Ben Kweller covers Neil Young + plays some new songs

Although he still looks eternally (and preternaturally) adolescent, 27 year-old Ben Kweller has been making music for fifteen years now, from catchy pop to punk rock and all shades in between. Recently returned to his home state to settle in Austin, Kweller’s bright new country-inflected album Changing Horses is out this week  on ATO Records.

“I wear my Texas roots on my sleeve,” Ben says on this interview from the BBC a few weeks ago. He’s apparently been writing these Southwestern songs for years (some hints broke through notably on 2006′s superb self-titled album and more recently on his How Ya Lookin’, Southbound? EP), and squirreling away the twang for the perfect time to gather them all into a slide-guitar + dusty heartbreak tour de force.

Kweller is comfortable letting his roots show. “I grew up bass-fishing, playing in creeks, and shooting BB guns,” Kweller says. “Country music was the soundtrack to my life. It’s still a big part of who I am. When Garth Brooks or Alan Jackson come on the radio, somethin’ happens inside. Brings me back to the trees, back to pushin’ cars out of the mud. Reminds me of my hometown.”

BEN KWELLER – Live on BBC2 (Dec 13, 2008)
Intro/Chat I
Sawdust Man (new)
Chat II
From Hank To Hendrix (Neil Young cover)
Chat III
Lizzy (from 2002′s Sha Sha)

ZIP: BEN KWELLER ON BBC

And also — man. I love that Neil Young song he covers (from 1992′s Harvest Moon), and just like everything Kweller does, the way he sings it is here is so purely unaffected and honest:

Sometime it’s distorted
Not clear to you
Sometimes the beauty of love
Just comes ringin’ through

New glass in the window
New leaf on the tree
New distance between us
You and me

Can we get it together?
Can we still walk side by side?
Can we make it last
Like a musical ride?

Changing Horses is out February 3rd in the U.S. (today in Europe!), and there’s a sweeeet Daytrotter session recently posted as well.

Monday Music Roundup

I went skiing this weekend, a rare occurrence for me despite living in Colorado. My body doth protest heartily today, after using muscles near-forgotten. I am a novice skier but by the end of the day Saturday I was hitting a stride where I wasn’t fighting against the giant contraptions buckled to my feet and I could just glide down the mountain (almost) naturally. It felt at times like flying, silently.

It was a gorgeous day and occasionally the sun would break through the clouds and shimmer across Lake Dillon in the distance. Even though I was listening to things like The Strokes and The Darkness, I couldn’t help but think of the Josh Ritter lyric, “The lake was a diamond in the valley’s hand.” A few times I stopped dumbfounded on the edge of the run and said out loud to no one in particular, “Man alive, that’s gorgeous” — all I have is a cell phone snap that doesn’t do it justice.

We also saw a free Girl Talk concert outside at Keystone Friday night (part of the impetus for the original trip) and it was short but fantastic. Gillis could have held the stage for another two hours and I think we would have all been happy as cold little clams. Due to the fact that we were dancing outside on snow, it never got as hot and sweaty as your standard Girl Talk concert, leaving us all wanting more and more.

Here are a few new tunes in these waning weeks of the year:

Titus Andronicus
Titus Andronicus
This is a fantastically sloppy, raucous track from Jersey’s Titus Andronicus. Like the band’s live shows, the song is loose and unhinged, with frustrated lyrics about the creative pressures like “throw my guitar down on the floor, no one cares what I’ve got to say anymore.” Frontman Patrick Stickles vows to write his masterpiece another day, but it sounds like they capture a fine visceral slice of their lives right at this moment. The band is named for the bloodiest of Shakespeare’s plays, and the re-release of their debut album The Airing of Grievances is due January 19 (XL Recordings). They hit the road next month with Los Campesinos!.

Headin’ Inside
Surf City
A dear friend is currently out of these snowy Colorado climes and spending a month in New Zealand and Australia. She regales me with emails about how humid it is there, while I am watching snow twirl outside my window right this minute. Fittingly, in the dead of winter New Zealand band Surf City (formerly Kill Surf City) brings a hot and feisty slice of July back into my music life this week. With an opening riff that sounds like the Jesus & Mary Chain channeling Dick Dale, they tie up the classic pop sound with “the simple structure meets raw energy” of punk. Their self-titled EP is out now on Morr Music.

