Another Form of Relief

It’s hard to believe that this song is seven years old. For some reason I still tend to regard Stars as a rather new band, but that certainly isn’t the case anymore. Way back in 2001, Stars based their sound far more electronica than the full band setup they use today. While I’d usually welcome that kind of change, Stars are one of the rare bands where the electronic suits them perfectly. On Peak Hill combines this sound with their now standard nostalgic, mournful lyrics, leaving a song that despite being seven years old, hasn’t dated at all.

I 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.

So I’ve been pretty slack in posting here of late. This is because I’m simply not finding the time of late, between work giving me more hours (this is actually a good thing) and a ton of other things that I’ve currently got going on. For the indefinite future, posting will probably down to something like three or four posts a week or something. I’ll write when I get time and have something to share. Tonight though, we’ve got a pretty lazy post. There’s no stunning new music here, no tiny band you should be aware of. You probably know most of these bands and the songs. There’s no great agenda here. It’s just a bunch of great songs that for one reason or another have been getting a lot of play over the past week or so. I’d usually include a little write up explaining the use of each one, but I’m so tired right now that I’m struggling to stay awake to type this. I might add something further to it all tomorrow night or something.

MP3 Mazzy Star – Halah (expired)
MP3 Bright Eyes – Lua (expired)
MP3 My Bloody Valentine – Sometimes (expired)
MP3 Beulah – Don’t Forget To Breathe (expired)
MP3 Stars – Your Ex-Lover Is Dead (expired)
MP3 Rilo Kiley – A Better Son/Daughter (expired)
MP3 The Waifs – London Still (expired)
MP3 The Cautions – Coffee Shop Girl (expired)
MP3 Death From Above 1979 – Romantic Rights (expired)

Oh, and go see Children of Men. It’s out now in the UK and comes out in the US on Christmas Day. I’ll even call it now as getting a Best Picture nomination once award season rolls around, even despite the Academy’s aversion to anything even mildly sci-fi. Simply the best film of this year so far by a mile. It’s intelligent, disturbing and beautiful all at the same time, and it deserves your attention.

There is just about one thing that I find more interesting than music in this world: politics. Now I realise a ton of you have just written me off as being entire insane, but I can live with that. Nor do I particularly hide my politics, being a card carrying (literally) liberal of the (hopefully) non-loony variety. As such, it seemed fitting that the first mix I’d put together on here would be a combining of my politics into what I usually do here.

So in celebration of another glorious raping of our civil liberties that the public don’t give a shit about, Another Form of Relief is proud to present The World Is A Mess, But Our Hair Is Perfect. This is an updated edition of a mix I originally made last year, and seems depressingly more relevant than that. I know there’s a certain irony in most of the songs being by American bands about American issues, but god knows British bands aren’t getting political which would make this thing pretty damn short.

Note: This will only be available for a limited amount of time, so if you want any part of it, get it now, as I’ll be taking it down within a week of this post.

MP3 01 – The Robot Ate Me – The Genocide Ball (expired)
MP3 02 – Koufax – Why Bother At All (expired)
MP3 03 – Actionslacks – This Damn Nation (expired)
MP3 04 – The Rakes – Terror! (acoustic) (expired)
MP3 05 – Ted Leo & The Pharmacists – Counting Down The Hours (expired)
MP3 06 – The Decemberists – Sixteen Military Wives (expired)
MP3 07 – Ben Folds – All You Can Eat (expired)
MP3 08 – The Wading Girl – Amber Waves (expired)
MP3 09 – Stars – Celebration Guns (expired)
MP3 10 – Elliott Smith – A Distorted Reality Is Now A Necessity To Be Free (expired)
MP3 11 – Ben Kweller – Jerry Falwell Destroyed The Earth (expired)
MP3 12 – Desaparecidos – Greater Omaha (expired)
MP3 13 – And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead – Worlds Apart (expired)
MP3 Bonus – The Rakes – The World Was A Mess, But His Hair Was Perfect (expired)

The additional Rakes song doesn’t really fit the rest of the theme, but the title fits perfect and it’s a rather good song, so I thought I’d throw it in there. There’s an 18 minute version of it with a massively extended pub conversation, but that seemed a tad overbearing so I kept it to the shorter version.

