Music to drink tea by
Posts tagged Ben Folds
Video: Ben Folds – You Don’t Know Me
03 years ago
in Videos
Today we have a video that falls into the “who on earth thought this was a good idea” camp. There are a lot of whimsical songs on the new Ben Folds album, Way to Normal. You Don’t Know Me really isn’t one of them. Sure, it sounds upbeat enough, but we’re dealing with a couple realising they know sod all about each other here. You’ve also got Regina Spektor floating in and out of the song, giving it a certain dignity.
As such, a video seemingly about nothing more than cross-dressing bandmates doesn’t seem like the most appropriate theme. I have nothing against the video itself, however silly it all is, it’s just about the least appropriate song from the album to use with it. The whole album is surprisingly better than I expected. I was ready not to bother after the whole Silverman snorefest, but it’s a decent attempt to get the feel of the old Five back.
AFoR Advent, day 20: Ben Folds (again)
25 years ago
in MP3s
Unlike the Ben Folds Christmas song I featured on day 8, this one actually sounds like it was recorded when Ben hadn’t been smoking the funny cigarettes. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing is up to you to decide.
This song was actually recorded for The Grinch soundtrack, so if you listen with that in mind, the whole thing becomes pretty self-explanatory. It’s all about being driven insane on Christmas Eve by the people outside singing Christmas songs over and over. Which thankfully, people don’t really tend to do. God, that would be irritating if they did. Anyway, you can also substitute the narrator of the song for any miserable git that dislikes Christmas (like myself), and it works just as well.
MP3 Ben Folds – Lonely Christmas Eve (expired)
AFoR Advent, day 8: Ben Folds
25 years ago
in MP3s
To vary from the downbeat festive songs a little, today we have a cheerful song from Ben Folds all about Santa getting stuck in someone’s chimney and dying. Okay, maybe not quite as cheerful as I intended. Unless you hate Santa or something. Which would make you very strange person indeed. Anyway, the song comes from the more zany end of the Ben Folds catalogue, with both Ben and his “grandpa” relating the story of the fateful night when “Santa got his fat ass stuck”, and it’s all rather good fun.
Oh Santa, he’s a big fat fuck
Went down the chimney, got his fat ass stuck
Oh honey call the lawyers fast
’cause Mrs. Claus is gonna sue my ass
MP3 Ben Folds – Bizarre Christmas Incident (expired)
October: The Leftovers
1Only three songs for the “leftovers” section this month. As we head toward the end of the year, the number of indie releases seems to wind down making finding new material a little harder than usual. Still, this brings the advantage of letting me go back over some of the great records I may have missed over the course of the year. Any recommendations for small albums that I may have missed over the past year?
MP3 Pocketbooks – Cross The Line (expired)
I first wrote about Pocketbooks more than four months ago and I still haven’t been able to find a picture of them in the time since. I’m starting to think they may not actually exist, or that they are cartoons like Gorillaz or something. Anyway, who cares what they look like when they throwing out top notch low-fi twee indie pop? ‘Cross the Line’ is the first song released from their new batch of recordings, and it’s easily cemented itself in place as one of my favourites of the year so far. Full of lovely imagery (it opens with “I’m asleep on a train on the Zone 2 boundary”) and basically continues as a back and forth conversation between the male and female vocalists. This takes on a nicely self-aware twist when she starts calling him on the honesty of his lyrics (“As a kid I would run through the fields and orchards” / “What about your hayfever though?” / “I’d climb the branches to the top” / “What, with your vertigo?” / “Look, I’m making all this up”). Extra points also have to be awarded for being the first song I’m aware of that actually slots in the term “Oyster card” without being entirely tacky.
MP3 Ben Folds – Such Great Heights (expired)
For the 57th cover of The Postal Service’s ‘Such Great Heights’, Ben Folds decides to take a stab at it. This was actually an in-studio radio performance so the production values aren’t really the highest, but it’s an interesting cover none the less. As it’s Ben Folds, obviously a piano plays a very heavy part in the preceedings, with him almost pounding the poor piano to death over the course of the four minutes. Which unfortunately leaves it feeling a little more overbearing than it should. Other than that, it’s a pretty straight up cover, aside from one odd changing of one of the lyrics to include the word “shit”. Which is just a tad jarring on first listening.
