A break in programming

I forgot to give a reverse suggestion. Try out Blitzen Trapper if you haven’t already. My favorite album from last year was Furr. Good stuff.

also do a phenomenal version of “My Way,” “a mi manera.” Hot. Damn, we really need a “best covers of all time” thread up in here. Or specifically Spanish covers – I heard a great cover of “Jailhouse rock” one time -

numero 47 dijo a numero 3
ven a mi cuarto para bailar

Skinny Love is great but check out the ep, my new favourite Bon Iver song is “Blood Bank,” if there’s a song that better evokes the upper midwest on a shitty gray winter evening, or more specifically Wisconsin in all its violent-weirdness (no offence Wyn…really, I mean it as a compliment), I haven’t heard it.

ba-dum-ching!

my wife is pretty much the world’s biggest Bowie fan. I don’t think I ever took him seriously enough, because I would lump him into one category or another…but she’s been showing me that if there were ever a completely uncategorizable guy, it’s him. The other night she played me a cover he did of a Springsteen song. I didn’t think any greater stylistic difference was possible…but the damn song was great. (I’ve really been getting into covers lately…I’d place Bowie with people like Emmylou Harris and Johnny Cash, people that, if they cover your song, you’re both honoured and pissed – honoured for obvious reasons; pissed because it’s basically not your song anymore because they did it 10 times better than you.) There’s another fantastic Bowie cover, of Brel’s “Amsterdam”; Brel’s is still better, but if anyone does it justice, it’s Bowie. Fantastic stuff. I’m a huge fan of the French chanson – Brel, Moustaki, Hardy, Vian, etc., but especially Brel and Gainsbourg (different tradition – his own – but not completely unrelated…by the way have you heard his daughter’s stuff? fantastic) – and anyone who can pull that off, in English no less, is fantastic in my book.

Thanks for the Ritter reference, I’ll check him out. Where the hell is secretarykissinger, he was a huge Radio K guy in his Mpls days, also has a fantastic record collection.

Andrew Bird is pretty awesome. He also seems to have an inexplicable connection to the twin cities beyond touring with Dosh.

SnP, i trust you’ve been following all the various Jason Molina projects (Magnolia Electric, etc) in a similar vein to the OR? I’ve had a recent flirtation with another grouping of bands that are guitar-y in a kind of early 70s country/blues psychedelia mode, but heavier, sludgy. Last year’s Black Mountain record is great in spots, as are Pink Mountaintops, Entrance, Dead Meadow. You probably already have checked these out…I can really get into a mood for them sometimes but I’m finding upon sustained listening they don’t have the highest ceiling, as they say (Pitchfork described the career arc of Dead Meadow as “endlessly languid psyche-rock riffage” which is about right I guess). I got linked around to these during a Silver Jewsy period a while back and the transition seemed reasonable somehow.

Another step removed: the recent album by David Vandervelde, Waiting for the Sunrise, is derivative but I think kind of diverting. Its kind of a naive Gram Parsons thing with more orchestral pretentions. Not bad.

How about Midlake? They’re sloppy indie (from Texas (?I think)), the guy sounds like Wayne Coyne (I’ve been listening to their Bamnan and Silvercork LP and track two is now indispensible).

Or you could just go back to 94 K style, throw on some Jawbox and Shonen Knife, and say job done!

I’ll post a direct link to one of Jakes better songs

is that west Texas, or more central? I love New Mexico (Albuquerque’s one of my favourite places) and have always been interested in the western parts of TX, specifically El Paso (and Juárez, McCarthy’s “cities of the plain”) and Big Bend Nat’l Park, I would love to go there. i.e. I’m interested in the dry desert-y parts, not so much the humid parts near the Gulf.

Christ Novelesich or whatever the Nirvana bass player is called is unlikeable.

It mirrors my own… :-)