I’m not sure how well it flows together, but I tried to assemble it the best I could so it had some sense of cohesion to it at all. I know it can be a little preachy at times, and this may grate for some people, but I like my music to actually have a message, and everything here certainly has one.

I’m going to try and put up some kind of new mixtape every fortnight, but seeing as I’m exceedingly lazy it’ll probably end up being every couple of months instead. Still, enjoy. Normal service will resume sometime tomorrow.

And until then, Good Weather For Air Strikes have a complete Belle & Sebastian concert up in awesome quality that is certainly worth your time.

I’m pretty tired tonight (it’s amazing just how exhausted I get from bowling and then working, but no matter) so this’ll be a brief one. We’re also going for a non-standard type post, and I’m just going to post a bunch of covers that I’ve been enjoying a lot lately. I’ll admit now that I’m a massive fan of covers. As such, this’ll probably become a regular feature. By regular I mean when I can be botherd, not having a set day for them or whatever. I’ll leave that to Chad at Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands (saturdays in case you are wondering). I know there are a bunch of people that hate them as if they take something away from the original song or something, but I always like hearing what artists can do with other people’s material. Covers that I’m currently liking a lot:

MP3 The Mountain Goats – The Boys Are Back In Town / Ignition Remix (expired) (Thin Lizzy / R Kelly)
Sorry for the slightly crappy quality on this one, but it seems to have been recorded from a French radio stream. It’s worth it though as not only do The Mountain Goats turn Thin Lizzy’s rocking song into something considerably more laid back, but they also suddenly burst into a cover of R Kelly’s Ignition Remix toward the end, which has to be one of the strangest medleys in quite some time.

MP3 Arctic Monkeys – Love Machine (expired) (Girls Aloud)
When I said I was a fan of covers, I forgot to mention that I’m particularly a fan of ones that really shouldn’t work, but somehow end up being rather awesome. This is a prime example of that. Take a generic pop song by a rather crappy girl band (I know they have their fans, but come on), give it to this weeks “saviours of rock and roll” (copyright NME 1995-2006) and you get an alarmingly catchy outcome. I still think the song is still rather dire, but the way the Monkeys give it their all, play it straight (mostly) and actually manage to pull it off is quite an incredible feat.

MP3 Ben Folds – Bitches Ain’t Shit (expired) (Dr. Dre)
Yet another “shouldn’t work, but somehow does” cover. Quite how one would go about turning a gangsta rap song into a pretty mellow piano song. It’s one of the most foul mouthed things you’ll ever hear (unless you listen to gangsta rap regularly I guess), yet somehow it’s entirely great. I can’t stand rap on the most part yet I really like this, despite the song itself being pretty dire. I suppose it’s more respecting the achievement of it than anything else, but I like it a lot.

MP3 Stars – This Charming Man (expired) (The Smiths)
I’m not a massive Smiths fan, no matter how much I try to appreciate them. However, This Charming Man is one of the few songs that I really enjoy. Which made me slightly worried about this cover of it given Death Cab’s complete and utter slaughtering of it on their You Can Play These Songs.. album a few years ago. I shouldn’t have worried though, as Stars don’t make the mistake of trying to be Morrissey. Instead, the make the song their own, turning up the electronica and slowing down the pace. It’s not as good as the original, but it’s dares to be different, and that’s what a cover should do.

Seeing as this blog is becoming my primary place to write, I’m going to use it to occasionally vent about other things given I’m not updating my regular blog anymore. As such, I’d like to register my disappoint with HBO’s Big Love. I guess it’s mostly my fault for expecting it just be a pologamy themed Six Feet Under. I was really getting my hopes up after another awesome HBO credit sequence (honestly, have they ever made a bad one?) but it collapsed quickly after. It was just kind of a nothingness. With the addition of a little comedy it could be something great, but played entirely straight it just doesn’t really work without coming off as dull. It might improve, and I’ll give it a few episodes, but I’m really not convinced so far.

Ok, so that ended up being far more than just a brief one. Now I’m going to go to bed before I collapse and wake up tomorrow morning in a heap on my floor.