Covers for Sunday

Jealous Guy by Okkervil River (originally by John Lennon). It's a live version so the sound quality isn't great but this is one of my favourite covers and I think it's well worth listening to. It's one of those songs that I was genuinely surprised when I saw I hadn't already posted it.



Dream A Little Dream Of Me by Dala (originally by Ozzie Nelson and His Orchestra). One of the most covered songs in history, this isn't my favourite version (that's Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald) but it is really good.



God Only Knows by Ben Kweller (originally by The Beach Boys). Two Beach Boys covers in two weeks, it's nothing mire than coincidence.



Everybody Knows by Elizabeth and The Catapult (originally by Leonard Cohen). Maybe one day I'll do a Covers for Sunday - Leonard Cohen edition but until then you can enjoy this.



Mansard Roof by Canadian Invasion (originally by Vampire Weekend). Canadian Invasion are a band from Philadelphia so either the US is safe from Canadian invasion or they've already started.



Play The Game by Beach House (originally by Queen). The sleeve for Play The Game was the first one to feature Freddie Mercury with a moustache.

On Shuffle

The point of the On Shuffle posts is to feature music that just pops up on iTunes. Maybe it's something that's been sitting their unheard for a while, maybe it's just under-appreciated. Of course sometimes at least one of the songs is something I want to blog about and the rest of the songs are then chosen at random. But not this time, all of these songs were chosen randomly from shuffle, just like they should be.

Unconscious by The Silencers. A rather excellent but unheard of Scottish band that have been around going on 25 years now. This song is excellent, and not just because it features bagpipes.

Sunday Morning by The Blackhawks. This is lovely, dreamy music, not too far away from a mix of Girls and Beach House. Sadly it's almost impossible to find any concrete information about the band because they share the same name as a war, a long-standing country band and a professional sports team. Still, they're good and worth the effort.

Broken Arrow by Brandi Emma. Something that turned up in my inbox that I didn't really know how to describe. And I still don't. It's very laid back and she has a lovely voice. But there's more too it than that. Guess you'll just have to listen and make your own mind up.

Radiohead and all that jazz

It's generally accepted that Radiohead take influences from different genres. Unless this is your first time reading this blog you probably already know I'm going to talk about jazz.



Life In A Glass House (Full Length Version) by Radiohead feat. Humphrey Lyttelton. This is the version from the B Side to Knives Out and is probably as close to outright jazz that Radiohead have ever got in the studio. They worked with veteran trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton and his band to add a trad jazz sound to the song.



Humphrey Lyttelton had one chart hit in the UK, Bad Penny Blues made the Top-20 in the UK and stayed for six weeks.

Bad Penny Blues by Humphrey Lyttelton

Humphrey Lyttelton - trumpet
Johnny Parker - piano
Jim Bray - contrabass
Stan Greig - drums

Humphrey Lyttelton had a pretty full life. The descendant of one of Guy Fawkes' co-conspirators he was a performing musician from demobbing (he had served in the Grenadier Guards) in 1945 until his death in 2008 and also found time to work as a cartoonist for The Daily Mail, presented The Best Of Jazz on Radio 2, hosted I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (a comedy show) on Radio 4 and served as the president of The Society for Italic Handwriting. From landing in Italy to calligraphy via jazz.

Humphrey Lyttelton was inspired by Louis Armstrong and Nat Gonella. Louis Armstrong you'll already know as the first superstar of jazz. Nat Gonella was an English trumpeter and singer and was himself heavily influenced by Louis Armstrong with whom he later became close friends.



Hesitation Blues by Nat Gonella



Tiger Rag by Louis Armstrong

Of course Louis Armstrong influenced countless musicians but he wasn't without influences himself, notably Joe Oliver. Best known as King Oliver, he invited Louis Armstrong to Chicago to play in his Creole Jazz Band. Louis Armstrong played with King Oliver from 1922 until 1924.



Riverside Blues by King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band.

King Oliver - cornet
Louis Armstrong - cornet
Johnny Dodds - clarinet
Kid Ory - trombone
Johnny St. Cyr - banjo
Lil Hardin - piano (later Louis Armstrong's second wife and sometimes referred to as Lil Hardin Armstrong)

King Oliver was influenced by Buddy Bolden, the band leader who invented jazz, if anyone person did. Sadly no recordings of Buddy Bolden survive so instead I'll finish with another jazz musician that has influenced Radiohead, Charles Mingus.



Freedom Part 2 (Clark In The Dark) by Charles Mingus.

