What better way to celebrate the independence of your country than to recap it’s founding with a little clip from Schoolhouse Rock:
Happy Fourth everyone!
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Following up on last week’s white-boy-gangsta-rap cover, here’s Nina Gordon’s take on N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton”. You may remember Gordon as part of 90’s rockers Veruca Salt. Now she’s a solo artist, more in the singer/songwriter vein. There’s something strangely hot about a woman using this much profanity, and doing it so casually…
Thanks to Gareth at Analogue for reminding me of this.
One can only expect fun and fireworks when two former Daily Show correspondents get together. And that’s just what we got when Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell got together at NYC’s Apple Store for a sit down about Carell’s Get Smart. The pair shows off their wide range of talents when they decide to sing the National Anthem, in harmony! Check it out:
Contrary to what the name may evoke, Dr. Dog is not the unholy love child of Dr. Dre and his protege Snoop Dogg. Nor is it the latest fad in children’s television programming. So what is it? It’s a band built on the idea that they are the only band that ever was, and therefore gets to make up their own rules as they go along.
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I love it when white boys cover gangsta rap. Who didn’t love Dynamite Hack’s cover of Eazy-E’s “Boyz N the Hood”? Here’s Ben Folds, who in case you hadn’t noticed is very white, covering Dr. Dre’s “Bitches Ain’t Shit”. It’s become a staple of his live shows over the years, but this performance is especially cool because of the audience participation.
Wow, I’m getting old. I distinctly remember getting Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville my freshman year in college. And this week was the 15th anniversary of its release (though I actually got it a year later…I’m not THAT old). To commemorate this anniversary, let’s hop in the wayback machine and see Liz perform one of the album’s standout tracks, “Fuck and Run”, live in 1995:
To compare, here’s Liz performing the same song this week, at a special show to celebrate the album’s anniversary:
If this has tickled your nostalgia bone, Phair has released a special anniversary edition of Exile in Guyville
Before listening to the latest album from The Burning Hell here’s what I knew about the band: they sometimes feature an electric ukulele. That was really all the motivation I needed to give them a shot.
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There’s not a whole lot to say about this, other than it looks like what a Vampire Weekend video should look like.
This week’s random cover is yet another take on Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”. This time it’s not a robot playing a theremin. Or a Jack White-led supergroup. It’s a simple, heartfelt rendition from a simple, heartfelt musician. Here’s Ray LaMontagne’s and his acoustic guitar deconstructing the song and rebuilding it better than ever.
If I tell you that a band out of Seattle gets signed to Sub Pop Records, you’ve probably got a pretty good idea of the type of music the band plays, right? They probably wear flannel, turn their guitars up to eleven, and sing heavy songs of angst and pain. Well Fleet Foxes is from Seattle, and they’re signed to Sub Pop, but they couldn’t be further from the cliche. They’re less Nirvana than Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. Less Pearl Jam than Buffalo Springfield. And less Soundgarden than The Byrds. In other words, they’re less grunge, more hippie. And all about the music.
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Happy Father’s Day to all of you dads out there. To celebrate, here’s condom manufacturer Durex’s latest ad. Hilarious!
And here are a few father-inspired musical and standup comedy selections:
Everyone’s favorite incredibly overrated band, Radiohead, recently held a video remix contest for their song “Nude” (from the bafflingly overrated album In Rainbows). James Houston wanted to enter the contest and came up with a great idea: use old and busted computer equipment to cover the song. So he rigged up an old scanner, a printer, some bad hard drives (for speakers), and a Sinclair ZX Spectrum pc to play all the parts a created this video:
The result sounds like a Nintendo version of the song, and almost actually improves on it. Nice work!
Apparently I’m way behind the rest of the world when it comes to discovering Ray LaMontagne. I only heard of him last week, while the rest of the world has known about him since his single “Trouble” hit the charts in 2006. Regardless, now that I know about him he’s gained a huge fan.
Raycharles LaMontagne avoided music throughout his childhood. His father was a traveling musician, a fact that led to his mother leaving his father. Consequently Ray pursued activities other than music. It wasn’t until after high school, while he was working in a shoe factory, that he heard Stephen Stills’ “Treetop Flyer” on the radio and something clicked in his brain. He decided to quit his job and pursue a career in music.
