Nada Surf covering Spoon

Are you aware that Nada Surf has an excellent new album of covers? If I Had A Hi-Fi came out a few months ago, after being first available only on tour at their merch booth, and is now consumable by the general intelligent public. That includes you, dear reader.

I love covers because they show the diverse range of influences on a band, and it is fascinating to hear your favorite musicians interpret another’s work. Nada Surf has chosen old and new songs from folks as varied as Kate Bush, The Go-Betweens, Depeche Mode, and The Muslims (now The Soft Pack). Matthew Caws told me about this idea back in November of 2008, and I’ve been waiting with bated breath ever since.

This Spoon cover is absolutely ace. Ira Elliot of Nada Surf is one of my favorite drummers in all of rock and roll – so feisty and precise. Here, he just makes me smile. This is a great song, and sounds marvelous filtered through Nada Surf’s harmony and clatter.

The Agony of Lafitte (Spoon) – Nada Surf

There are handwritten notes from the band behind the disc tray in the CD case about each song and why they picked it. Matthew writes, “The same ‘Sylvia’ dropped us from Elektra right after we made The Proximity Effect.” Ouch.

The Agony of Lafitte – Spoon

If I Had A Hi-Fi is available now on Mardev Records.

[top photo credit the superb Peter Ellenby in SF]

when you got nothing, you got nothing to lose

This song came up on my shuffle on this sunny Saturday morning with all the windows open and the sun glinting off the wooden floors. It sounded so, so right that I’ve put it on repeat and it hasn’t stopped looping yet. That harmonica solo at 2:45 is delicious.

Everyone should have this mp3, and play it loud.

Like A Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan cover) – The Rolling Stones

spend half your life trying to turn the other half around

This Kathleen Edwards cover is just stunningly gorgeous. My good friend Dainon pointed me in the direction of his Salt Lake City musician friends Paul Jacobsen & The Madison Arm yesterday afternoon, and so I spent the rest of my next three hours at work intermittently working on a spreadsheet and clicking play every five minutes and twenty nine seconds.

The piano echoes as if this was recorded in a sad, empty room. My friend ruminated today, “Isn’t that song just like someone draws the curtains so they can hold you while you weep?” Depressing as hell, but yes. How is it that a piano can evoke feelings that no other instrument can even touch in me?

It feels something like Love is Hell-era Ryan Adams sitting in front of his piano, all the shiny gold country Americana stripped down, sanded off, and made more beautiful.

Six O’Clock News (Kathleen Edwards) – Paul Jacobsen & The Madison Arm

Six O’Clock News – Kathleen Edwards

Canadian Kathleen Edwards is a oft-overlooked musician whose 2003 album Failer I first read about in Nick Hornby’s Songbook. I remember she toured with John Doe a few years ago, and was also featured on the Elizabethtown soundtrack. I know I should dig deeper with her, if she can write songs like this.

Paul Jacobsen also did an interesting National cover that’s grown on me and into me like moss. The National is a hard band to cover. Where the original is elegant, restrained, baritone grace all throughout, on this cover I love how Paul’s voice raises in lament right after the 2:15-mark. It almost evokes Peter Gabriel to me.

Fake Empire (The National) – Paul Jacobsen & The Madison Arm

Paul Jacobsen & The Madison Arm (self-titled, 2008) is available now, and the Kathleen Edwards cover is from a Black Sessions EP, recorded “live on a bleak winter day.”

They run in the same musical circles as neighbors Jay Henderson and Band of Annuals, both of whom I’ve written about before. And if you’re in Salt Lake City, they are opening for Colin Hay on July 31.

“Maybe Steve Perry can just love more deeply than I can.”

Clem Snide covers Journey

I love Clem Snide so much, and it just keeps getting stronger. You may have noticed my minor affinity for covers, and frontman Eef Barzelay can delight me with his straightforward, completely earnest renditions that find veins of truth in the most unexpected of places. So here even the #1 ironic-karaoke band Journey sounds almost wistful. It gets even better when his two bandmates come in whistling at the end, and no one cracks a smile.

Faithfully (Journey) – Clem Snide

Perhaps you remember the Clem Snide cover of Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful,” but my all-time favorite version he does is that of the Velvet Underground’s “I’ll Be Your Mirror.” Instead of Nico’s halting alienation, Eef’s sweet earnestness makes me believe good truths, laced through with that elegant and knowing cello.

I’ll Be Your Mirror (Velvet Underground) – Clem Snide

I also never get tired of listening to their original song “Born A Man” – Eef’s a super smart songwriter, like an SAT study party soundtrack. The new Clem Snide album Meat of Life came out in February.

Head over to the A.V. Club site and watch the other excellent sessions – I dig the Frightened Rabbit cover of The Lemonheads, Justin Townes Earle covering Bruce, and even “Game of Pricks” filtered through Owen Pallett’s violin.

Jónsi covers MGMT, dreamily

I missed this cover when Jónsi performed it on the BBC’s Live Lounge three months ago, and just found it today when I was doing my semi-annual trolling of their archives to see what cool stuff I’ve missed, over on this side of the pond.

The MGMT original is one of my favorites of their songs (and lends itself to one of my favorite pictures from Outside Lands in SF last year, above). For as stoically sweeping and epic-sounding as the source song is, Jónsi takes it and creates something wistful, ethereal, and completely gorgeous on the piano. You know, I never noticed the verse about all the things he’ll miss in the same way as I do now.

Time To Pretend (MGMT cover) – Jónsi

Time To Pretend – MGMT

Jónsi is on the international summer festival circuit this summer, and man alive do I wish I could see him. I missed him when he came through Denver, but his brilliant latest is one of my favorite albums so far this year, and he can soundtrack my imagination any day.

