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, April 12th, 2009
MySpaceNatasha Khan of Bat For Lashes could sing the alphabet and make it sound sultry and mysterious. So when she tackled this Cure classic for the Perfect As Cats tribute album last Fall, it was really no surprise that the result was, well, sultry and mysterious where the original was tense and foreboding – whereas Robert Smith sounded like he wanted to scare you away from the forest, Khan seeks to entice.
Bat For Lashes released their second album Two Suns last week to glowing reviews and a Pitchfork “Best New Music” endorsement. Her North American tour consists of a short, five-date east coast jaunt in late April followed by a handful of west coast dates in June. It all starts next Saturday night, April 25, at the Mod Club in Toronto, and there’s simply no way the show won’t be marvelous.
There’s features on Bat For Lashes at The Birmingham Mail and BBC, and Deaf Indie Elephants has a couple MP3s from a BBC Live Lounge session, including a Kings Of Leon cover. The Cure have, I believe, stopped pretending they’re going to retire anytime soon.
MP3: Bat For Lashes – “A Forest”
Video: The Cure – “A Forest”
Sunday, April 5th, 2009
Amazon.comBack in the early/mid-90s, tribute albums were all the rage. Compilations of covers to every artist, big or small, who’d ever influenced enough artists to compile a tribute album were all the rage. And naturally, I bought more than my share of them. Most didn’t end up being especially noteworthy, but one of the less-heralded ones, Beat The Retreat, was really quite superb and the fact that it was by and large ignored seems sadly fitting, as the recipient of the tribute – Richard Thompson – has spent his entire 40-year career not getting the attention he deserves.
But if the virtuoso songwriter/guitarist never got the popular acclaim that his ungodly talents should have, he at least could be proud of the talents he inspired. The acts on the tribute record ranged from X, R.E.M. and Dinosaur Jr on the electrified of the spectrum to the Blind Boys Of Alabama, Los Lobos and Loudon Wainwright III on the folky.
One highlight for me came from Bob Mould, who took Thompson’s paean to a prostitute whose best years are behind her and made it absolutely roar – not many people can even attempt to recreate the eccentric brilliance of Thompson’s soloing when he’s in full flight but damn if Mould doesn’t come close. It remains one of my favourite Mould recordings.
Mould’s new album Life And Times, which is finally a fully plugged in, vocoder-less electric guitar record, is out April 7 and there’s interviews with him at Southern Voice and Metro Weekly. Richard Thompson will be the subject of a four-disc box set entitled Walking On A Wire: Richard Thompson (1968-2009), due out June 30. Details on that at Blurt.
MP3: Bob Mould – “Turning Of The Tide”
Video: Richard Thompson – “Turning Of The Tide” (live)
Sunday, March 29th, 2009
iTunesThe Yeah Yeah Yeahs made their name with abrasive yet addictive dance-punk, but have never been ones to allow themselves to be pigeonholed. For example, their latest album It’s Blitz!, out on Tuesday, finds them embracing sleek synth-rock and in the process, turning out maybe the best record of their career.
But they also excel when they go in the other direction and strip down acoustically, allowing Karen O’s voice to really shine. Case in point, this Sonic Youth cover recorded for an iTunes EP where they tackle one of Sonic Youth’s straighter and lovelier tunes and for my money, knock it out of the park. Deluxe editions of It’s Blitz! come with a bonus EP with four Blitz tracks rendered acoustically – needless to say, I think it’s worth picking up the fancy version.
Sonic Youth’s The Eternal is out June 9 and I realize this is the second Sonic Youth cover I’ve posted in three weeks – who’d have thought they’d be that coverable?
MP3: The Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “The Diamond Sea”
Video: Sonic Youth – “The Diamond Sea”
Sunday, March 22nd, 2009
BeggarsSooo this will be a brief – super-brief – one on account of me actually writing it up more than a week in advance while my head tries to process everything I need to get done before decamping for Austin.
UK indie-dance outfit Friendly Fires seem to have a Forrest Gump-like knack for getting on tours with some of the buzziest acts of the day. They’re here next week – March 31 – for a sold-out show at Lee’s Palace alongside White Lies and The Soft Pack and last year, they rolled in as support for Lykke Li, who you could understatedly say had a good 2008.
To mark their good fortune, the band decided to record a cover of one of Ms Zachrisson’s songs and did a pretty decent job of maintaining its slinkiness, which is no mean feat considering that they don’t have her innate qualities – which is to say being Swedish and sexy.
And I know that Friendly Fires are a trio – but I couldn’t make them all fit in the image crop. My apologies to unnamed, excised Friendly Fire dude.
MP3: Friendly Fires – “I’m Good I’m Gone”
Video: Lykke Li – “I’m Good I’m Gone”
Sunday, March 15th, 2009
Frank YangI don’t think many would argue the fact that Ryan Adams’ skull must be a fascinating and somewhat frightening place to be – probably less an efficient expressway than a random series of backwoods laneways, dead ends and cul de sacs. His entire career has been marked with odd public behaviour, countless career left turns, bizarre online personas and an incomparable creative prolificness punctuated with with moments of brilliance. Or put more succinctly, the man is batshit but it works for him.
And apparently he’s tired of it. He announced earlier this year that he was retiring from music after the end of this current tour, which wraps this Friday in Atlanta, and will instead be turning his attention to his burgeoning career as an author and new wife Mandy Moore. It’d be foolish to assume that this shift in professions will be permanent – a man who put out three albums in a year is not someone who can just hang it up – but it looks as though we might have a little less DRA to gawk at for the next while.
This Sonic Youth cover was a regular part of he and the Cardinals’ repertoire in the mid-00s, an interesting detour in a set heavy with Grateful Dead-ish numbers. This particular recording dates to a July 2005 show in Melbourne, Australia. Sonic Youth’s next album The Eternal is due out on June 9.
MP3: Ryan Adam – “Expressway To Yr Skull”
Video: Sonic Youth – “Expressway To Yr Skull” (live @ Bonnaroo 2006)
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