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You Ain’t No Picasso has an interview with The Apples in Stereo frontman Robert Schneider. In it he discusses how to put together a tracklist for an album, and why it took 10 years to finish the song “Dream”, which just appeared on the band’s latest rarities collection, Electronic Projects for Musicians. Interesting stuff, even if Robert seems like he may be a little, um, “chemically altered”…
Here’s another in our continuing series of covers of Britney Spears’ “Toxic”. This one is performed by Dutch singer Stevie Ann, live in a radio studio. It’s a slow, sultry version, and yet another example of how this is actually a good song once you remove Britney from the equation…
You may remember Metallica. They’re that band that used to kick serious ass, then got really lame and bitter. Well now they’re trying not to be so bitter (though they’re still lame…). Billboard is reporting that Activision is going to release an edition of Guitar Hero featuring the band, much like the soon-to-be-released Aerosmith edition. Metallica has had several songs included in various editions of Guitar Hero and Rock Band already, but this new version would focus on their music, and ostensibly music of other bands they choose to include.
Despite the fact that I really haven’t enjoyed or appreciated anything Metallica’s done in about 12 years, I’m pretty psyched about this. If they get the majority of the good songs from Kill ‘Em All through Metallica (the black album) it should kick ass. But let’s just all pretend St. Anger never happened, please?
Often times our Sunday Music Spotlight band is some kind of exotic, foreign band who plays some kind of strange or challenging music. This week’s band couldn’t be further from that. The Hold Steady is from Minnesota, currently based in Brooklyn, and plays good old-fashioned American rock n’ roll.
Ironically, this all-American rock band got its inspirations from a bunch of Canadians. Frontman Craig Finn and guitarist Tad Kubler were in a band called Lifter Puller which played 80s-inspired synth-rock. One day they were watching the classic concert movie The Last Waltz, which chronicles the final concert of classic rock legends The Band, when they decided that was the type of band they wanted to be in. They enlisted drummer Judd Counsell and bassist Galen Polivka, and got to work.
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Sunday Music Spotlight alum José González is known for his covers. He has a way of taking someone else’s song and making it distinctively his own. His cover of Massive Attack’s “Teardrop” (which some of you may know as the theme song for House is a perfect example. It retains enough of the original to be recognizable, but González puts his own spartan stamp on it.
Another good example is this cover of Kylie Minogue’s “Hand on Your Heart”. He manages to take a syrupy pop song and make it heartfelt and genuine.
On a slightly different note, José has just announced his upcoming tour schedule. If he’s coming anywhere near you don’t hesitate to go see him.
Tour Dates:
June 2008
13 – Bonnaroo Music Festival – Manchester, TN
14 – Headliners – Louisville, KY
15 – 9:30 Club – Washington, DC
16 – The Stone Pony – Asbury Park, NJ
17 – Iron Horse – Northampton, MA
18 – Museum of Fine Arts – Boston, MA
20 – Teatro Estudio Cavaret – Guadalajara, Mexico
21 – Lunario – Mexico City, Mexico
23 – Stone Church – Newmarket, NH
24 – Higher Ground – Burlington, VT
25 – 400 Annniversary Festival (Le Grande Scene) – Quebec City, QC (Canada)
26 – St. Matthew’s Church – Halifax, NS (Canada)
28 – Sled Island Festival (Canada Olympic Plaza) – Calgary, AB (Canada)
30 – The Broadway Theatre – Saskatoon, SK (Canada)
July 2008
02 – The Park Theatre – Winnipeg, MB (Canada)
03 – Ottawa Bluesfest – Ottawa, ON (Canada)
September 2008
27 – Austin City Limits – Austin, TX
Mark Lavon Helm, aka Levon Helm, best known as the drummer/singer for The Band, is celebrating his 68th birthday. So join me in wishing him a Happy Birthday!
