Covers for Sunday

Usual drill, it's Sunday, here are six covers for you. There's nothing much else to say except I have all week off next week and the kids are away. So how will my wife and I spend next week? By painting the house. Somewhere along the line I grew up by stealth. Oh well, on to the covers.

Can I Kick It - The Popguns (originally by A Tribe Called Quest) It's a fairly straight forward cover of one of my favourite hip hop songs. I'm underselling the cover, you should just download it and enjoy it.

Fences - Soft Pack (originally by Phoenix) One of my favourite current bands is covered by another of my current favourites from a different genre. What's not to like? Also, no foolish band name typos this time.

Heart Shaped Box - Sofia (originally by Nirvana) Following on from yesterday's 'new' Nirvana song here's a Nirvana classic covered in a way that sounds nothing like them at all.

Bad Reputation - Death Cab For Cutie (originally by Freedy Johnston) Listening to the radio at my sister's house today Death Cab For Cutie were on and she said they were a band she just couldn't get into. She felt/knew she should like them, she just didn't. I, of course, told her it's because she's too old. This song's for you sis x

Panic - Spoon (originally by The Smiths) Again this partly comes from an early morning conversation with my sister over coffee. She told me Morrissey had collapsed on stage in Slough, I laughed at Slough, it's a natural reaction for me, almost Pavlovian. The other part is I really enjoyed Spoon's cover of The Kinks from a couple of weeks ago and it was a popular download so here they are again.

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart - David Potts-Dupre (originally by Wilco) I can't explain why I like this. I love the original, but this seems to change everything I love about it and change it in ways I don't normally like. The first time I heard this cover I had to resist the temptation to skip it. Then it stuck in my head for the rest of the day and it's a frequent listen for me. I may not know why, but I do like this.

That's all for this week, enjoy the music.

Live and let live

As you have probably noticed the live song blogs are a sort of partner to the cover blogs. Generally the covers are quieter and tend towards being acoustic. So i try and choose louder, more up-tempo songs for the live blogs.

And so it is, mainly with this week. There's always an exception, in this case it's Sufjan Stevens. My favourite this week though is the 'new' Nirvana recording. Of course it's not new at all, it was recorded nearly 20 years ago. That makes me feel nice and old, so on to the songs.

Scoff - Nirvana, live at Pine Street Theatre, Portland, 1990.

Song 2 - Blur, live in concert, 1997.

The BQE part 3 - Sufjan Stevens, live on WNYC

The Lower The Sun - Tom Vek, live session version.

Bucket - Kings of Leon, live in London

I Killed Sally's Lover - The Avett Brothers, live in concert 2005.

The Strokes - side projects

I've been thinking about another side project post for a week or two now, but hearing River of Brakelights by Julian Casablancas is what really decided me. This was supposed to have been posted on Wednesday but, obviously, it wasn't. Apologies for a nearly empty week.

As you've probably guessed this post is going to be about side projects various members of The Strokes have engaged in, and I've also put in some songs they've guested on.

First off, lead vocalist Julian Casablancas. It makes sense, at least to me, to start with him because his album is due to be released on 2nd November (in most of Europe anyway. If you're in North America you'll have to wait until the 3rd). I get paid just before the release date, I'm choosing not to believe that's a coincidence.

Anyway. His solo album is called Phrazes For The Young. Go here and visit the official site. You can pre-order the album here.

Here are a couple of tracks from the album to tide you over, although you've probably already heard them. If you haven't heard them before, well, they're probably not what you expect:

11th Dimension (I know I've posted this before but that had the last few seconds chopped off, this one hasn't.)

River of Brakelights

There's no other solo material released, but here are another couple of non-Strokes tracks he's been involved in:

My Drive Thru - Julian Casablancas, Santogold and Pharrell Williams. If you don't know already this was made for Converse as some sort of centenary celebration. I'm not a huge fan of the song, but it is really catchy and I've had it stuck in my head for days.

Sick, Sick, Sick - Queens Of The Stone Age feat. Julian Casablancas on backing vocals and guitar.

Rhythm guitarist Albert Hammond Jr is the most prolific of The Strokes in terms of solo material. He's released two albums, Yours To Keep (buy)

Hard To Live In The City
Scared (linking in nicely this features Julian Casablancas on bass and backing vocals)
Postal Blowfish US bonus track.

and

¿Cómo Te Llama? (buy)

GfC.

Drummer Fabrizio Moretti's side project Little Joy sees him join up with Binki Shapiro and Rodrigo Amarante. He plays guitar and piano as well as his usual drums. So far only one, eponymous, album has been released. It's a perfect happy summer album. Or I assume so, we don't have summer's in Britain anymore. Anyway. It is a very enjoyable album (buy).