Hurtin’ You
Ben Kweller
Deep within Ben Kweller‘s gawky indie-rocker heart, which normally beats with sublime pop harmonies and sunny construction, there lies a downhome country fella. We’ve heard hints of it spun marvelously in 2006′s self-titled album and more recently on his How Ya Lookin’, Southbound? EP. But this new slide-guitar laden song from his forthcoming Changing Horses full length (ATO Records, February ’09) just consummates the ongoing flirtation once and for all. And I’m glad.

Overcome
Juliette Commagére
One of the coolest girls ever to wield a keytar, the fearless Juliette Commagére fronts the L.A. band Hello Stranger, sometimes in knee-high red boots. Now embarking on a solo jaunt, Juliette gives me chills in the opening moments of this pristine song with cascading harmonies that sound more at home in a Tibetan monastery, but then breaks into a fine, loud Blondie-type rock. Ry Cooder guests on her enticing album Queens Die Proudly, out now on Aeronaut Records.

Girl Ain’t Preggers
Grampall Jookabox
The world might be a better place if every song came complete with a video game where you can jump over babies while the song discusses the protagonist’s conflicting feelings about the girl not being pregnant (starting with “I need some money right now, I can’t pay for no baby,” then moving into a surprisingly sentimental line of thinking about how cute tiny baby hands are, and ending with, “Don’t it make you feel bad that the girl ain’t preggers?“). Despite two of my guy friends each feeding over 25 babies on this game and being praised for their superior parenting skills, I regret to inform that I kept landing on the babies. Sigh. Grampall Jookabox‘s new album Ropechain is out now on Asthmatic Kitty.

Monday Music Roundup, Tuesday edition

On this rather historic U.S. election day, I can almost feel the crackle of excitement in the air around town. I am pleased with this. I am excited for people getting involved and for the sense of personal commitment and ability to make a difference. As the wise Italian hip-hop sage Jovanotti once said in his song “Dal Basso” with Michael Franti: “tutto nasce dal basso (e poi va su)” — all change is birthed from the bottom (and then rises up). Let’s go out and do it.

The music of the week for me includes:

Black Rice
Women
As demonstrated at their scuzzy-loud, pop-layered, feedback-drenched show last night in Denver, there aren’t actually any women in this Canadian band. They are, however, engaged in a fierce battle for “Worst Band Name To Google, Ever.” Currently Air and Bread hold the title, but Cake and Spoon are close behind. Nice try, Women. Their self-titled debut album (out now on Flemish Eye) was recorded by labelmate Chad VanGaalen, and possesses a delightfully unclassifiable combo of ’50s reverb, Warhol’s art experimentation, and ’90s spaceyness. The night seemed abuzz with folks wondering who this band was.

Steal Away
Murder by Death
It is not possible to hear this song and deny that the spirit of the Man In Black is back walking among us in fresh new incarnations. The moniker Murder By Death sounds vaguely emo, but actually they take their name from the 1976 Neil Simon/Robert Moore movie. This four-piece from Indiana turns an inventive and melancholic ear to their craft to create a uniquely brooding blend of creatively dark Americana. Red Of Tooth And Claw is their fourth album, their first on Vagrant Records, and the excellent Eric caused me to take a closer look at them when he wrote that it’s “full of fatally-doomed antebellum romance and directly descended from the Southern gothic tradition.” Yes.

Wicked
Blitzen Trapper
Currently on tour with Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus and his Jicks, Portland’s Blitzen Trapper comes through Denver later this week in support of their rad Sub Pop debut Furr. The title track is one of the loveliest songs to add to my playlist in recent months, and one creative friend wrote that it “makes me well up like I am watching that movie about sled dogs by disney,” a description that amused me greatly. This previously unreleased tune from BT carries on a bit of that wild playfulness, and can be found on the soundtrack to the movie adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s Choke, which also includes the 2004 Ben Kweller song “The Rules,” and a Doors cover by Nicole Atkins & The Sea.