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The saying goes that you don’t know where you’re going until you know where you came from. Musically speaking The Black Hollies know exactly where their sound comes from. It’s deeply rooted in the 60’s, in bands like The Animals, The Yardbirds, and The Who. It’s rooted there, but like a much like those bands were rooted in Delta Blues and managed to put their own mark on it, The Black Hollies start with their influences and build, creating something that is at once familiar and new.
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Weezer has a new album coming out June 3rd
From Josh’s blog at Huffington Post comes the video for “Real Long Distance”. It’s not the typical music video. The band shot it themselves after hours at their storage facility. There’s a definite Scooby Doo vibe to it. But that’s what makes it cool. Check it out below:
No kooky covers this week. Just a great musician’s take on a great song. Here’s Eric Clapton covering Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright”:
Scotland is known for many things: haggis, kilts, thick accents, and whiskey being the chief among them. Musically the Scots run the gamut from The Bay City Rollers to The Vaselines. Somewhere lodged comfortably in the middle is Selkirk’s Frightened Rabbit.
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The Raconteurs stopped by Jools Holland’s show to play an acoustic version of “Many Shades of Black”, one of the standout tracks from their recent album Consolers of the Lonely. Good stuff.
Everyone’s heard the legends about rock bands’ riders: the contracts they send to venues that lay out their demands requests. The requests are often outrageous, from Van Halen requiring a bowl of M&M’s with all the brown ones removed to the Rolling Stones needing a toilet on wheels. The Smoking Gun has a huge collection of riders, but none of them can touch the fighters of foo.
Foo Fighters’ Tour Manager Gus Brandt is the brainchild behind rock music’s greatest rider. In it he requests vegetarian soups (because meat soups make roadies fart), extols the virtues of bacon (”If it could be breathed, I would”), and threatens a catering jihad if the band doesn’t get SOLO drinking cups. It even includes a recipe for ice! Do yourselves a favor and go read it.
Via The Smoking Gun and Idolator
It’s been a little while since we featured a cover of Britney Spears’ “Toxic”, so here’s one by bluegrass virtuosos Nickel Creek. They have a lot of fun with the performance, and the song itself is actually pretty good. Once again I’ll say that in the hands of decent musicians this is actually a good song.
Who doesn’t love complicated women? I know I do. Which is why I was instantly drawn to singer/songwriter Lourdes Hernández. She’s from Madrid, Spain, yet goes by the name Russian Red. She natively speaks Spanish, yet sins in English. And at only 22 she’s already developed a sophisticated sense of melody and lyric. Not bad.
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Happy Mothers Day everyone. To celebrate, eMusic has chatted up a bunch of our favorite indie groups’ moms to see what they think of their kids’ music. Included on the list are Sunday Music Spotlight alums Bishop Allen, Bon Iver, Bowerbirds, and Rock Plaza Central, plus a ton of other great bands. Head on over and check it out.
I put up a bootleg of this a couple of weeks ago, but here’s the legitimate trailer for Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Still looks kind of meh.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars hits theaters August 16th.
SweetAfton23 (aka Molly), PCWEI’s patron saint of ukulele players, is back. This time she got a chance to perform with Johnathon Coulton and Paul & Storm at one of their shows in Seattle. Check her out as she helps out JoCo and the gang with a couple of tunes:
“Tom Cruise Crazy”
“Baby Got Back”
Check out the rest of the videos, including her original song, “Road Trip”, which I highly recommend.
Sunday Music Spotlight alums Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings have a new video out for their song “Tell Me”. It’s a retro-looking video for a retro-sounding band. Check it out below:
Do you like The Decemberists? Then you’ll probably dig The Builders and the Butchers. Like their fellow Portlandites The Builders and the Butchers write songs about eclectic topics, using lush and unusual instrumentation. The tunes range from epic to intimate. And their live show is famous for its energy.
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Prince, the enigmatic Minnesotan, covers Radiohead, the enigmatic Brits. His take on “Creep” is slightly different from the original, but no less effective.
I just got back from seeing Josh Ritter at The Recher Theater in Towson, MD. This is the second time I’ve seen Ritter in the last few months, and if at all possible it won’t be the last. Ritter commands the stage with almost reckless enthusiasm, sweeping the audience along through his evocative songs. Behind him is one of the tightest bands you’ll ever see, locking the upbeat tunes into a hard groove and subtly adding presence to the ballads.