There are well over 30 musicians on the album this comes from, The Complete Town Hall Concert, and I'm not going to list them all here. If you're interested you can see the list here. I'm just going to identify Eric Dolphy, who plays the saxophone solo, and of course Charles Mingus on contrabass.

The Strokes - Angles

I'm guessing that most of you will already know about The Strokes new album, but just in case you don't here are the details.

The album will be called Angles, has 10 tracks and is due to be released on 21st of March in the UK and most of the rest of Europe, March 22nd in North America and 23rd of March in Japan. The first single will be Under Cover Of Darkness, rumoured to be released 9th of February.

Rolling Stone seems to like it a lot, but I haven't read an issue of that in well over a decade, so I'm not taking anything from that. They say, amongst other things, that

Angles is the best album the Strokes have made since Is This It because of the stylistic depth and progressive excitement in those crisscross guitars, the tightly wound rhythms and Casablancas’ dry trademark croon.

Track listing is:

1 - Machu Picchu
2 - Under Cover of Darkness
3 - Two Kinds of Happiness
4 - You're So Right
5 - Taken For a Fool
6 - Games
7 - Call Me Back
8 - Gratisfaction
9 - Metabolism
10 - Life is Simple in the Moonlight

There are no new tracks released from it yet, so here are a few tracks from The Strokes that you may not have heard. I'm not going to call them rare, but they've never been released on an album. There's a b-side, a fanclub track and a live song with special guest. Enjoy.

Hawaii, the B-side to Juicebox.

Elephant Song, fanclub recording.

Under Control feat. Har Mar Superstar, live.

Covers for Sunday

Sorry this is a day late, yesterday I spilled coffee on my keyboard and as one of the delights of living in England is shops that sell keyboards tend to close at 4pm there was no way I could post anything yesterday.

Femme Fatale by Big Star (originally by The Velvet Underground). I mentioned this cover on Saturday's post, it's so good I thought I'd include it this week.

Kangaroo by Beck (originally by Big Star). While we're on Big Star covers I thought this fit nicely.

50 Ways To Leave Your Lover by The Brad Mehldau Trio (originally by Paul Simon). It's been far too long since the Brad Mehldau Trio have been featured so here's another of their excellent covers.

Bulletproof by Lou Barlow (originally by La Roux). I don't like the original of this, it's far too 80's, but this cover is pretty enjoyable.

I Get Around by Red Hot Chili Peppers (originally by The Beach Boys). This sounds exactly how you'd imagine.

Keep The Car Running by Foo Fighters (originally by Arcade Fire). From a radio session for the BBC, sorry for the exceptionally irritating DJ after the song has finished.

On Shuffle

Equipoise by Max Roach.

It seems to me that jazz musicians tend to die very early or live very long lives. Max Roach is in the latter category, living until 83. During his career he was one of the finest bebop, hardbop and modal drummers as well as dabbling in avant-garde/free jazz, the co-founder of Debut Records with Charles Mingus, founder of the percussion orchestra M'Boom and one of the first successful drummers to play solo concerts. Not that he was only a soloist, he recorded with pretty much every important jazz instrumentalist that was active during his lie with the exceptions of John Coltrane and Louis Armstrong. A short list of the musicians he's recorded with: Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown, J.J. Johnson, Stan Getz, Bud Powell, Buddy Guy and Freddie Hubbard.

This track is from the 1968 album Members, Don't Git Weary which is a suberp modal recording that I highly recommend anyone with even a slight interest in post-bob jazz acquires. This track sounds not unlike a mournful adaptation of A Love Supreme Part 1: "Acknowledgement"

The musicians on this recording are:

Max Roach - Drums
Gary Bartz - Alto saxophone
Charles Tolliver - Trumpet
Stanley Cowell - Piano
Jymie Merritt - Bass.



Red Headed Girl (acoustic version) by The Soft Pack

To promote the release of the EP The Muslims two acoustic tracks were released, this is one of them. Their eponymous debut album would be one of my top albums of 2010, if I could motivate myself to make a list.



Blue Moon by Big Star

From the album Third/Sister Lovers which is my personal favourite of the Big Star albums. The album contains a cover of The Velvet Underground's Femme Fatale, which I left off the Covers For Sunday - Velvet Underground Edition in favour of a cover by Yo La Tengo and Alex Chilton.

New Avishai Cohen song

You may remember back in August I shared a video with you of the Avishai Cohen Trio playing Remembering (here). The good news is Avishai Cohen has an album due out next month called Seven Seas. The title track has been made available for download so I'm sharing it with you here, although you can also download it from Avishai Cohen's website if you'd rather, further details about the album and his upcoming tour are available there as well.