The Sun Smells Too Loud
Mogwai
The sweeping cinematic grandeur of Scottish band Mogwai will take the willing off onto mental escapades, much like what Sigur Ros does for me. The last I heard from Mogwai they were weaving their atmospherically gorgeous contribution to the Zidane documentary, but the newest free Matador Records sampler highlights this cut off their sixth album The Hawk Is Howling. It is dizzying like a bright sun, elegant in the build and cascade.

Good Arms vs. Bad Arms (live)
Frightened Rabbit
As I’ll probably sum up in some sort of end-of-the-year retrospective, Scotland’s Frightened Rabbit put on one of my top 5 shows this year. Some might shy from the guttingly brutal lyrics in their introspective-but-ferocious songs chronicling the death of a relationship, but I’ll jump in. I’ll do the catharsis, and they do it so well. Frightened Rabbit have a new live album out now on FatCat UK called Liver! Lung! FR!, which is an unconventional but fitting title for a band that eviscerates me like this. This version of Good Arms vs Bad Arms is slower, sadder and somehow more beautiful than the album version. It sounds almost like a eulogy, and in a way I guess it is.

Ben Kweller: meeting all your cover band needs

In addition to being a writer & performer of catchy tunes that still feel substantial, possessing a fantastic sense of humor, and being multi-talented enough to make stellar albums wherein he plays all the instruments himself, indie rocker Ben Kweller also loves himself some covers.

One of my readers Katie saw BK last weekend (8/5) in Atlanta and captured this feel-good cover medley: “La Bamba,” “Twist and Shout,” and a spot on cover of Weezer’s “Sweater Song,” even effectively capturing the banal banter between verses, customized for the occasion. It’s kitschy fun; you kinda wish he’d play your school dance.

[direct link]

I’m mostly just impressed that he knows all the words to “La Bamba.” Even though I am generally a lyrical conquistadora, that’s one you’ll catch me mumbling on.

Mason Jennings: Frick fight and a cover by Kweller

I came across this hilarious bit of storytelling on Mason Jennings’ MySpace blog page yesterday.

Frickin’ awesome:

“FRICK FIGHT”
So, there I was, walking through an herb garden at a lovely spa/retreat in New Mexico. We had the good fortune of staying there on our last tour. I was walking the grounds thinking about how beautiful the day was. I was walking around a grove of trees when, bam, I walked smack into my first Frick Fight.

Mustache: What the frick were you thinking?
Pomade: I frickin told you, I didn’t frickin do it…
Mustache: Yes, you frickin did. Don’t frickin say you didn’t.
Pomade: I frickin didn’t.
Mustache: If you frickin do that one more time, I’ll frickin..
Pomade: I frickin said, I frickin didn’t do it.
Mustache: Don’t frickin lie to me. I have frickin had it.

Mason
Minneapolis, Minnesota
6/28/07

Also, I had missed that Ben Kweller covered Mason’s song “Sorry Signs on Cash Machines” last year on the Sundress EP, but am enjoying it now. When I hear different versions of Mason’s songs, I’m always struck by just how visceral and evocative a songwriter he is:

Sorry Signs on Cash Machines – Ben Kweller

Sorry Signs on Cash Machines – Mason Jennings

Monday Music Roundup

Happy Monday folks. I forgot to announce the Brushfire Records contest winner on Friday because I was up in Boulder, but in a random drawing (seriously; I made up 46 little pieces of paper and numbered them in the name of fairness) reader Kevin Cornwell wins the sampler packs of albums from the Brushfire lineup and a t-shirt. Yay Kevin! Please email me with your address.

I was kinda hoping that the winner would be the one dude with the joke about the muffins. SO ridiculous that it made me laugh out loud.