No One's Better Sake
Brand New Start

Little Joy also recorded a Daytrotter session which you can download here. Sadly it's only two songs, but they are two effortlessly enjoyable songs and they're free so it's hard to feel shortchanged.

He also plays drums on The Neon Neon song Dream Cars. Neon Neon are a side project of Gruff Rhys of SFA (it also features producer Boom Bip). See how neat it all is? And you thought these were just random fanboy rants.

Bassist Nikolai Fraiture recorded as Nickel Eye. Again, so far, just one album, The Time of the Assassins (buy). Like Little Joy it's a different sound from The Strokes, much folkier. Nikolai plays guitar and does lead vocals as well as playing the bass, the other band members being Joel Cadbury, Jamie McDonald and Brett Shaw.

It seems to divide opinions quite sharply, so listen to the tracks and make your own mind up:

Brandy Of The Damned
Back From Exile

There's also a Daytrotter session for you to check out here, with 4 songs from the album.

Lastly lead guitarist Nick Valensi. When Phrazes For The Young is released he'll be the only member of the Strokes without a side projet album released. He has however contributed to a couple of recordings. As well as playing on Little Joy's album he appears on these two tracks:

Better - Regina Spektor (guitar)
Shabop Shalom - Devendra Braveheart (guitar and backing vocals)

That's pretty much it. A long post, much longer than I intended. Thanks for sticking with me through to the end, I hope you enjoy the songs.

As a final treat here's The Strokes doing New York City Cops live, joined on stage by the king of side projects, Jack White:

New York City Cops - The Strokes feat. Jack White.

Covers for Sunday

After a hectic week today has been, at least so far, a nice calm and relaxing day. I hope it lasts for the rest of the day. I could even live with it extending in to next week as well, although I have my doubts.

This weeks selection is a return to the mixed bag approach after the relaxed folk approach of last week.

First up is Jim James cover of Rocket Man, keeping the folk connection going. The Bad Plus' cover of Life On Mars from a few weeks ago was a pleasantly surprisingly popular choice so I've included another cover from them. This time Wendy Lewis joins the trio on vocals. I've featured a few Radiohead covers from different genres, so more popular than others. This week there's a reggae cover joining the ranks. There's a Smiths cover courtesy of Death Cab For Cutie, and what I think should be described as a romp from Ash as they cover Abba. Lastly there's Kaiser Chiefs cover of The Move. I hope you enjoy them all.

Rocket Man by Jim James (originally by Elton John)

Feeling Yourself Disintegrate by The Bad Plus feat. Wendy Lewis (originally by The Flaming Lips)

Let Down by Easy All-Stars (originally by Radiohead)

This Charming Man by Death Cab For Cutie (originally by The Smiths)

Does Your Mother Know by Ash (originally by Abba)

Flowers In The Rain by Kaiser Chiefs (originally by The Move)

Live and let live

It's been a busy week, sorry for the lack of posts so far. I'm not going to bore you with details of why it's been a busy week. Plus, I need to go to bed. So, just enjoy the 6 live songs.

My Doorbell (live session) - White Stripes

Paranoid Android (live on Later with Jools Holland) - Radiohead

Holidays In The Sun (concert recording) - Sex Pistols

Glory Box (live session) - Portishead

I've Been Loving You To Long (live at the Whiskey a Go Go) - Otis Redding

Eid Ma Clack Shaw (live session) - Bill Callahan

Covers for Sunday

Another Sunday, another week has passed us. Alright, so if you're in Europe it's actually Monday. I'm late today because we had a couple of friends visit us, just before I was going to post this. I had the songs uploaded ready and most of the description written. My friends, they're lovely people but they are starting to resemble the shopkeepers from Father Ted. I'd love to say I offered them useful and heartfelt advice, but I didn't. There's only so many time you can tell people the same thing before you have to accept they don't want to listen, no matter how much they say they do. For me that number is 2 or 3. It's much higher for my wife though who is a much nicer person than me and listened to them and gave thoughtful, useful advice.

Anyway. On to the songs. It's more of a subdued mix this week. Grant Lee Phillips is wonderful, it's been ages since I listened to him but I'm going to be remedying that on the way to work tomorrow. North Mississippi Allstars play a pretty straight forward live cover of Hendrix. One of my favourite parts of this is the crowds disappointment that they're not going to hear an Allman Brothers cover. Spoon make Set Me Free sound like a Beatles song. Metric's cover of Dylan stays close to the original but as a duet it's a nice twist. Franz Ferdinand are energetic in covering Blondie and Brad Mehldau's trio is, well, amazing.