MP3 Via Audio – We Can Be Good
Via Audio are a New York indie pop band who have been making music for about three years but everything seems to be coming together for them now. Chris Walla of Death Cab For Cutie calls them his “new favourite band” and Jim Eno of Spoon liked them so much that he offered to produce their record. That record (‘Say Something’) is still in the mixing stage, but the band have made a couple of songs from it available on the internet. ‘We Can Be Good’ is my favourite of these. It’s a simple pop song about a girl trying to tell a guy that they would be great together. It’s full of lovely harmonies and some instrumentation that borders on precious. These guys will certainly be ones to watch over the next year or so to see what else they come up with.
I Control Music?
Well I probably don’t, but it’s certainly starting to feel that way. Over the past week or so, four of the unsigned artists I’ve written about on Another Form of Relief have signed pretty important record deals. I already mentioned Kate Nash signing to Universal. On top of that, we have Play Radio Play signing to Island, Jenny Owen Youngs signing to Nettwerk and Los Campesinos! signing to.. someone. Of course, my original comment was meant in jest and I have no delusions of grandeur about this place. I think it is somewhat indicitive that blogs in general are (as Frank Debarge would put it) the ‘tastemakers’ now. That or I just have an uncanny ability to write about those who will hit the big time anyway. Either way.
It’s been a month since we last did covers?
2Here I was thinking I’d be falling back on them every week.
It’s been a slow week here at Another Form of Relief, mostly because I’ve spent much of it working in London, which combined with the commute, severely limits my time and energy levels. Everything is back to normal now though a regular blogging schedule should once again resume.
MP3 Ted Leo – Since U Been Gone (expired) (Kelly Clarkson)
There seems to be a lot of appreciation for the regular kind of pop music lately, and Kelly Clarkson seems to be at the forefront of this. Call me a jaded indie kid but I don’t get it all. It’s just generic pop music. Pretty shitty generic pop music at that. A strong singing voice in itself doesn’t equate to good music. This will just have to be one of those things that remains a mystery to me though. I don’t know whether Ted Leo was trying to be ironic or not in covering this one, but somehow it comes off rather well. Granted his high notes seem a little too high at times, but the rest of it all works well, from the powerful acoustic guitar through to the song suddenly diverting into a cover of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ ‘Maps’ halfway through. That you can move from Kelly Clarkson into The Yeah Yeah Yeahs so easily is more than just a little disturbing.
MP3 The Bens – I Touch Myself (live) (expired) (The Divinyls)
For those unfamiliar, The Bens is a supergroup consisting of Ben Folds, Ben Kweller and Ben Lee. They released one EP back in 2004 and toured together a little, but that was it. This is something of a shame as they were actually really good. This cover is taken from a show in Sydney that was recorded for radio. For the most part it’s Folds and Lee playing off of each other, although Kweller does make it into the song at the end. This is the weekly cover where I’m not familiar with the original, so I can’t really tell you how it compares, but it somehow manages to be the perfect kind of song for these guys. A tad juvenile? Of course. A hell of a lot of fun? Most certainly.
MP3 Nada Surf – There Is A Light That Never Goes Out (expired) (The Smiths)
Much as I can respect the influence that The Smiths have had over music as a whole, I’ve never really liked them very much. There’s nothing wrong with their music at all and the songs are good, but I’ve never found myself actually wanting to listen to The Smith, or Morrissey for that matter. That said, there are a handful of Smiths songs that I enjoy, and ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ is one of them. It also seems to be the most covered Smiths song, although most of them sound pretty awful. There’s a version by The Lucksmiths that I like though, even if it’s almost a note perfect copy of the original, and there’s this one by Nada Surf. I really like Nada Surf, even if their music sometimes wanders into the middle of the road. I’m not sure where this recording comes from, although from the quality I’d hazard a guess it’s from a live radio performance or something. Obviously if anyone can clarify where it does come from, the comment box is waiting below. As for the song itself, Matthew Caws doesn’t have the vocal power of Morrissey, but it doesn’t really matter with a song like this. Caws delivers the song as if he is incredibly weary and just wants to rest. He’s backed up by a nicely restrained guitar and some strings that soar, but never overwealm the other elements of the song. It’s not perfect, and the start seems a little bland, but once it gets going, it’s far better than it really has any right to be.
The Bens: Live at the Wireless
5
The Bens were a side project for Ben Folds, Ben Kweller and Ben Lee for a short period back in 2003. They recorded a four song self-titled EP and performed nine concerts together down in Australia. Since then though, nothing has really happened with them. There were rumours of new material as well as US and UK tours, but nothing ever seemed to come of it. This is something of a shame as they do sound damn good together, and the way that they all took turns with songwriting duties made it an interesting experience.
The set below isn’t complete I’m afraid. The concert was recorded by Australian radio station Triple J, and these were all of the songs that they broadcast from it. It’s a shame that they didn’t focus more on the songs of the group as a whole (assuming they played any), rather than focusing more on their solo work. It does all come to a great conclusion though as all three of them launch into a hilarious performance of The Divinyls’ ‘I Touch Myself’.
MP3 The Bens – Ben Kweller – BK Baby (live) (expired)
MP3 The Bens – Ben Kweller – Wasted & Ready (live) (expired)
MP3 The Bens – Ben Lee – Running With Scissors (live) (expired)
MP3 The Bens – Ben Lee – Something Borrowed, Something Blue (live) (expired)
MP3 The Bens – Ben Folds – Army (live) (expired)
MP3 The Bens – I Touch Myself (live) (expired)
I was pretty sure it was out of print, but you can apparently still pick up the four song EP for $6 from Folds’ own Attacked By Plastic store, although it does seem to be on backorder.
Covers (I have no pun)
0It’s sunday and I’m not feeling particularly creative, which means you get a bunch of covers! There’s a certain irony that these posts I add when I’m feeling lazy seem to get more hits than ones where I’m actually trying, but we’ll overlook that little factor.
MP3 Ben Kweller – BK Baby (expired) (Vanilla Ice)
This isn’t a strict cover as Ben has changed it round a little to fit himself. I don’t know if he still does this, but he always used to open his shows with this song, which is one hell of a way to get attention. It’s just him and acoustic guitar, rocking out as hard as he can, declaring who he is. Some of the words have been changed to make it decidedly uncool (“rollin’ in my grey Volvo”), which adds a nice irony given he’s about the last person to “rock the mic like a vandal”.
MP3 The Flops – I’m In Love With A Girl (expired) (Big Star)
Covering Big Star seems to be in thing to do these days (how many versions of Thirteen are there?) but you don’t hear this one done very often. It’s a tiny song that’s unapologetically positive to the point where it’d probably become nauseating if it ran a full four minutes. As it is though, it works perfectly. The Flops version doesn’t really add anything to the original, but it’s another way for me to push a little Trip Shakespeare / Matt Wilson love on here.
MP3 Ben Folds – Get Your Hands Off My Woman (expired) (The Darkness)
Just about the strangest cover here, this was the last song in a set of covers that Folds offered up in his run of EPs before ‘Songs For Silverman’. For what it’s worth, I think that The Darkness are one of the most awful bands I have ever heard, and I think this song is pretty terrible. Folds can’t really do a great deal to recover it, but it’s certainly interesting to hear it turned into piano rock. There’s also something mildly fun about Folds bellowing “get your hands off my woman motherfucker” in the highest voice possible too.
MP3 Ted Leo – Dancing In The Dark (expired) (Bruce Springsteen)
Ted Leo seems to like a good cover as much as I do (his ‘Since U Been Gone / Maps’ medley seemed to cause a small blog storm last year) and this is certainly a good choice for him. It seems somewhat bizarre that he would mellow the song considerably from the Springsteen one, reducing to just an acoustic guitar and restrained vocals. It works well though, and it suits Leo’s style pretty well.
Site stuff..
Honestly, the MC Lars report is coming, I’ve just been holding off a little to see if any pictures from the show turned up online as I didn’t take any myself. I’ve found some of the support act but none from the MC Lars set. I’ll give it until tonight and then just post anyway if nothing shows up.
I’ve got some ideas for a couple of new (semi) regular features in the works. The first is something similar to these cover posts where we look at great songs that are under two minutes in length. Seeing as these songs are often overlooked and I have a short attention span, this could be kind of fun. The second is something along the lines of 6Music’s “great lost albums”, where a great overlooked album is looked at retrospectively. I’d limit this to within the past ten years as that’s the music I know well. Pretty much the albums that bloggers would be jumping all over if they were released now, but are sadly unappreciated as it stands. I’m thinking of things like Enon’s ‘High Society’ or The American Analog Set’s ‘From Our Living Room To Yours’. Of course if anyone has any suggestions for albums that fit the criteria, feel free to leave them below.
William Shatner
35 years ago
in MP3s
I’ve been planning to write about William Shatner for a little while now, but was finally spurred into action by Tim’s post at the excellent People of Paper. He put up a little Ben Folds Five material, and also included Shatner’s cover of Pulp’s ‘Common People’, which was produced by Folds. If you haven’t heard this little masterpiece, head on over there and get it. You won’t be disappointed.
The Shatner/Folds story goes back a lot further though, starting with a collaboration all the way back in 1998, for Folds’ side-project, Fear Of Pop. Fear Of Pop was Folds’ way of putting out completely different music to what the Five were making at the time, allowing him to dabble in electronica, soul and random instrumentation. One of the more intriguing parts of the album though, was ‘In Love’, featuring Shatner reciting the lyrics. Anyone who has heard Shatner’s early forays into the world of music will likely be sceptical that anything he does could actually be any good, but the work here was a pleasant surprise. Of course, it’s all very ironic, but that’s what Shatner does best. A rambling poem over a drum machine and some pleasant backing vocals from Folds made this one of the most entertaining songs on the album.
MP3 Fear of Pop feat. William Shatner – In Love (expired)
Six years later, it was time for Shatner to release another solo album (his first in nearly forty years), and thankfully, Ben Folds was on call to oversee the entire project. Folds drafts in a bunch of others, including Lemon Jelly, Nick Hornby and Henry Rollins, leaving us with one of the strangest musicial combinations in quite some time, but one that somehow manages to work. The main reason it does is that it’s all carried out with a wry smile. Shatner knows that is a useless singer, and plays that up no end, sticking with a spoken word delivery that actually ends up fitting the tone perfectly, particularly on things like the ‘Common People’ cover. And seeing as he’s in on the joke, it all becomes wonderfully ironic. That’s not to say it all works well, some of the albums attempt at more serious fare flounders a little, but if you’re willing to just take it for what it is, it’s a hell of a lot of fun
MP3 William Shatner – I Can’t Get Behind That (expired)
MP3 William Shatner – That’s Me Trying (expired)
MP3 William Shatner – You’ll Have Time (expired)
‘I Can’t Get Behind That’ is the perfect example of Shatner not taking himself seriously in the least. The duet with Henry Rollins is essentially two bitter old men rambling about everything that bugs them. “I can’t get behind so called singers / That can’t carry a tune / Get paid for talking / How easy is that? / Well maybe I could get behind that” bellows Shatner, fully aware of the irony and easily heading off the possible criticisms that would be levelled at him if he was taking all of this seriously. ‘That’s Me Trying’ is an actually quite touching account (written by Nick Hornby) of a father trying to reach out to his estranged daughter. This is the kind of thing that could quite easily work as a typical Folds ballad, but the spoken word delivery of Shatner gives it an incredibly human feel. ‘You’ll Have Time’ is just a downright hilarious look at mortality, somehow managing to draft in an entire choir to gleefully celebrate that “you’re gonna die”.
If you want to explore more of the awesomeness that is William Shatner, you can trying his official website where you can read all about, erm, his dvd club and how he just sold a kidney stone for $75,000. Thankfully this was for charity and not just to an obsessed Trekkie, but even so, who in their right mind pays that for a bloody kidney stone? Just as amusingly, you can also be his friend on Myspace! Seriously, even William Shatner has a Myspace. What on earth is the world coming to?
Duck and covers
65 years ago
in MP3s
It’s one of my days where I’m feeling incredibly lazy so you know what that means: a post loaded with cover versions!
MP3 Belle & Sebastian – Whiskey In The Jar (expired) (Thin Lizzy)
Some may consider this to be close to blasphemy. Others will think that it’s awesome. I’m in the latter camp, largely because I love what Belle and Sebastian can do with just about anything, and also because I don’t really like the older versions of this song all that much. I can appreciate it, but I don’t particularly like it. It’s not the kind of thing that suits B&S particularly well, and I could never imagine an original B&S song sounding anything even remotely like this, but that does help make it all the more enjoyable. One of the best things about covers is when a band can take a song that doesn’t suit them in the least and make it work for them, and that’s what we have here.
MP3 Trip Shakespeare – Dead Set On Destruction (expired) (Husker Du)
I’m a huge fan of Trip Shakespeare, and honestly believe they were one of the greatest bands that never became huge. For those unaware of their brilliance, Trip Shakespeare were an experimental-pop-rock band from Minneapolis who put out a number of albums in the late 80s and early 90s before being dropped by their label and splitting up. Their members went on to form Semisonic, The Flops, and a bunch of other solo releases. While all of these were also good, nothing ever came close to the material Trip Shakespeare were putting out. In fact, I might actually do a full post on them in the near future. Anyways, this is a cover of a Husker Du song, but I can’t tell you how it compares to the original as I don’t really know it. I’m only a casual Husker Du listener, so don’t really know anything about this song other than this song is pretty rocking, which works well enough for me.
