Another Form of Relief

now

then
‘Twas the summer of 2004, and things were rather different back then. Summers were comfortably warm and sunny for weeks on end. Birds happily sang. Children played merrily in the streets. And the Shins were the soundtrack to it.

Okay, so maybe not all of that is true. But The Shins somehow bring out warm and fuzzy feelings of nostalgia for a time that probably wasn’t all that great in the first place. No matter though, their album of the time, Chutes Too Narrow, was and remains a wonderful piece of work. Upbeat one minute, miserable the next. Soaring vocals actually singing lyrics that contain meaning. Oh, and some superb novelty artwork.

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.

Note: Must get through piece without mentioning ‘Garden State’.

I expect the majority of you reading this will already have this if you have a little interest in The Shins, along with the entire album. While the leak of ‘Wincing The Night Away’ was just about the worst kept musical secret of 2006, it’s nice to actually be able to write about and share one of the songs without the threat of a lawsuit. If you’re one of the nice, law abiding folks who hasn’t heard the album yet, here’s your very first taste of it.

‘Phantom Limb’ is the first single to be released from ‘Wincing’, and it’s pretty good. I’m going to use a qualifer like “pretty” because I still haven’t made up my mind on it, or ‘Wincing’ as a whole. It’s certainly a good song, all typically beautiful imagery and a story of forbidden love. It’s all very polished too, which is where the problem comes from. Now don’t get me wrong, I love a polished record to the point I prefer ‘Chutes Too Narrow’ over ‘Oh, Inverted World’ by a large margin. It’s just that this feels a little overdone. It’s kind of the same feeling I get listening to Death Cab’s ‘Plans’. It’s still great music, but it lacks the original feel that the earlier material gave out. Now you could turn round and argue that this is just the developing sound of a band, and it would be a perfectly valid argument. I don’t doubt that this will be The Shins’ biggest success to date, and while it may alienate a few of the original fans, I’m sure that the Garden Staters will lap it up.

Oh, bugger.

MP3 The Shins – Phantom Limb

‘Wincing The Night Away’ will be released via Sub Pop Records on January 23.

The Shins: Website || Myspace

I’m tired and want to crawl into bed and continue reading the best book I’ve read in a while. Before that though, it’s time for another batch of randomly selected cover song awesomness!

MP3 Beck – Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometimes (expired) (The Korgis)
One of the best things about Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind was how damn good the soundtrack was. It says a lot about how well the music worked with the film that I can’t listen to this song without seeing the title sequence where it was playing in my head. I’m going to be honest and say that I’m not familiar with the original of this song, but I just wanted to include it as it’s so damn good.

MP3 The Shins – We Will Become Silhouettes (expired) (The Postal Service)
For their ‘Such Great Heights’ EP, The Postal Service had the inspired idea of inviting both The Shins and Iron & Wine to cover them. This may have been a lazy ploy to avoid coming up with new material, but it doesn’t really matter when the results are so good. Everyone is familiar with the Iron & Wine ‘Such Great Heights’ cover, but this excellent version of ‘We Will Become Silhouettes’ is often overlooked. It’s another great reworking, turning TPS’ end of the world ditty into cheerful acoustic fare.

MP3 The White Stripes – Jolene (expired) (Dolly Parton)
There seems to be a consensus that the Live Under Blackpool Lights version of this song is the superior one, even to the point that it was the one released as a single. I like this studio version a lot more though. I’m not entirely sure why, I just think it sounds much better. Could I be any less helpful in supporting my views? Probably not. Anyways, the White Stripes manage to turn this into an excellent little blues rock song, gender roles be damned.

MP3 Adam Green – What A Waster (expired) (The Libertines)
This one doesn’t really work anywhere near as well as the original (which was flawed itself), but it’s a hell of a lot of fun. It’s incredibly foul mouthed, something made far more noticable by the crisp vocal track that Green has over a simple acoustic guitar. The style of the song does somehow suit him, but it’s far from perfect. ‘What A Waster’ needs to be sung by the kind of dodgy guy that you’d run into a kebab shop on a saturday night who would kick the shit out of you in a second if you looked at him the wrong way. Which is why it seems to work so perfectly for Pete Doherty I guess.

I’m going to go to bed now. I got sent a couple of awesome Scottish bands earlier on today. Scotland’s music scene seems damn good at the moment. Granted it’s not quite Canada or Sweden, but it’s putting out some excellent material. Anyways, I might feature one or both of them tomorrow. Of course now I’ve mentioned it I’ll probably end up posting something else, but we’ll see.

So today I found out about a music festival called All Tomorrow’s Parties. I’ve heard of it before, but today I found out a little more about it. Only to discover that the damn thing has been taking place right under my nose for the past six years. Anyone who knows me will have heard my rants about how where I live is a cultural wasteland, devoid of anything remotely interesting without a trip to London. Yet since 2000, there has been a musical festival occuring a mere 90 minutes away that I was entirely oblivious to.

Just to beat myself up a little more about this, I had a look at some of the artists that have played it in the past few years. Arab Strap, Yo La Tengo, The Fall, Enon, Modest Mouse, Malkmus, The Shins, The Violent Femmes, Spoon, I Am Kloot and most intriguingly of all, Vincent Gallo. All of these were playing just down the road. Granted it’s a pretty long road, but there they were. Oh, and if anyone has any idea exactly what Vincent Gallo does at a music festival, I’d be delighted to hear it.

So with great haste I scrambled through the website looking for details of the 2006 event, and was pleasantly surprised to find the best line up so far: The Shins, The New Pornographers, The Decemberists, Spoon, Teenage Fanclub, Broken Social Scene and a ton of others. And of course the bloody thing is sold out already, isn’t it?

So here’s to All Tomorrow’s Parties 2007. Which knowing my luck probably won’t happen for one reason or another.

Oh right, you’re here for mp3s. Here, in celebration of this wonderful discovery, are a few mp3s of bands that Eddie won’t be seeing at ATP 2006:

MP3 The Shins – So Says I
MP3 The Decemberists – Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect
MP3 The New Pornographers – Twin Cinema

Cheap CDs ahoy!

UK readers may be interested to know that Virgin Megastores have one hell of a sale on right now. It’s in store only, but involves them selling off thousands of CDs at a bargaintastic

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.