Highlights of the show included “Snow is Gone”, “Harrisburg”, a solo rendition of “Girl in the War”, the always amazing “Kathleen” (which included a 30 second group slow dance), and a version of “Lilian, Egypt” that ended with a disco sing-along, done in stages that represented major periods in American history from the 1860s to present. It’s hard to explain. I guess you had to be there.
Another high point was Ritter’s solo performance of a new song, which he announced as “Folk Bloodshed”. It was very much a Mississippi blues tune, with lyrics that incorporate the Stagger Lee story that’s so popular in the genre. A great new song.
If Josh and his band are coming anywhere near you, do yourself a favor and go see them. You won’t be disappointed.
Alan Cohen is something of a one-man-band. Actually he’s exactly a one-man-band. The Alan Cohen Experience’s debut album, Revolution, features Cohen on vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, and kazoo. He’s the only person that appears on the album, and he produced it himself. So, if many great albums are built from collaboration, the synergistic swapping of ideas, the give and take of creative ideas, how does Revolution sound? Can one man’s vision truly provide the musical variety and the depth of lyrics required to provide a satisfying album?
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Punk sounds so much sunnier when it’s played on a ukulele…
Here’s a cover of The Ramones’ “Blitzkreig Bop” by Gus and Fin, two guys with ukes.
Check out Sunday Music Spotlight alums Vampire Weekend performing “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” on the Kimmel show, with a high school marching band’s drumline. It’s kind of like a much preppier version of Fleetwood Mac getting the USC marching band to perform on “Tusk”…
Venerable rockers R.E.M. have a video out for the second single from their surprisingly-decent latest album, Accelerate
Sunday Music Spotlight alums Plants and Animals have announced a string of tour dates, headlining with fellow SMS alums Rock Plaza Central. The Canadian trio is hitting both coasts through May and June. If you live anywhere near where they’re playing do yourselves a favor and go see them. If not, go buy their album Parc Avenue
WED, May 14 - Philadelphia, PA @ World Café Live Upstairs ** (P&A headlines)
THUR, May 15 - Baltimore, MD @ 8X10 **
FRI, May 16 - New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge ** (P&A headlines)
SAT, May 17 - Brooklyn, NY @ Union Hall **
SUN, May 18 - Boston, MA @ TT The Bear’s ** (P&A headlines)
MON, June 23 - Seattle, WA @ Nectar Lounge
TUE, June 24 - Portland, OR @ Doug Fir (w. the Dodos)
WED, June 25 - San Francisco, CA @ The Rickshaw
FRI, June 27 - Pamona, CA @ The Glass House
SAT, June 28 - Los Angeles, CA (TBA)
** CO-HEADLINING TOUR WITH ROCK PLAZA CENTRAL
For more information head over to Parc Avenue’s official site
“She” is a successful actress. While working on a song for the soundtrack of one of her movies “she” met “him”, a talented musician and producer. They hit it off, and during the course of conversation “she” revealed that she had written some songs. “She” sent them to “him”, and they so impressed “him” that he decided they had to record them. So over the next few months Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward recorded what would become She & Him’s first album, Volume One
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On December 21st, 1970 one of our country’s most iconic photographs was taken. It recorded the visit of the nation’s most popular figure and its most powerful man. It’s a picture that hangs on walls all over the country. It’s the picture that shows Elvis in the Oval Office shaking hands with Richard Nixon.
For a long time that photo was all the public had to mark that historic occasion. Now the National Archives has an exhibit of 28 more photos of the meeting, plus a photo of the WWII handgun Elvis presented to Nixon as a gift. These pics are a must-view for any big Elvis fan (or I suppose any big Nixon fan).
All the pics are after the jump
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The Decemberists’ frontman Colin Meloy recently popped into Portland’s Jackpot Records to play a few tunes. Here’s his solo take on “We Both Go Down Together”, quite possibly the least depressing song about a Romeo and Juliet story.
Some genius crazy person inspired madman managed to get a remote controlled car to play the Super Mario Brothers theme on water-filled bottles.
