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.
If you are the copyright holder of the current track and wish it to be taken down please contact me to do so.
Sunday, September 16th, 2012
Wild Nothing covers Kate Bush
Captured TracksIt was last December that I posted a couple of covers of Kate Bush’s “Cloudbusting” – perhaps my favourite song of hers – and while both Neil Halstead and Gemma Hayes’ reinterpretations were good, they were both built on stripped-down acoustic arrangements. A reasonable approach for letting the lyrics, melodies, and performance shine through, but also kind of safe.
Acoustic guitars don’t really fit into the Wild Nothing aesthetic, so that avenue wasn’t so open to Jack Tatum when he decided to record a version of the song for a 7″ single in 2009. Instead, he turned to his usual arsenal of synthetic instruments and processors and turned out a glistening version that successfully evokes the dramatic strings of the original while being entirely its own thing. Pretty.
Wild Nothing released their second album Nocturne at the end of August and will be at The Great Hall on Tuesday night to play it live. Many expected Kate Bush’s 2011 comeback album 50 Words For Snow to make the Mercury Prize shortlist last week; it did not. But that is Donald Sutherland in the “Cloudbusting” video. So there’s that.
MP3: Wild Nothing – “Cloudbusting”
Video: Kate Bush – “Cloudbusting”
Sunday, September 9th, 2012
Bloc Party covers Nelly Furtado
WikipediaIt’s turning into a bit of a Bloc Party weekend hereabouts, thanks to the band’s upcoming 2.5-night stand in Toronto starting tomorrow night – that’s two nights at the Danforth Music Hall and a free show on Tuesday evening at 7:30PM at Sugar Beach – and this weekend’s giveaway for passes to the Tuesday show.
Clearly they have no small amount of affection for Canada, as further evidenced by their contribution to the 2008 NME Awards magazine cover compilation CD, to which they contributed a cover of BC pop singer Nelly Furtado’s 2006 hit, originally recorded for a BBC1 Live Lounge session. It’s interesting that as much as Bloc Party have sought to incorporate more electronic textures into their music, in covering a slick, synth-friendly Top 40 pop song, they give it a scrappy, all-guitar treatment reminiscent of their debut Silent Alarm.
Bloc Party are currently on tour in support of their new record Four. Nelly Furtdao will release her fifth album the Spirit Indestructible on September 18.
MP3: Bloc Party – “Say It Right”
Video: Nelly Furtado – “Say It Right”
Sunday, September 2nd, 2012
Jens Lekman covers Boyz II Men
Frank YangI don’t think this one requires an awful lot of explanation. Stereogum sets the scene: November 2008 at the Google Lounge in New York’s Lower East Side, where one Jens Lekman, there as a guest of Frida Hyvönen, seats himself at a piano and with the crowd chatter and beats of dance music carrying on in the background, performs a beautiful solo cover of Boyz II Men’s 1995 hit song, condensing their four lead vocals to just his own and making it that much more earnest and lovely. And as he says as he wraps up, “it was not a guilty pleasure, just pleasure”.
Lekman’s new record I Know What Love Isn’t comes out this week and he plays The Phoenix on October 4. Boyz II Men released their latest album Twenty – presumably in reference to their years as performers – last Fall.
MP3: Jens Lekman – “Water Runs Dry” (live at Google Lounge – November 2008)
Video: Boyz II Men – “Water Runs Dry”
Sunday, August 26th, 2012
Ryan Adams covers Bob Mould
iTunesI never drew the parallels until just now, really, but the career arcs of Bob Mould and Ryan Adams really do have a lot in common, not least of all that they’ve not really been arcs so much as strange and interesting twisty patterns with all kinds of full stops and hard lefts.
Both started out fronting influential and relatively successful bands that eventually imploded (Hüsker Dü and Whiskeytown), embarked on solo careers that would be interrupted with runs with new bands, (Sugar and The Cardinals), puzzling and questionable detours in creative direction )Modulate and Orion), and even very public retirements from music (Mould in 1999 following The Last Dog & Pony Show, Adams in 2009 post-Cardinology). And both have made impressive comebacks in the past year by playing to their strengths – Adams with the relatively low-key Ashes & Fire last Fall and Mould by using the Sugar reissues as an excuse to return to loud, hooky rock music on his next album The Silver Age, out September 4.
And so I really shouldn’t have been surprised Adams – a man with a penchant for unexpected covers – made the title track from Mould’s second solo album Black Sheets Of Rain a staple of his live sets recently, including for an iTunes session this Spring. As Adams is in acoustic mode, there’s no attempt to reproduce the nearly eight minutes of soul- and guitar-shredding catharsis of the original instead transforming it into a smouldering, ruminative number. It works, too.
MP3: Ryan Adams – “Black Sheets Of Rain”
Video: Ryan Adams – “Black Sheets Of Rain” (live on Letterman)
Stream: Bob Mould – “Black Sheets Of Rain”
Sunday, August 19th, 2012
Patterson Hood covers Bruce Springsteen
Southern ShelterThere’s not really a lot to covering Bruce Springsteen. Whether you’re fronting a big band or are just a guy with a guitar – and maybe a harmonica – all you really need is the ability and conviction to sing it the way Bruce intended it; the song really does the rest. Given that criteria, Patterson Hood has got it – if you’ll excuse the pun – covered.
The Drive-By Truckers frontman opened up for Sonic Youth at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia in December 2007 and for this set, opted to do a set comprised entirely of Bruce covers. And not just any old set of Springsteen tunes, but only ones taken from The Boss’ 1978 album Darkness On The Edge Of Town. Hood explained his affection for that particular Springsteen record in a piece for Aquarium Drunkard and the full set is available to hear and download at Southern Shelter.
Springsteen is in town this coming Friday night, August 24, for a show at the Rogers Centre in support of his latest album Wrecking Ball. Drive-By Truckers’ last release was 2011’s Go-Go Boots, but Hood is releasing his third solo record in Heat Lightning Rumbles In The Distance on September 11. Charleston City Paper has an interview with Hood.
MP3: Patterson Hood – “Darkness On The Edge Of Town” (40 Watt Club, Athens, GA – Dec 1, 2007)
Video: Bruce Springsteen – “Darkness On The Edge Of Town” (Capitol Theater, Passaic, NJ – September 19, 1978)
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