Mercury Rev is an American ban that got dubbed Shoegaze early on, then evolved in a more pop direction. “You’re My Queen” is actually one of their more pop numbers, but I think it fits nicely into the shoegaze category somewhere between Black Tambourine and Polyphonic Spree.
Archive for the ‘Music’ Category
Shoegazer Sunday: Mercury Rev’s “You’re My Queen”
Sunday, April 27th, 2014Mr. Irish Bastard
Friday, April 25th, 2014While I was poking around iTunes listening to covers of “Road to Nowhere,” I stumbled across this:
If you like Flogging Molly or The Dropkick Murphys, you’ll recognize the Celtic folk punk sound of Mr. Irish Bastard.
Would you believe they hail from Münster, Germany?
Like other bands of their ilk, drinking seems to play a big role in their music:
I should really put up one video that’s an actual video:
I liked the sound so much that I picked up their first album, St. Mary’s School of Drinking for a mere $4.83 off iTunes.
They’ve also done a complete album cover of Never Mind the Bollocks, but I think I prefer their original work.
Obviously, I should have put this up for St. Patrick’s Day…
Road to Nowhere: Attack of the Clones Division
Thursday, April 24th, 2014Sometimes I’ll cruise iTunes looking for covers of songs I like. While doing so for Talking Heads’ “Road to Nowhere,” I discovered that one ensemble had released the same cover of “Road to Nowhere” under multiple band names.
Eleven times.
Indeed, the versions of “Road to Nowhere” on iTunes by the following bands (all of which clock in between 3:49 and 3:53) are all exactly the same:
Moreover, several of those incarnations of the same band (Studio Sunset, Burning Down the House, Psycho Killers, Wildlife, Klone Orchestra) appear to have issued the same entire album of Talking Heads covers (with the same tracks) multiple times. Indeed, they appear to have done it three times under just their Studio Sunset name!
(BTW, if you really want that album, the cheapest version is Burning Down the House’s A Salute to Talking Heads, which is a mere $5.99, compared to $7.99 or $9.99 for some of the others.)
But wait! There’s a completely different group that did the exact same thing with the same song.
Eleven times.
All these covers of “Road to Nowhere” under these band names (all of which clock in around 4:01) are the same:
Finally, here eight cover versions that are not only exactly the same, but the underlying track is so close to the ones above they might be the exact same version with a different vocal mix:
Shoegazer Sunday: Spokraket’s “Just Go Spit Out Another Lie”
Sunday, April 20th, 2014Danish band Spokraket offers garage band psychedelic surf rock married to Here Come the Warm Jets-era Brain Eno, offering plenty of distorted guitars and end up sounding like a low-fi version of Black Tambourine. “Just Go Spit Out Another Lie” is pretty much a steady state Shoegaze song: Like the riff and groove? Just wait around and there will be plenty more of it coming down the pike…
And here’s an earlier live version of it, when it was called “(Drifting Away In) Solitary Dreams”
Shoegazer Sunday: Lights That Change’s “Beautiful Soul”
Sunday, April 13th, 2014Lights That Change is a neo-Shoegaze band out of the UK. With “Beautiful Soul” they offer up a bright, gauzy, floating slab of prettiness with some great female vocals.
Sadly, it seems that vocalist Lisa VonH has already split with the band.
File Under: Technical Proficiency
Monday, April 7th, 2014Given that 2Cellos‘s first video here already nearly 15,000,000 million hits, there’s a good chance that you’ve already seen the bad boys of Croatian classical music cover AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” If not, you’re in for a treat:
But only about half a million have seen their equally impressive (if less showy) cover of U2’s “Where the Streets Have No Name.”
Swell Documentary on the Making of Paul Simon’s Graceland
Thursday, April 3rd, 2014Dwight’s linking of this piece on accordions got me listening to my favorite album featuring accordions, Paul Simon’s Graceland, one of the all time great albums. I was vaguely aware that a 25th Anniversary edition had come out, and poking around online I find that a documentary on the album had come out last year, all of which is available online.
If you like the album, ths documentary is well worth your time.
Shoegazer Sunday: Center of the Sun’s “Home”
Sunday, March 30th, 2014There’s still some Sunday left, so here’s Center of the Sun again with “Home”.
Hayajan Covers Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” in Arabic
Monday, March 24th, 2014It’s taking me some time to catalog those signed Jack Vance book and do my taxes, so here’s a musical oddity: a Jordanian band covering Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” in Arabic. Enjoy!