Here are the tunes I am listening to this week:

If You Wear That Velvet Dress
Jools Holland and Bono
The friend who sent me this song admits to skipping “If You Wear That Velvet Dress” when he listens to Pop, but for me the original is a smoldering hymn to clandestine longing that rarely gets passed over. This 2002 big-band swing version from (Squeeze founder) Jools Holland’s More Friends: Small World Big Band, Vol. 2 album takes a slightly different tack. The whispered aching and subtlety of the original turns into something almost brash — more breathy jazz singers lounging on pianos than smoky velvet dresses. Still, totally worth having – the album also features duets with folks like Stereophonics, Badly Drawn Boy, Tom Jones, and Huey of Fun Lovin’ Criminals.

Today (Smashing Pumpkins cover)
Ben Kweller
When I first read about this compilation album of Smashing Pumpkins covers from the good folks at SPIN (speaking of which, I’m almost finished reading my first Klosterman book) and MySpace, I wanted to stab my eye out with a black eyeliner pencil. This Ben Kweller contribution was the only one that sounded mildly interesting to me out of the lineup (if a bit unnecessary?). I love Ben, and here Ben sounds a bit bored, even though he does pretty up the singing (85% less angst) and do a real nice intro. HOWEVER. The appreciated facet of this song is that now for the first time I can understand many of these lyrics, and can sing them without mumbling through those parts (“I want to tmmmhmm you mmmmmm….I want to mmm dmmmmm hmmmmm….”). The CD is packaged with the July issue of SPIN.

Lose Myself
Lauryn Hill
Where oh where is Lauryn and why does she just tease us with an astounding album like The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and then vanish for coming up on 10 years (okay, except for the Unplugged thing)? I love that album and I have missed her talent. This track is a contribution to an upcoming kids movie (Surf’s Up) and, sure, sounds a little soundtracky, but I have to admit I find the skittery stop-start beat in particular to be irresistible. Oh yeah, and the soundtrack also features Pearl Jam. No – for real.

In The Words Of The Governor
Sufjan Stevens
Wait, so we’re sure this is the same Sufjan who plucks the banjo gently, sings in a breathy lovely voice, and makes me cry with finely wrought songs like Casimir Pulaski Day? In this new track from the Believer Magazine 2007 compilation album he wails and chants and channels the Beatles at their most psychedelic. Wha? Way to show us another side, Soof. [via]

Will You Return?
The Avett Brothers
Speaking of the Beatles, what would it sound like if they’d been raised deep in the heart of Appalachia? Maybe a little bit like the plucky fusion of North Carolina’s Avett Brothers. I am hearing these raves for their newest release Emotionalism, and this song makes me smile from the opening count-off. You can hear the smile in his voice. The album is raw and joyful if you can acclimate to the twang that smacks you in the face. But kinda in a good way.

Marylin “Bubbie” Kweller steals the show

This is the absolutely fantastic new homemade video from Ben Kweller for one of the best songs on his self-titled album from last year, “Penny On The Train Track.”

Ben shot this footage of his 82-year-old grandmother in the gym of her condominium. Admittedly it is a bit one-dimensional, but dang hard not to like. Watch as she dances around to his song as it plays on the circa-1986 boom box, swirling, kicking, rocking the workout wear, and even joined by a friend in the middle for some old-lady-dance-party action.

Gotta laugh out loud — her moves are priceless, her emoting the finest (favorite part: her moves to the line, “He is in the yard just a-washin’ the car, thinkin’ bout his pretty wife“). Also, the snippet of conversation at the end between Ben and his gramma is heartwarming — Ben is a great, great guy (who gives affectionate sweaty hugs). This video shows the expressionistic and supportive family he must come from, and I liked that a lot.

SOME RELATED TUNES:
Ben Kweller, live in Toronto
March 5, 2007
courtesy Live Music Archive

Walk On Me
Family Tree
I Gotta Move
Make It Up
I Need You Back
I Dont Know Why
Run
Different But The Same
Living Life
Hospital Bed
On My Way
Chug-A-Lug (Roger Miller cover)
The Rules
Sundress
Red Eye
Penny On The Train Track

Ryan Adams –> Jesse Malin –> Butch Walker –> Ben Kweller

I have a couple of odds & ends to share, and the only obvious connection that I see is a version of Six Degrees of Ryan Adams:

1. Jesse Malin (pal) kicks off 2007 with an exuberant & rocking version of Cheap Trick’s “Surrender” – cannot help but feel happy inside seeing this kind of visceral concert experience, Jesse throwing the glittery confetti at the stroke of midnight:

Direct link here if that embed isn’t working (veoh? what’s veoh?)

