BW.

Owl City is, more or less, Minnesotan musician Adam Young; he tours with a more fleshed-out band, but he does all the heavy lifting in the studio. They are incredibly popular. Their jam, "Fireflies" is a top 10 hit. It also sounds A LOT like Ben Gibbard (main man of Death Cab For Cutie) and Jimmy Tamborello's electronic-pop duo The Postal Service.

A LOT.

So, the question is this: does that matter? I don't personally think so. While I never encourage full-on biting of another artist's style, one would have to point at the Postal-Service-shaped void left in our pop landscape right now. The Postal Service haven't delivered (hawhaw) anything 2003's Give Up. Now, I'm not a math major, but that feels a lot like six years to me.

So if Postal Service aren't really a going concern, and Owl City make a very pleasant version of Postal-Servicey pop, should we not enjoy it for what it is?

I mean, if your mailman stopped coming for six years, and then a new dude showed up and was equally reliable and nice, would you not take his mail because he's not the same dude? Of course not! So why should it be that much different when it comes to pop?

Marinate on it and feel free to agree or disagree in the comments. And if you need a Cliff's Notes version of the two bands, watch Owl City's "Fireflies" and The Postal Service's "Such Great Heights" below.

The Woodies are coming -- mtvU's annual campus-friendly award show will air on MTV, MTV2, mtvU and Palladia on Friday, December 4, at 10 pm.

This is a truly democratic affair in which you can have a real say in who goes home with the wood. That's right, you can vote for the winners in the major categories.

To sweeten the pot to honey-levels of sweetness, the Woodies performers have just been announced. Let's get familiar shall we?

All the performers are also nominees for Video Woodie (best video, basically). First, we got the skronk-garage blues of The Dead Weather. Jack White's other, other band is nominated for their NRA-fever-dream of a clip for, "Treat Me Like Your Mother."

Then you've got some lilting, some chiming, some longing, some Death Cab For Cutie. DCFC are nominated for their video for "Grapevine Fires."

But they'll be performing their single from the New Moon soundtrack, "Meet Me At The Equinox."

And last, but least clothed, we have Matt and Kim, who will be performing their strip-tease anthem, "Lessons Learned." Will they do it in their birthday suits? You'll have to check it out to see.

As someone who's a long-time Death Cab For Cutie fan (I've seen them live probably 10 times) and a Twilight trilogy fan who's read New Moon and seen the New Moon trailers, I watched Death Cab For Cutie's brand-new "Meet Me On The Equinox" video and reacted (nay... GASPED!) in a manner not unlike superfan Nutty Madam when she watched the New Moon trailer.

Thoughts that raced through my head while watching Death Cab For Cutie's "Meet Me On The Equinox" video -- which features some serious New Moon footage -- included:

+ OMG! Bella's orange truck!

+ OMG NO DON'T LEAVE, EDWARD! I HATE YOU SO MUCH RIGHT NOW, EDWARD CULLEN! YOU'RE SO SEVERELY MISGUIDED!

+ ZOMG! Bella's on Jacob's motorcycle!

+ BELLA! NO! DON'T JUMP OFF THE CLIFF! YOU KNOW HOW DANGEROUS IT IS! DON'T YOU DARE!

+ OMG! Volterra!

+ OMG! Alice's fancy yellow sportscar!

+ OOH! Nick Harmer's beard looks cool!

+ AHHH! Bella's in the fountain!

+ WTS? HOW'D BELLA GET IN THE WATER?

+ OMG! RUN, BELLA, RUN! NO! WAIT, EDWARD! SHE'S ALMOST THERE! (DYING! BANGINGHEADAGAINSTKEYBOARDBLEEDINGBUTONLYMINORLY!)

But then I came to my senses (basically), and realized that yes, the video DOES have a gratuitous shot of a shirtless Edward Cullen, but digging a little deeper, Death Cab perfectly encapsulates the tension and pain, good and evil (note the darkness and light), and the race and the risk that Bella endures in New Moon. (And also, there's a shirtless Edward Cullen.) Now excuse me while I faint again.

Watch Death Cab For Cutie's "Meet Me On The Equinox" video, directed by Walter Robot, now.

In this brand-new behind-the-scenes video from Death Cab For Cutie, the band gives you an in-depth look at their song and forthcoming video, "Meet Me On The Equinox," the first single from the New Moon soundtrack.

Watch the band discuss the love story behind the "cultural monolith," in the words of Chris Walla, that is the Twilight series, the parallels between the lyrics of "Meet Me On The Equinox" and New Moon's storyline, and find out which member of Death Cab's super into vampires and werewolves.

Plus, listen to "Meet Me On The Equinox," and stay tuned for the MTV premiere of Death Cab For Cutie's "Meet Me On The Equinox" video on Wednesday, October 7.

Celebrities are good at a lot of things: self-promotion, engaging us in engagement speculation, having MINDBLOWING hair ROBERT PATTINSON. But one thing they can't be depended upon to do is SIT THEIR ASSES DOWN all by themselves. Here's an inside look at the seat cards for the 2009 MTV VMAs, so all of the celebrities and guests know where to sit and the cameras know where to capture that perfect "Oh-seriously-I'm-so-happy-for-you!" face when their competition wins. (Cough cough Gaga versus Beyonce!)

See where Katy Perry, Gaga, Paramore, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Janet Jackson, and more VMA guests will sit! (I love how Cobra Starship appears to get one seat for five people, while Death Cab For Cutie gets four separate seats! Also, keep in mind that suprise guests don't usually get seat cards if you catch what I'm saying... )

+ Check out more photos of 2009 VMA seat cards after the jump!

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