I don’t even want to know how long this took to setup. It’s cool though, so props to the crazy dude who took the time.
They’re loud. They’re crude. They’re Danish. They’re The Floor is Made of Lava.
They’re also relative newcomers, only forming in March 2006. It hasn’t taken long for them to make a name for themselves however. As a matter of fact it only took them four months to secure a record deal and crack the top 5 of the Danish charts? Why? Are they musical wunderkinds? Doesn’t seem like it, thought they’re certainly competent. No, it’s not their overwhelming musical ability that’s propelled them to such quick success. It’s their ability to create upbeat songs that make you move like the floor is in fact made of lava.
It’s starting to get a little ridiculous how many pictures are popping up from Iron Man. Today SlashFilm uncovered 28 more. Yes, 28. Plus a new video clip (from Nickelodeon of all places). Here’s the clip:
Pics are after the jump
Death Cab For Cutie is back with a new single and a new album on the way. Here’s the video for the single, “I Will Possess Your Heart”.
Clocking in at over eight minutes it’s a little hard to get through. Pretty good once it gets going though.
The new album, Narrow Stairs, is due out May 13th. But you can preorder it now.
I’ll admit, I’m cheating a little bit this week. It’s not technically a cover; it’s a remix. But it’s different enough that I’m counting it. Plus it’s one Sunday Music Spotlight alum remixing another. How could I pass it up?
Bon Iver’s debut album For Emma, Forever Ago is quiet and introspective. The Rosebuds “Get Up Get Out” is a full on disco-pop song. So you wouldn’t expect Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon to remix the song, would you?
Well he did. And it’s good. Real good. Vernon strips down the instrumentation and adds his own unique backing vocals. The result is a completely different take on the song than the original.
Bon Iver Vs Rosebuds - Get Up Get Out
The remix is part of the collection Sweet Beats, Troubled Sleep. It’s remixes of each song on The Rosebuds Night of the Furies and it was commissioned by Merge Records to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the album’s release. The best part? It’s available for free from their website.
Star Trek veteran George Takei is a contestant on CBS’ Secret Talent of the Stars. Apparently his “secret talent” is sucking at singing. Here’s a clip of Sulu taking on the Willie Nelson classic “On the Road Again”:
Now that we have three members of the original Star Trek cast to dabble in singing, let’s have an Enterprise Talent Contest!
First up is William Shatner with his epic performance of Elton John’s “Rocket Man”:
Finally we have Leonard “Spock” Nimoy singing the world’s greatest ode to a fictional midget, “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins”:
Now that you’ve seen the evidence,
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Über songmeister Bob Dylan picked up a special honorary Pulitzer Prize on Monday for his “profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.”
It’s fitting that Dylan is the first rock musician to win an award typically reserved for classical composers. He is widely considered rock music’s poet laureate, and his career has spanned over 40 years with no sign of stopping. His most recent album, 2006’s Modern Times, was his best in years and showed that he can still combine insightful lyrics with good old-fashioned rock n’ roll.
Bob Dylan - Thunder On The Mountain
Congrats Bob!
For this week’s Spotlight we head north, up to the wide open land where bacon is ham, healthcare is free, and the metric system is king. Our tale starts in Nova Scotia, where two high school friends decide to form a band. They head off to college in Montreal, where they hook up with a French-speaking native. And the eclectic trio that would become Plants and Animals was complete.
Since I just posted a Random Cover of the Week a little while ago I would normally put this off until next week. But I just couldn’t. I think you’ll understand…
BoingBoing uncovered a clip of The Leningrad Cowboys, a Finnish band we’ve briefly covered before, with the former Soviet Red Army Chorus, covering one of the most American bands ever, Lynryd Skynyrd. Here’s their Devo-meets-Willy-Wonka-esque take on “Sweet Home Alabama”. I’m speechless…
Our favorite ukulele player Molly, aka SweetAfton23, is back with a new direct-to-internet performance. This time she “covers” The Moldy Peaches song “Anyone Else Buy You” (the song featured in the movie Juno). I put “covers” in quotes because she kind of veers off course a couple of verses in, substitut