Seven Seas

Of course, because I'm so good to you, I've got some more songs for you.The first is a recording by The Avishai Cohen Trio and the second is The Avishai Cohen Trio joined by Jimmy Greene on saxophone.

Mark Guilliana's drumming is a real highlight on Eleven Wives, he's up there with Dave King as one of the best drummers around at the moment. Jimmy Greene's presence on the second track gives a much different sound and compliment's the trio's playing very well.

Eleven Wives (mp3) live.



Feediop (mp3) live at the Blue Note in NYC.

On Shuffle

Freestylin' by Greyboy With Harold Todd & Marc Antoine. There's a point where genres meet and make labels more or less worthless. I'd call this fusion or acid jazz but neither really does the track justice. So I'll just say it's really good and you'll have to trust me and listen to it all the way through. It's worth it.


Acid Jazz by Arlo Knox

What Did My Lover Say (It Always Had To Go This Way) by Wolf Parade. From Expo 1986 which, if I were to do a top albums of 2010, would certainly be in the top-15 and maybe the top-10.


Vancouver Expo 86

Up The Junction by Squeeze. The first track by Squeeze I've posted, I'm sorry I've let you all down.


Clapham Junction

Covers for Sunday

Eye Of The Tiger by Rural Alberta Advantage (originally by Survivor). More goodness from The Rural Alberta Advantage, this was the B-side to Drain The Blood. While the original is pretty much the definition of a pump up song this sounds more like a lament of things passed.



New Sensation by Beck, St. Vincent, Daniel Hart, Sergio Dias, Brian LeBarton and Liars (originally by INXS). If you read the Covers for Sunday - Velvet Underground edition you'll have heard some of the covers Beck does as part of his Record Club. So far 5 different albums have been covered, The Velvet Underground & Nico was first and INXS' Kick was fourth. Each album has a different set of musicians on it and they're all worth listening to. If you want to hear them they're all available at the Record Club site.



I'm Waiting by Delta Spirit (originally by Bill Bush). This cover is from their second Daytrotter set, which you can here in it's entirety here.



Folsom Prison Blues by Keb' Mo' (originally by Johnny Cash). It's always difficult to cover a song as classic as this, a song that so many people from different musical tastes have heard and loved, but I think this is an excellent cover.



Born On A Train by Arcade Fire (originally by The Magnetic Fields). One of my favourite covers by Arcade Fire, it's hard to believe that The Magnetic Fields have released their first album 20 years ago.



I'm Goin' Down by Vampire Weekend (originally by Bruce Springsteen). Sometimes when I have iTunes on shuffle things turn up that I had no idea I had on my hard drive. This is one of those songs, I had no idea Vampire Weekend had even covered it, but it turns out it was recorded in September last year.

On Shuffle

Witchfinder by John Zorn. With the Moonchild Trio of Mike Patton, Joey Baron and Trevor Dunn on vocals, drums and bass respectively this is fusion jazz with some avant-garde playing thrown in. Zorn's alto-sax playing is suberp, but if you've never listened to John Zorn's recordings before you've probably never heard anything like this before.



I Want You To Know by Dinosaur Jr. From The Farm, one of 2009's best albums, it shows that Dinosaur Jr. still have it.



The Rifle by Alela Diane. A quiet folk song that's in total contrast to the two songs above. I'm not a huge fan of Alela Diane, I find her pretty hit and miss with more misses than hits. But when a song hits, like this, I love it.

New R.E.M. songs

Given that I gave you all those REM covers on Sunday and then yesterday told you about Rural Alberta Advantage's upcoming release it only makes sense that I tell you about Collapse Into Now, the soon to be released album from R.E.M.

So far two tracks have been released from the album, Discoverer and It Happened Today, featuring guest vocals from Eddie Vedder and Joel Gibbs. Both are available below and as a bonus I've included a live version of Man On The Moon, also featuring Eddie Vedder.

This is the first time in a while I've really looked forward to an album by R.E.M. As I've mentioned before Automatic For The People was the first album I ever bought. I loved it and I loved Monster. New Adventures In Hi Fi is my favourite R.E.M. album and Up was an excellent album. So when Reveal was released I was disappointed. Not that there aren't good songs on it, perhaps I'd have enjoyed it more if it was a debut album by a band I had no expectations for. Maybe then I'd have enjoyed the good songs enough to not let the rest colour my opinion of the album so much. Then came Around The Sun. Final Straw is a good song, but that's pretty much it. The album isn't terrible, but it's a long way from good or even above average.