Oh, and speaking of glitter: prepare to be floored by Jesse Malin’s new album, Glitter In The Gutter (which Ryan Adams guests on, as well as Bruce Springsteen and Jakob Dylan, and more). It is hands down the best thing I’ve heard in a good while – comes out in late February and start planning now how you are going to buy it as soon as it is available.

2. Butch Walker covering “Come Pick Me Up” (Ryan Adams song) with some girl I don’t know at a recent Hotel Cafe show. I’ve been enjoying the party-hearty sounds of several tracks on his The Rise and Fall of Butch Walker and The Let’s-Go-Out-Tonites album, so the sensitive strummy take on this video surprised me. Also, the crowd seems titillated by the self-destructive nature of the lyrics; perhaps they’ve never heard the song before?

3. Ryan Adams and Ben Kweller are going to be appearing together January 16th (Tuesday) on Letterman with America (the band) to perform a version of the revamped “Ride On” from the new America CD.

Stream “Ride On” featuring Ryan Adams, Ben Kweller and Adam Schlesinger (Fountains of Wayne):
Windows Media * Real * Quicktime

Also stream America’s take on the My Morning Jacket song “Golden”, featuring Ben Kweller and MMJ’s Jim James & Patrick Hallahan.
Windows Media * Real * Quicktime

4. Finally, two great Ryan Adams shows that I’ve been listening to via the Live Music Archive:

The full first night at Town Hall (NYC) on December 4, 2006

An ace 2001 show from the legendary Fillmore (San Francisco) on 11/14/01

Do not play dice with this man

Ben Kweller rocked the Gothic Theatre in Denver last night, and he is set to do it all over again tonight in Boulder. I wish I could go again because it was a hot show.

From the moment Ben stepped onstage with his own concert t-shirt on (modified into a sleeveless contraption of some sort) and shook that shaggy hair, we were off and flying. Although Ben plays all the instruments himself on his fine new album, that’s not gonna work so well live (unless you have one of those wearable accordion/harmonica/drum dealies with a cymbal on the side).

On the tour he’s got a tight backing band, and the show opened with “Penny On The Train Track” (love love love it), followed by a scorching rendition of “Run.” His new album sounds even better live, if that’s possible.

His mostly electric show worked through old songs and new, with a nice acoustic breather in the middle and a piano segment (during which he dedicated “Thirteen” to Liz and Dorian Kweller, the wifey and baby). Speaking of his baby, Ben was spotted out in the crowd during opening act Sam Roberts Band wearing little Dorian in a Baby Bjorn while the tot sported noise-blocking headphones. Start ‘em young, I say! It’s great to see Ben enjoying being a new daddy, and still managing to effortlessly rock his way through the haze of sleeplessness. In my opinion the man should reproduce boldly & repetitively because his tunes have only gotten richer through his growth as a husband and a father. I guess we’d have to see what his wife thinks of that idea.

I highly recommend catching Ben on one of his remaining stops this tour. He’s got a few more weeks of U.S. dates before rocking Europe. The set was nicely varied between older material (“Family Tree,” “Hospital Bed,” “Commerce, TX,” “Wasted & Ready”) and many tunes off the new album. Ben clearly enjoys what he is doing, and is an excellent songwriter — varying between classic slacker anthems, gorgeous love songs, and rockin’ the party riffs.

Check out this performance of “I Gotta Move,” definitely one of my favorite tracks on his new album — it was superb last night (sorry for the loud fuzzy spots on the audio, as usual):

After the show Ben very amicably greeted fans and chatted on cell phones to several elated folks who couldn’t make the show. He is very approachable and friendly, which is always refreshing. Later that night he helped take all my money (okay, like $4) in several rounds of the dice game Cee-Lo (named after our favorite Gnarls Barklian? or vice versa?). I was having a hard time getting the dice to land on the table. I was surprised how much trouble I was having, likely because I am retarded.