MP3 Ben Folds – In Between Days (expired) (The Cure)
We can’t have a covers post without an entry from Mr Folds, can we? Ben Folds’ cover of The Cure’s ‘In Between Days’ is carried out perfectly, in that if I didn’t already know that this was a cover, I wouldn’t question for a second that it was an original Folds song. He takes an already excellent song and makes it his own. It’s an energetic, pounding piano tour de force that suits Folds so well.
MP3 Of Montreal – Know Your Onion! (expired) (The Shins)
Oh how these “cool” indie bands like to cover each other. It’s certainly not a bad thing, although if I’m honest, this isn’t the greatest example of it. Of Montreal and The Shins are both great bands, but this cover lacks something. I’m not sure what it is, maybe it’s how close it stays to the original. I kind of expect Of Montreal to do something daring or make it more manic or something else to give it something of a hook, but this is a pretty by the numbers cover. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still very good, but could have done with that little extra to make it unique.
And that’s it for today. I’ve noticed quite an upsurge in traffic today, which is pretty cool. So a big hello to all of the new readers I seem to have picked up in the past 24 hours, and I hope you enjoy what you find here. I guess this is it for today, although there’s a certain irony that these “lazy” posts seem to end up taking longer to put together than the regular ones. Oh, and before I go, I’d just like to share this: Last night I ordered just what might be the greatest t-shirt ever created – The Communist Party. You get where the title came from now? Communists.. Cold War.. duck and cover.. cover songs.. I’m far too dorky for my own good at times.
A Fond Farewell: Elliott Smith tribute songs
25 years ago
in MP3s
This post actually begun life as a conversation in the pub last saturday. And by a conversation, I mean something that lasted all of two lines. Here’s a recreation of that action packed drama:
Simon: I’d like to hear that Ben Folds tribute song to Elliott Smith.
Eddie: I have that. I’ll throw it up on the blog at some point.
Now this was said in something of a jokey way. Surely putting up songs for friends from conversations in a pub is hardly the most professional way to go about running an mp3 blog. The more I thought about it though, I came up with slightly less feeble ways to spin it into an entire post. What began as a single song I was going to throw up with some other stuff has turned into a small collection of Elliott Smith tribute songs. Now I’m not bothered about crappy covers of Smith songs, just the original songs that were inspired by him. Which makes him sound like a film soundtrack, but no matter. I don’t have many of these though, but we’ve got three. For what it’s worth, I was going to put up Weezer’s ‘The Other Way’ with this as it apparently relates to a point, but it seemed a tad inappropriate.
MP3 Ben Folds – Late (expired)
Well this is the song that started it all off. Apparently Folds knew Smith, and toured with him a few times. Which would have been one hell of a concert to see live, but I digress. Folds’ tribute to Smith is the kind of song that he can do best: the simple piano ballad that focuses primarily on the lyrics for impact. It’s an incredibly sad song (“No, no / Things were looking up for you / Least that’s what I heard / No, no / Someone came along and washed away your hard-earned / Piece of mind”), although I suppose that’s an inevitability given the subject matter. One of the few songs from ‘Songs From Silverman’ I really do like though.
MP3 Rilo Kiley – Ripchord (expired)
MP3 Rilo Kiley – It Just Is (expired)
I could have put up nearly all of Rilo Kiley’s 2004 album ‘More Adventurous’, as there’s a ton of Smith related content on there. Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett were obviously huge fans of Smith (Sennett so much he seems to model himself on him musically), and that’s reflected in a lot of the album, but particularly these two songs. ‘Ripchord’ is just Blake and an acoustic guitar, which fits the song perfectly. I’ll be perfectly honest that I didn’t even realise it was about Smith at first, but it seems so obvious now. The second verse is sung directly to Smith (“I don’t know if you meant it / But you did yourself in / And I was even having a good day / When I found out we’d lost you”) and ends up being incredibly powerful. ‘It Just Is’ is the song that closes the album, moving from the loss of Smith the artist (“He wasn’t our son / He belonged to everyone”), moving through to the broader acceptance of death itself. It’s a powerful and fitting eulogy.
And just to bulk this out a little more, it only seems fair to include a little Smith while I’m at it..
MP3 Elliott Smith – A Fond Farewell (expired)
There are a bunch of other tribute songs to Smith according to a list on his Wikipedia entry, but these were the only ones that I already had. Or rather, the other ones listed were by bands that don’t really appeal to me all that much. There’s also a ton more Elliott Smith related content over at Sweet Adeline, his official website. You know, just for those of you who have been living under a rock these past few years and aren’t actually aware of him.