So it's safe to say my expectations for Accelerate were low. After all the last three albums had all been ones I'd enjoyed less than their predecessor and the gap had grown with each release. If the pattern continued then I'd dislike Accelerate even more than Around The Sun and I didn't want to risk that. So I pretty much ignored the release and bought it a few months later after I'd seen plenty of good reviews. And it was very good. I enjoyed listening to it a lot and it made up for the missteps of Reveal and the general mediocrity of Around The Sun. Now it's almost time for Collapse Into Now to be released and I'm looking forward to it. I think after you've listened to these two tracks you will be as well.

Discoverer

It Happened Today feat Eddie Vedder and Joel Gibbs

Man On The Moon feat Eddie Vedder

Track listing:

Discoverer
All the Best
Überlin
Oh My Heart
It Happened Today (featuring Eddie Vedder and Joel Gibb)
Every Day Is Yours to Win
Mine Smell Like Honey
Walk It Back
Alligator Aviator Autopilot Antimatter (featuring Peaches and Lenny Kaye)
That Someone Is You
Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando and I
Blue (featuring Patti Smith)

New Rural Alberta Advantage song - Stamp

One of my favourite bands since I first heard them Rural Alberta Advantage have a new album due to be released in March. Stamp is the first track to be released from the album in it's final form. (Two Lovers and Barnesyard were both played as acoustic songs by Nils Edenloff for Daytrotter). If you enjoyed their debut album Hometowns you'll love this and if you didn't you're a fool, but it's ok you'll still love this.

Stamp (mp3) by Rural Alberta Advantage.

The album's tracklist:

Two Lovers
The Breakup
Under the Knife
Muscle Relaxants
North Star
Stamp
Tornado ‘87
Barnes’ Yard
Coldest Days
Good Night

As a bonus, here are a couple of live versions of tracks from Hometowns, one studio and one gig.

Drain The Blood (mp3) live studio session for The Current 89.3



The Dethbridge in Lethbridge (mp3) live at Wolfe Island Musicfest, 8th August 2009.

On Shuffle

Checkout Blue by Eels. It's strange, I love Eels, but I don't play them often. Everytime I listen to one of their songs I enjoy it and resolve to listen to them more and then promptly forget. I should make it a New Year's resolution.



Little Girl by Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse feat. Julian Casablancas. This came out not long before Julian Casablancas' solo album Phrazes For The Young, and it kind of got lost in shuffle, especially given the difficulties surrounding the release of the album Dark Night Of The Soul. I think it's worth listening to again, it's certainly grown on me.

Covers for Sunday - R.E.M. edition

So far I've done four Covers for Sunday band editions and it occurred to me that of the four bands two are from New York and two are from London. Now I've got nothing against either of those cities, except that London's full of southerners of course, but I wanted something a bit different this time. So I went with R.E.M.



From Athens, Georgia R.E.M. have been one of my favourite bands ever since I started listening to music I wanted to listen to instead of whatever my siblings or parents were listening to. Automatic For The People was the first album I ever bough, on cassettes, and Monster was the first CD I ever bought. They've released 14 studio albums and despite a couple of mediocre efforts, Reveal and particularly Around The Sun, they've been a consistently excellent band.

Longevity, indie success, popularity and a huge song book should make them an excellent source of covers and by and large they are. However it was disappointing to see how many covers are of the same few songs, Losing My Religion and Everybody Hurts in particular.

Having said that, I am pleased with the variety of covers I've been able to find, I've also been surprised by how many covers R.E.M. have performed, several of which are included below. I haven't included any of the covers that appear on Dead Letter Office, except the two The Velvet Underground covers that I've featured before, so if you want those you'll have to buy the album.

Enough talk from me, here are the covers. I hope you enjoy them.



First here are the covers by R.E.M. that I've featured on this blog before.

Pale Blue Eyes (live) originally by The Velvet Underground.

There She Goes Again originally by The Velvet Underground.

All I Have to Do Is Dream originally by The Everly Brothers

Wall Of Death originally by Richard and Linda Thompson

I Will Survive originally by Gloria Gaynor

Gentle On My Mind originally by John Hartford



These are the covers of R.E.M. that have been posted on here before.

Hairshirt by Glen Hansard

So Central Rain by Grant Lee Phillips

You Are The Everything by Redbird

It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) by Great Big Sea



Now for this week's new covers. I've tried to use different songs rather than repeating the same two or three over and over and I've tried to use covers of less well known songs as well as their more popular radio hits.