Fab musician, gambling whiz, and all along (if you note in the picture there) the new dad had a pacifier in his hand. Aah, the rock ‘n’ roll paterfamilias. Awesome.

Ben Kweller’s new one: In the running for my Top Ten of 2006

Ben Kweller is all grown up, and with this new album of his (self-titled, ATO Records, just came out Tuesday) he is poised to be spending a lot more time spinning in my CD player. His new album is an engaging and well-crafted pop gem that sounds best played loud in the open air. There’s a lyric that goes, “He is in the yard just washing his car, thinking ’bout his pretty wife, making lemonade with the KitchenAid, making him a perfect life.” For me, that pretty much sums up the feel of this album. Lemonade, outside, perfect life.

The songs consistently have these great builds and breaks that make me want to dance around and airdrum on things. There’s also that effect where I found myself somehow singing along on the choruses the very first time I listened to it. It’s got a recognizable quality even if you’ve never heard him before, but it’s eminently fresh.

While I have enjoyed the playful pop of his previous two releases, the thing that struck me about this new effort is the maturity of his lyrics. Ben got married to longtime girlfriend Lizzie in 2003 and together they just welcomed a little baby boy earlier this summer, so it’s not surprising that his songs nowadays dredge deeper relational questions and struggles than before. Whereas we used to best know Ben for the lyric “She is a slut but X thinks it’s sexy, Sex reminds her of eating spaghetti, I am wasted but I’m ready,” now he throws out lyrics that catch my ear and that I can relate to, about the everyday challenges and joys of real relationships, and of loving someone so different from yourself.

He muses to his gal on “Sundress”: “I wanna start going on a mornin’ walk, What about the days when we used to talk?” — and it just resonated as being such a simple and honest sentiment. Kweller relates tales of “passionate make outs and passionate freak outs” in the winding piano ballad “Thirteen”, and the stupidity of arguing late at night (“Lights on through the night just to get it right, A battleground at my feet, an unwinnable fight”) amidst the warm autumn harmonies of the lovely “Nothing Happening.”

But the album is also a touching and real collection of sweet, straight-up love songs (“She’ll never be in second place. I see it in her, I hear it in her, I feel it in her, I know it’s in her. She’s magic”) and old-fashioned desire (“Skin to skin in the salty river, made love in the shadows”).

As we’ve discussed before, Ben Kweller plays all of the instruments on this album and wrote all of the songs. That’s pretty impressive once you hear the variety of instruments he uses, and to such competent effect. One of the best tracks on the album, “I Gotta Move” sounds like something that The Beach Boys or The Monkees would be proud to claim, although Ben’s take is a bit more electric but still with that same deep goodness radiating throughout. “I Don’t Know Why” has just a slight edge to it that actually reminds me of Tom Petty (oh! it channels the melody of “Won’t Back Down,” that’s it), and there is a fun White Stripes vibe to the garage punk closer “This Is War.” There are triangles chiming, xylophones blomping, piano melodies and sublime vocal counter-melodies blending together, and maybe even a little cowbell. It’s a pop symphony.

So let allow me stop talking, and go take my advice: buy his new album at eMusic. I plan on heartily enjoying it. (OH and I also plan on watching Ben on Conan O’Brien tonight as well).

TUNES:
Run – Ben Kweller
(opening track, great thrumming song — and do I hear a hint of Springsteen in those opening jangles?)

My favorite song on the album is still probably “Penny On The Train Track,” and Matt has that one up over on You Ain’t No Picasso if you want to preview it before you go out and buy the album.

*************************************************************************
And this one is just for fun, because you know I can’t resist when it comes to covers:

Lollipop – Ben Kweller
Lollipop, lollipop, oh lolly-lollipop
(From the Stubbs The Zombie soundtrack, not new)