So I love cover songs. It is one of the greatest joys to hear an artist take someone else’s song and make it his own. Now I know I have promised this before, but I really mean it when I say to you this time that I plan on bringing you a new great cover song every week. So to start it off, this week I bring you a new Iron and Wine cover in honor of their new album that came out last week. Here is a performance by Sam Beam and his sister of New Order’s classic song “Love Vigilantes” on Late Night w/ Jimmy Fallon. Once again Beam has managed to pull off the impossible by taking someone else’s song and making it much better than the original.
For my first artist recommendation for your ACL festival trip this coming fall, I have chosen a band called The Low Anthem. I first discovered this band from a Paste Sampler late last year. The name of the song was “Charlie Darwin” and I absolutely loved it. It is a hauntingly gorgeous song. It’s the title track for their second album, originally released late last year. Oh My God, Charlie Darwin has been re-mastered and is being reissued on Nonesuch records June 9th with an updated tracklisting and new packaging.
The Low Anthem reigns from Rhode Island and consists of Ben Miller on vocals and guitar, Jocie Adams on clarinet, and Jeffrey Prystowsky on bass. But each of them play an array of other instruments on the album and during their live shows. They have garnered a lot of praise from the indie music critics. Paste Magazine called them “time-honored and astonishingly innovative.” And they have gotten many comparisons to both Bob Dylan and Tom Waits. That is in part due to the rough singing on some of the latter tracks on the album, or the Waits song that they cover on the new album. But I think it’s mostly due to the sincerity found in their songwriting. So listen to this great song and add The Low Anthem to your list of bands to see at Austin City Limits this fall.
I like Fischerspooner. I happen to like them a lot. Imagine my happiness when I found a remix they did of The Killer’s Smile Like You Mean It. Well… my happiness was put on hold after hearing it.
I’m not saying this is a bad remix… but it’s… not the best remix.
There’s a lot of distortion layed onto the vocals, and the whole thing feels super repetitive. The only way I would have known it was Fischerspooner was the title. It doesn’t feel like Fischerspooner at all.
There is a certain gamble when it comes to slow developing music videos. Wait too long for the payoff and you risk losing those viewers with short attention spans. Such is potentially the case with this Grizzly Bear video for their song “Two Weeks.” I give all this preface to encourage you to stick with the video just a little longer than you think you might be able to stand. It is worth the extra 2 minutes:
