Music to drink tea by
Covers
Cover: Iron Horse do The Shins
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I am not a fan of cover bands. I find the whole exercise to be rather pointless. If you’ve got musical talent, make your own music. If you haven’t, well, you’re probably in a cover band.
That said, I salute Iron Horse for doing something rather different. On a most basic level they are a covers band, as I can’t seem to find much in the way of original material from them. They have recorded cover albums consisting of songs by Metallica, Van Halen, Led Zeppelin. For the more indie minded, they have albums of songs covering Modest Mouse, and as demonstrated below, The Shins.
Best of all, Iron Horse are a bluegrass band. Now I can’t speak for most but I actually find bluegrass to be rather entertaining. I don’t really listen to any, but I love the twangy feel and anything that uses a banjo is always a winner with me. So hearing some of the classics by the Shins in bluegrass style is certainly an interesting, and rather enjoyable experience.
Cover: Nina Gordon does N.W.A.
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Is there some unknown credibility to be found in indie artists covering gangsta rap songs? Ben Folds put out a version of Bitches Ain’t Shit a while ago, and there are probably others at it too. Here we have Nina Gordon covering N.W.A.’s Straight Outta Compton. Now, I know nothing about Nina Gordon beyond the fact that she used to be the lead singer in Veruca Salt, a band I’ve never listened to. I don’t know much about N.W.A. either for that matter. A good blogalist would probably try and learn something about these things to offer up some insightful commentary. Not me. I will however point out that I absolutely love this idea of adapting rap songs into other genres, in this case turning it into a gentle girl and an acoustic guitar combination. If you weren’t paying attention, you wouldn’t even realise she’s singing about capping motherfuckers with an AK-47.
Cover: Dream Bitches do Belle & Sebastian
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I have absolutely no idea who Dream Bitches are, and from a few quick listens to some of their other songs, I wasn’t won over. That said, I can never pass up a Belle and Sebastian cover, particularly one from the If You’re Feeling Sinister era. It doesn’t get off to a great start given it’s lacking the harmonica that really makes the original, but it’s a pretty decent effort overall. It’s a much more straight up rock song than the original, and doesn’t really go anywhere surprising, but it’s a nice contrast with the original song.
4 or 5 Magicians – Tom Waits’ Blues
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Today sees the release of the new single from 4 or 5 Magicians, a double a-side made up of Change The Record and Ideal Man. While neither song quite lives up to last years stunning Forever On The Edge, both are excellent slices of guitar pop. Comparing them to Pavement or Guided By Voices or anyone is just lazy at this point, as this is a band that has found it’s own sound and is comfortable with it. All of which is a long-winded way of saying that you should buy their single so they can finally get that album deal and blow us all away.
The song below isn’t one of those new recordings. It’s taken from their first release, and would have fitted in nicely with a very early piece I wrote on here about bands adapting their own songs. It’s a version of the aforementioned Forever On The Edge in the style of Tom Waits. Just what you’d expect from a guitar band from Brighton.
4 or 5 Magicians / Website / Myspace
Change The Record / Ideal Man can be purchased from This Is Fake DIY Records. Probably some other places too.
Pony Up – We’re All In This Together
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It seems that the only times I bother to write about Pony Up is when I’ve got them doing a cover of something. Not one to easily break with tradition, I now have them covering everyone’s favourite Australian named Ben, Ben Lee. We’re All In This Together originally appeared on his 2005 album Awake Is The New Sleep, and album full of beautiful mediocrity, something this song nailed perfectly. The Pony Up edition (incidentally recorded as a b-side for one of Lee’s singles) slows it down, adds a more sombre tone and throws in some vocal harmonies for fun. None of which makes it better, or worse, than the original. Just different.
Emmy the Great – Where Is My Mind?
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I’ve lost track of exactly how many versions of Where Is My Mind I have at this point. It seems to be one of those staple cover songs that everyone has to have a go at sometime. With that in mind, here is Emmy the Great’s version, recorded live for a BBC Radio 1 session. I think. Maybe it was for somewhere else. My feelings on Emmy’s music itself varies from week to week, and I seem to like about half of her songs but can’t stand the other half. I’m not sure exactly where this one falls. It’s all acoustic with layered vocals, something Nada Surf attempted with their version if I recall correctly. It’s not bad by a long shot, but it’s not blowing me away either. Still, it’s always enjoyable to hear alternative versions of songs.
The Mountain Goats & Pony Up!: ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’
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The Mountain Goats intimidate me. Not in the literal sense of course, but rather that I find their back cataog to be far too large. I only discovered them a couple of years ago when ‘The Sunset Tree’ was doing the rounds. Since then, I’ve explored them a little, but their output is simply too prolific for me to be able to get through all of it without rushing through it, which would probably result in me failing to form any connection with most of it. It’s a vicious cycle. So far I’ve explored most of the newer, less lo-fi content, but the thought of heading back further is daunting.
Occasionally I use the Live Music Archive as a way of looking through recent shows, listening to both the songs I know and the ones I don’t as a way of becoming more familiar with old “favourites”. There’s never a shortage of cotent to explore with nearly 50 complete Mountain Goats shows in the archive. Looking around recently though I noticed that the band are perfoming their cover version of ‘The Boys Are Back In Town Again’. I know they played this on a French radio session once and have a rip of it, but thought I’d listen to how they play it now.
The first thing I noticed is that the song was listed as “with Pony Up!”, which was a surprise to me as I didn’t even know they were touring together though. It’s certainly an interesting combination, and enjoying both bands, I couldn’t resist giving it a listen. The most surprising aspect was that it’s the polar opposite to the previous version I’d heard, with this one being upbeat and quite rocking. This is something of a contrast to the slowed down, mildly creepy version that I’d heard previously.
Now Pony Up! add little to this beyond backing vocals on the chorus, but it gives the song a little extra depth, and everyone sounds like they are having a fun time with it. Of course, John can’t resist bursting into a quick rendition of R Kelly’s ‘Ignition Remix’ before the song is over, which seems to now be standard.
MP3 The Mountain Goats & Pony Up! – The Boys Are Back In Town (live) (expired)
Boring details: The quality isn’t particularly great, but most live recordings tend to be like that. It’s certainly more than listenable though. If you’re interested in the little details, this was recorded at the Independent in San Francisco on 8 March 2007. You can listen to the entire show that it was recorded from here.
I’m worst at what I do best.. or “Covers”
5It’s quite surprising that I haven’t done a covers post since last November. When I first started this thing I was doing them every couple of weeks as a handy fall back mechanism that saved me having to write about anything more substantial. I’m only doing one today because I’m tired and need something quick and easy to post, and covers are pretty good for fitting that description.
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I’ve never been a big fan of Tori Amos other than a handful of songs. I’ve never been a big fan of Nirvana either, but I probably like a few more of their songs. So I wasn’t overly excited about this particular cover given that ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is one of the ones I do like. Surprisingly though, I ended up enjoying this version. It’s the polar opposite of the Nirvana original: it’s slow, it only has a piano behind the vocal, and you can clearly make out the lyrics. I don’t even think it’s all that fair to compare it to the original given it shares very little with it beyond the words.
MP3 Tori Amos – Smells Like Teen Spirit (expired) (Nirvana)
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I seem to be one of the few people who will admit to wholeheartedly liking Saves The Day. Sure, they aren’t perfect, but albums like ‘Through Being Cool’ and most of ‘Stay What You Are’ are uniformly enjoyable. It’s a shame though that their most interesting release is the one most often overlooked: 1998′s ‘I’m Sorry I’m Leaving’ EP. Five songs, all stripped down to basic acoustic arrangements. While four of these are Saves The Day originals, the collection ends with a cover of Modern English’s ‘I Melt With You’. Their cover doesn’t change the formula all that much, aside from simplifying it a little, but it’s very enjoyable nonetheless. Even if I didn’t even know it was a cover for the first couple of years that I had it.
MP3 Saves The Day – I Melt With You (expired) (Modern English)
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As usual, we end with the obligatory cover of a song I’m not familiar with. I have never heard the original version of ‘Bad Reputation’. Actually, I don’t even know who Freedy Johnson is. All of which means there isn’t a great deal of commentary I can offer you on this song, beyond some basic facts. The song was released as an exclusive on iTunes late in 2005, around the time that ‘Plans’ was released. It’s also a rather good song, and if I didn’t know it was a cover, I’d probably assume it was a Death Cab song as it certainly sounds like something that could come from them.
MP3 Death Cab For Cutie – Bad Reputation (expired) (Freedy Johnson)
AFoR Advent: Festive leftovers
2I was going to lay this thing to a well deserved rest after the Pogues song, but I’ve found a few more novelties over the past month that I want to share, and I don’t really feel like sitting on them for another year. I swear this will be the final post that contains any festive music this side of next December though. Between this place and all of the other blogs going into festive overload, if you’re anything like me, you’re probably getting a little sick of all of the Christmas songs by now. I only really want to give these three a mention because they are all connected to songs featured earlier on in our advent.
MP3 Snow Patrol – Just Like Christmas (expired)
This will be the third version of ‘Just Like Christmas’ that I’ve posted on this thing, following the original by Low on day 3 and a cover by Aberdeen City on day 18. This cover by Snow Patrol is a pretty direct, if a tad stripped down, version of the original song. Which is fine as it’s the kind of thing that Snow Patrol pull off brilliantly. There’s actually a lot of talent in that band, and Lightbody’s voice is pretty damn impressive. It’s a shame they feel the need to go down the boring as hell big anthem kind of route with their albums.
MP3 Save Ferris – Christmas Wrapping (expired)
I don’t know much about Save Ferris and everything I’ve read about them in the last hour or so has pretty much laid into them for one reason or another. I have no idea if that’s justified or not, but this ‘cover’ of The Waitresses’ song that I posted yesterday is pretty damn good. I use the term ‘cover’ as while it imitates the original almost perfectly musically and vocally, the song has been completely remade with entirely different words, chorus and the odd knowing line aside. The whole thing has been turned into a tale of a Jew trying to cope with how overbearing Christmas is and wanting to hibernate in the two months between November and January. It’s not perfect and some of the lines are a little clunky, but it’s a pretty amusing diversion.
MP3 Stars – Fairytale of New York (expired)
I’m a big fan of Stars, and that hasn’t wained very much in the year since I’ve found them. Sure, there’s nothing groundbreakingly original about what they do, but they make some darn catchy pop songs. Anyway, this cover was the b-side to the UK single release of ‘Your Ex-Lover Is Dead’, which handily was released around Christmas last year. Whenever I hear a different versions of this song, they always takes a hell of lot of getting used to, and usually I won’t warm to them at all. This one was much the same, but I’ve grown to rather like it in the past year. It’s still not a patch on The Pogues version, and it’s lacking the energy that it really needs, but it’s still rather good.
So yes, no more Christmas songs for at least another 340 days. Which is probably for the best as the backlog of bands I want to rave about has grown pretty big over the past month. I’ve still got a few time of year approrpriate posts coming up though. All being well, December 26 through December 30 should see me counting down my favourite 49 songs of the year. Why 49? I don’t know either. Then on December 31 we’ll have a nice little selection of new year related songs, followed by a return to normality. Woo.
AFoR Advent, day 18: Aberdeen City
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It was all the way back on day 3 that I first posted ‘Just Like Christmas’, the classic Low Christmas song. Today we have a cover of that very song. I wasn’t intending on including, largely because I only discovered it a few days ago, but I think it’s pretty interesting, so I’m going with it.
Unfortunately, I don’t know a great deal about Aberdeen City. I’ve downloaded a few of their songs in the past and they’ve never really clicked with me, so I’ve never listened to them properly. The only thing I can really tell you about the band is that they aren’t actually from Aberdeen, but rather the US. Which makes the name of the band rather odd, but there you go. As for this cover, it’s pretty by the numbers, although the production is a little rough around the edges. It keeps the feel of the original though, even getting away with a relocating of the song from Sandinavia to the US.
MP3 Aberdeen City – Just Like Christmas (expired)