Fall On Me by Cry Cry Cry

Orange Crush by The Editors

The One I Love by Rosie Thomas

The One I Love by Sufjan Stevens

Losing My Religion by Tori Amos

Everybody Hurts by Vic Chestnutt

The Great Beyond by the Fray

Losing My Religion by Craig's Brother

The Apologist by Fink

Falls To Climb by Lizzy Banoffee

Try Not To Breathe by This Unique Museum

Wendell Gee by Klifton Filente

Country Feedback by Doug McKenna

It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) by ZSK

You Are The Everything by Go South



In 2007 Stereogum released Drive XV to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the release of Automatic For The People. The album featured covers of each track, some tracks were covered more than once and are included as bonus tracks.

Drive by The Veils

Try Not To Breathe by Dappled Cities

The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite by Rogue Wave

Everybody Hurts by Meat Puppets

New Orleans Instrumental No. 1 by Figurines

Sweetness Follows by Sara Quin (Feat. Kaki King)

Monty Got A Raw Deal by Catfish Haven

Ignoreland by The Forms

Star Me Kitten by Blitzen Trapper

Man On The Moon by Shout Out Louds

Nightswimming by The Wrens

Find The River by Dr. Dog

Bonus tracks:

Try Not To Breathe by The Narrator

Everybody Hurts by Amanda Palmer & Cormac Bride

Man On The Moon by Ferraby Lionheart

The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite by Oxford Collapse

Find The River by Blanche

Nightswimming by You Say Party! We Say Die!

New Orleans Instrumental No. 1 by Jana Hunter

Everybody Hurts by Elk City

Everybody Hurts by Frida Hyvönen

Everybody Hurts by Bodies Of Water



There are times R.E.M. have covered other bands, apart from the first song all of these are live covers.

Superman originally by The Clique (vocals by Mike Mills)

Favorite Writer (featuring Linda Hopper) originally by Magnapop. Linda Hopper is the vocalist for Magnapop, so technically this might not be a cover, but I don't care. My blog, my rules.

Love Is All Around originally by The Troggs (vocals by Mike Mills)

Munich originally by Editors

NYC originally by Interpol

California Dreaming originally by The Mamas & the Papas

Midnight Blue originally by Lou Gramm



Lastly, some songs that really aren't covers, even with the my blog my rules standard, but they fit in nicely with this post.

E-Bow The Letter by Thom Yorke & R.E.M. Thom Yorke does the vocals that Patti Smith performs on the New Adventure's In Hi-Fi version of this song. I believe this version is from a Free Tibet concert.

One by Automatic Baby. Automatic Baby were a combination of R.E.M. and U2 that performed only once and played just one song. It's Michael Stipe on lead vocals, Mike Mills on guitar, Adam Clayton on Bass and Larry Mullen Jr on drums. According to wikipedia this was played on MTV for Bill Clinton. I don't know if MTV had some sort of concert for bill Clinton or these four musicians decided to get together and perform One for him, neither sounds particularly likely to me.

On Shuffle

After my last post was all 2010 releases I thought I'd go for some older music this time around.

Foxxy Minor by Parker McDougal. I know nothing about Parker McDougal, and neither does Google. Office Naps knows something:

Parker McDougal was a tenor saxophonist who played a supporting role for many local outfits. He also recorded early on for the hip M and M Records, who released the rivetingly dark “Foxxy Minor” in 1960. McDougal remained a Chicago jazz and R&B fixture but recorded, as a leader at least, only sporadically in subsequent decades. He passed away in 1994 at age 69.

If you don't already you really should check out Office Naps, it's in my blog list. But before you do you really should listen to Foxxy Minor and enjoy some excellent jazz.

Cigarettes and Coffee by Otis Redding. Shamefully this is only the third time I've featured an Otis Redding song on here. He was the first male singer I really liked and got into, when I was about 14-15, and his music was a key part of me really getting into music. This recording is from 1966.

She Lives (In A Time Of Her Own) by 13th Floor Elevators. This is from 1967. 13th Floor Elevators are one of those bands who while not exactly obscure have had a far bigger influence than their sales figures would suggest. Bands like ZZ Top, REM, Butthole Surfers, Primal Scream, Spacemen 3 and Queens Of the Stone Age have all been influenced by 13th Floor Elevators.

On Shuffle

No real theme, except these are all from albums/EPs released in 2010. Enjoy.

Nothing But Our Love by Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.

Dance Yrself Clean by LCD Soundsystem

Dreaming by Seapony

Excuses by Morning Benders

Into Yr Mind by Young Hunting

Mouthful of Diamonds by Phantogram