Each week I'm posting a random or not-so-random cover song. Only the current week's track will be available but if you see a past one you'd like, contact me and we'll make arrangements.
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Sunday, November 8th, 2009
Billy Bragg covers The Smiths
WikipediaBilly Bragg and The Smiths go way back. Besides being contemporaries and stalwarts of the English indie music circa the 1980s, Bragg was/is obviously chummy with Johnny Marr, the Smiths guitarist guesting on a number of records as well as producing some of Bragg’s most pop numbers.
His relationship with Stephen Patrick Morrissey is a little less clear, however. Though they surely know each other, the litany of hilarious Morrissey-centric anecdotes that Bragg busts out during his live shows – a tale of Bragg and Morrissey riding roller coasters together at Canada’s Wonderland comes to mind – are so mythology-deflating that they must be fiction. Or at least the hordes of Moz fans out there would hope so.
Not up for debate, however, is Bragg’s admiration for the Smiths’ musical output. He covers them frequently live, either wholly, in quote or medley, has released interpretations of “Jeanne” and “Back To The Old House” as b-sides and also contributed this cover of one of the dirgier numbers from The Queen Is Dead to the 1996 10th anniversary tribute album The Smiths Is Dead.
Johnny Marr is presently busy as a member of both The Cribs and Modest Mouse. Morrissey just released his contract-fulfilling b-sides compilation Swords and is trying to make it through a UK tour without collapsing or being assaulted. Billy Bragg kicks off a Canadian tour this Saturday out east and makes southern Ontario stops next week at the Phoenix in Toronto on the 17th and The Studio at Hamilton Place in Hamilton on the 18th. Wonder what Morrissey story he’ll bust out?
Beatroute has an interview with Billy Bragg.
MP3: Billy Bragg – “Never Had No One Ever”
Video: The Smiths – “Never Had No One Ever” (live)
Sunday, November 1st, 2009
Monsters Of Folk cover Bob Dylan
last.fmBefore there was Monsters Of Folk, the band, or Monsters Of Folk, the album, there was Monsters Of Folk, the tour. It was the tongue-in-cheek banner applied to the shows featuring Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Matt Ward of M Ward Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes and unsurprisingly, found the three collaborating on stage as often as not.
One number that they’d lend their collective touches to was Bob Dylan’s “Girl From The North Country”, a live recording of which would find its way onto Dylan Covered, the September 2005 cover CD for Mojo magazine which featured a collection of Dylan covers. This track was credited to “M. Ward & Conor Oberst & Jim James” – I guess they hadn’t yet accepted their destiny to become the Voltron of folk. Which, I’m sure, was the original intended name for the project until the lawyers got involved.
Monsters Of Folk are on tour and will be at Massey Hall Monday night. Bob Dylan just released his Christmas album Christmas In The Heart and will be at the Memorial Auditorium in Kitchener this Saturday night, November 7.
The Lousiville Courier-Journal talks to the fourth Monster Of Folk – not officially involved with the original tour – Mike Mogis.
MP3: Monsters Of Folk – “Girl From The North Country”
Video: Bob Dylan – “Girl From The North Country”
Sunday, October 25th, 2009
R.E.M. cover Roky Erickson
AmazonThanks go out to Cover Freak for making this one available last week and which I couldn’t resist re-posting for this week’s selection. After all – the only way the timing for it could have been even better is if the annual Toronto Zombie Walk had been scheduled for today rather than yesterday. After all, it’s hard to imagine that this motley crew couldn’t find inspiration in either the original by former 13th Floor Elevators frontman and legendary psych-rock pioneer Roky Erickson or the remake by legendary jangle-rock pioneers R.E.M., taken from the 1990 tribute album Where The Pyramid Meets Eye.
As it is, I’ll have to settle for the double-punch of the Erickson making a rare visit to Toronto this week for a show at Lee’s Palace on Wednesday night, October 28, and the fact that R.E.M. are releasing their new live double CD/quadruple LP/single DVD Live At The Olympia on Tuesday. And the fact that, of course, it is Hallowe’en this Saturday.
NPR talks to R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe about the making of the live document, recorded in Dublin in the Summer of 2007 and are also streaming the album in advance of its release.
MP3: R.E.M. – “I Walked With A Zombie”
Stream: Roky Erickson – “I Walked With A Zombie”
Sunday, October 18th, 2009
Pavement cover Echo & The Bunnymen
WikipediaOh reunions are funny things, aren’t they? Intellectually, it’s hard not to be cynical about them – they’re usually more fiscally motivated than anyone would care to admit, rarely capture the magic of their heyday and usually feature principals balder and paunchier than their fans really want to remember. And if the outfit tries to tread down the “still artistically relevant” path of new material, the results usually pale in comparison to what came before. But emotionally, the idea of seeing a favourite band thought lost to the ages in the flesh again can overwhelm reason.
One on side, you have Echo & The Bunnymen – after dissolving in 1988, original members Ian McCulloch, Will Sergeant and Les Pattinson reunited in 1997, well before reunions were all the rage, and though Pattinson would leave again in 1999, with the release last week of The Fountain, they have released as many albums in their second go-around as they did in the first (ignoring the McCulloch-less Reverberation) – no mean feat, especially considering that the new records have been uniformly pretty decent. And on the other side, Pavement. After much whispering and rumouring, the indie heroes recently announced they were ending a decade-long hiatus with a world tour next year that would not feature any new material or continue on past the dates tied to the 2010 jaunt, which at present starts in March in New Zealand and ends in September in New York City, but promises to hit most every major market with fans willing to pony up for the opportunity to sing along with, “Cut Your Hair”.
And the two did intersect both when Pavement covered the Bunnymen classic, “The Killing Moon” as a b-side on Major Leagues, their final EP and in live sets, replacing the overt drama of the original with their own distinctive brand of disaffected emotion. Those who prefer the grandeur of the original or would like to hear it with even more grandeur won’t want to miss one of the orchestral Ocean Rain shows the band is putting on during their current tour, including this Tuesday night at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Toronto.
MP3: Pavement – “The Killing Moon”
MP3: Pavement – “The Killing Moon” (live)
Video: Echo & The Bunnymen – “The Killing Moon”
Sunday, October 11th, 2009
Jeff Tweedy covers Radiohead
YouTubeOh what a rolodex Neil Finn must have. In 2001, the former Split Enz and current Crowded House singer assembled a host of talent including Johnny Marr, Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien and Philip Selway and Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder for a collaborative project and concert dubbed 7 Worlds Collide, which would spawn a live album and DVD.
Seven years later, Finn would again gather together a stellar lineup including many of the same players and some new ones, including much of Wilco, for a studio album of all-new songs released as The Sun Came Out in August and a set of charity concerts in benefit of Oxfam which featured much mixing and matching of personnel for many-old songs. One combination put Jeff Tweedy in front of the mic to perform Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees”. When an audience video from one of the shows got online, the internet seemed to collectively lose its shit but I was much more excited to hear this fan recording from a different show on account of the audio being much, much, much better.
Wilco are in the midst of a North American tour which brings them to Toronto’s Massey Hall for two nights this Wednesday and Thursday with Liam Finn, son of Neil and 7 Worlds Collide alumnus, as support. Radiohead recently confirmed they would be making a new, proper album in 2010 and in the meantime, Philip Selway is apparently working on a solo record and Thom Yorke is again stepping out solo while showing off his own impressive rolodex.
MP3: Jeff Tweedy and Seven Worlds Collide – “Fake Plastic Trees”
Video: Jeff Tweedy and Seven Worlds Collide – “Fake Plastic Trees”
Video: Radiohead – “Fake Plastic Trees”
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