Ben Lee covers Modest Mouse, charmingly

I’ve recently been somewhat obsessed with the Ben Lee song “Catch My Disease” (on my Stomp/Clap mix) — I listen to it every time I need a potent jolt of handclappy goodness in my day these last two weeks. I’ve been familiar with this quirky Australian musician over the years, both in his solo work (“Running with Scissors” from my That’s Dangerous! Mix is still a wholehearted favorite – a massive tune that completely could have been a radio hit) and the awesomeness of The Bens collaboration (with Kweller and Folds in 2003).

Recently my iPod shuffled forth this gift, and I had to smile. I love the unvarnished acoustic delight here, even when he flubs the bridge timing and has to start over. It sounds like the stars coming out, and you and me watching on our backs in the summer grass.

Float On (acoustic Modest Mouse cover) – Ben Lee

Ben’s current album The Rebirth of Venus is out now, and he was on delicious Daytrotter last month.

EDIT: YOU MUST WATCH THIS. Made my day.

New Reservoir Songs Vol. 2 EP from Crooked Fingers

Formerly the frontman of ’90s rock band Archers of Loaf, Eric Bachmann has been crafting music with his band Crooked Fingers for over a decade. He writes incisive, pitch-perfect songs (remember “Sleep All Summer” that The National and St. Vincent covered last year? It was one of my favorite finds of those warm months, and Nick Hornby’s as well).

Sleep All Summer – Crooked Fingers

Sleep All Summer – The National & St. Vincent
[from the Merge SCORE! comp]

The first Reservoir Songs EP in 2002 had an old-time baptism depicted on the cover, and the gentle, warm arrangements of songs therein knocked me flat. I loved his version of Springsteen’s “The River” — somehow he makes the original even more heartbreaking, the disillusionment of forgotten dreams gentle but thorough [listen here].

Bachmann is currently harnessing the power of the internets to kickstart funding support behind his next Reservoir Songs Vol. 2 EP (due out on July 6). There will be six new covers on the second incarnation, with a vinyl-only pressing on the tiny indie label Foreign Leisure. His songwriting fodder this time around is Merle Haggard, Moby Grape, Thin Lizzy, Billie Jo Shaver, The Kinks, and this late ’60s easy rambler from John Hartford:

Gentle On My Mind (John Hartford) – Crooked Fingers

To pledge to this project through Kickstarter just means you commit ahead, buying ahead to show the financial backing for the endeavor. I think it might be the future of music for indie musicians. Bachmann’s already raised more than the $5000 needed to initiate, but look – for just $15 now, you get a limited, numbered edition of the EP on vinyl with screenprinted cover art, and a download. What is raised now, in excess of the set goal, goes towards a new Crooked Fingers full-length album, after 2008′s Forfeit/Fortune, which is just fine by me.

All I know is I feel better when I sing (burdens are lifted from me)

I’ll be traveling soon to California for the rest of this week, to celebrate the life and mourn the loss of my uncle who passed away this weekend. He had been sick for a while, but it still came as a shock.

Uncle Lew spent time in the Coast Guard when he was younger, on an ice-breaker ship up near Iceland. I remember the exotic excitement when he’d come home from a time at sea. One of my favorite pictures from when I was little is me standing in his giant boots with his blue sailor’s cap perched huge on my head. I’m laughing. The last time I saw Lew was this summer, when I returned from my own ocean voyage on a sailing ship. His eyes lit up as we talked about what it feels like out on the open seas. I saw in his eyes a vibrant spark that belied the man lying in the hospital bed. Even after all, tonight, I’m glad he’s free.

There’s a song I keep listening to these days. Last time I was in CA it was for happier circumstances, and I made it to Golden Gate Park to see these two harmonize in the sunshine under the eucalyptus trees.

David Rawlings and Gillian Welch were woven together musically somewhere before time began. This cover reinvents old (Neil Young) and new (Bright Eyes), from their recent Daytrotter session, and when Gillian’s harmonies come in, the effect is so bittersweet, warming up the edges of Conor Oberst’s sharp original to shades of sepia. All I know is I feel better when I sing.

Method Acting/Cortez The Killer – Dave Rawlings and Gillian Welch

Method Acting – Bright Eyes

I’ll see Rawlings at Telluride Bluegrass Festival next month, and I have been hearing nothing but good things about his newest album A Friend of A Friend, where you can find a studio version of this same cover, as well as the song he co-write with Ryan Adams, “To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High),” and wonderful new songs. It’s good thinking music, good ale-sippin’ music.

Blind Pilot looks for Miss Ohio

I have “a thing” for this song — both the way Gillian Welch conceived of it and the way anyone else covers it. It is, quite simply, a sweet, sad, powerful song that oozes goodness. I have been known on occasion to drive around (in my Nissan Sentra, so no ragtop down) to this song on repeat, on roadtrips through the barren lands — singing how she wants to do right, but not right now.

To finally have a good quality recording of Blind Pilot performing it (one of my favorite newer bands) is just heavenly. Israel’s voice radiates an enveloping warmth, and an understandable melancholy.

LISTEN: Look At Miss Ohio (Gillian Welch) – Blind Pilot

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From their iTunes Live Sessions EP, out now, also worth it for the achingly to-die-for good version of “3 Rounds And A Sound” with ukulele, and the previously-unreleased track “Get It Out.”

You can also now order their amazing album 3 Rounds and a Sound on 180-gram vinyl, and I can think of very few albums released in recent years that sound as good that way.

The Swell Season covers Bruce

A reader who was at Radio City Music Hall on Tuesday night to see The Swell Season sent me this stunning link. Amidst the sweet, sad saxophone, it once again becomes a singalong. Holy heck.

…Lying in the heat of the night like prisoners all our lives
I get shivers down my spine and all I wanna do is hold you tight