Enjoy the songs and appreciate the lack of bad puns this week.

I Don't Live Today - North Mississippi Allstars (originally by The Jimi Hendrix Experience)

Don't Think Twice It's Alright - Metric (originally by Bob Dylan)

Set Me Free - Spoon (originally by The Kinks)

So Central Rain - Grant Lee Phillips (originally by REM)

Call Me - Franz Ferdinand (originally by Blondie)

Exit Music (For A Film) - Brad Mehldau (originally by Radiohead)

Live and let live

I hadn't planned on turning this into a weekly series and I may not continue doing this every week but for now here are six live songs.

(If I do turn this into a weekly thing I will find a better name for it. Promise)

Michael (live in Edinburgh) - Franz Ferdinand

Red Right Hand (live at Glastonbury) - Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds

On My Time (live on Rainydawg Radio) - Soft Pack

Damaged Goods (live on Later with Jools Holland) - Gang Of Four

Ecstasy (live at the Benicassim Festival) - Lou Reed

Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth (live accoustic session) - Dandy Warhols

30 years of barcodes

You may have noticed Google using a barcode instead of their logo for a day. There's nothing too unusual in that, there are often different logos used. In this case it was to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the introduction of barcodes.

I work in stock control so barcodes make my job so much easier that it's almost immeasurable. I'm aware however that most people view barcodes as either some sort of dystopian way of controlling all of humanity or really dull. I'm sure most of you have already skipped to the mp3s so I'll just leave it at this. I know far more about barcodes than most people, including me, will ever really need to know and when the totalitarian one world government takes over I'll be safe.

Enjoy the mp3s. The first is kinda related to this post, the rest are just songs I've been listening to lately.

Anniversary Of An Uninteresting Event - Deftones

Canadian Girl - The Walkmen

Oxford Comma (live) - Vampire Weekend

Civilisation - Joe Gideon and The Shark

Twisterella (live) - Ride

Add It Up - Violent Femmes

Covers for Sunday

As usual, it's Sunday and there are six covers for you to listen to. There are some familiar artists, another cover by Radiohead and one by The Morning Benders who were included a couple of weeks ago. Peter Mulvey's solo work is here for the first time, but we've had a couple of songs from his band Redbird in Covers for Sunday before.

Overall I think it's a nice eclectic mix. Of the bands we haven't featured before the last two minutes of The Bad Plus' version of Life on Mars is just sheer gorgeousness, Carolina Chocolate Drops cover of Hit 'Em Up Style is fantastic and The Section Quartet's take on Paranoid Android is as good as you'd expect. No suprises there. Sorry.

Crying by The Morning Benders (originally by Roy Orbison)

Paranoid Android by The Section Quartet (originally by Radiohead)

The Fly by Peter Mulvey (originally by U2)

Life on Mars by The Bad Plus (originally by David Bowie)

Hit 'Em Up Style by Carolina Chocolate Drops (originally by Blu Cantrell)

Cinnamon Girl by Radiohead (originally by Neil Young)

Live and let live

It's another play on words that probably no-one else notices and certainly no-one else finds them amusing or worthwhile. I just can't help myself.

Anyway.

I thought it'd be good to post some live versions of songs, so that's what I'm posting. Originally I was just going to limit this to performances at gigs, but that would have meant leaving out TV On The Radio's performance of Blues From Down Here which was played on KEXP and is one of the loveliest things I've heard.

Blues From Down Here by TV On The Radio

Whole Damn Thing by Those Darlin's

Videotape by Radiohead

Via Chicago by Wilco

1901 by Phoenix

The 50 States Song by Sufjan Stevens

Some more music

I know, in general, these sorts of blogs are used to talk about brand new music. I've got nothing against new music. I listen to it and I post it here. But at the sametime I've got nothing against old music either. I listen to that and post it as well. Which means I'm never sure what I'm going to post next. So if the choice of music seems a bit random and unstructured, that's because it is. It's a reflection of the music I love and listen to I hope you enjoy it.

Here are 6 songs I'm really enjoying at the moment:

Plans Get Complex by All-Time Quarterback from the album All-Time Quarterback (buy)

Dear Catastrophe Waitress by Belle and Sebastian from the album Dear Catastrophe Waitress (buy)

These Few Presidents by Why? from the album Alopecia (buy)

Kissing The Beehive by Wolf Parade from the album At Mount Zoomer (buy)

On A Rope by Rocket from the Crypt from the album Scream, Dracula, Scream! (buy)

The Distance by Cake from the album Fashion Nugget (buy)