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.
Iron & Wine fans will have much to be happy about next month. His new tour kicks off May 4th and should be one of his best yet. I actually have legitimate reason to believe that to be true. To decide his setlist for each of these shows, he allowed his listeners to get online and vote for the songs that they wanted him to play. So each set should have a new and unique flavor to it. Also each show will be played in a very small and intimate setting and will be recorded, mixed, and the put online for those who weren’t able to make it to watch. So this year it doesn’t matter where you live, you can still experience Sam Beam live in action over at Played Last Night.
Now for the really good news coming this May. On the 19th Sub Pop is releasing a new album called Around the Well, a collection of rare or previously unreleased tracks spanning from some of his earliest sessions to material recorded for 2007′s The Shepherd’s Dog. It will be a double-disc set with the first half filled with more raw and unedited recordings and more of a lo-fi feel. The second will highlight a more full sound of Iron & Wine as he is surrounded by other friends and musicians. The title comes from my favorite Iron & Wine track, “The Trapeze Singer” which was written for and can be found on the soundtrack to the movie In Good Company. The album not only closes with that song, but also includes three other songs that Beam wrote for that movie. Around the Well also brings us some hard-to-find cover songs such as New Order’s “Love Vigilantes” or The Flaming Lips’ “Waitin’ for a Superman” as well as his infamous cover of The Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights.”
As if all that weren’t enough, we now have word that Beam is working on a follow-up to The Shepherd’s Dog that he hopes to release early 2010. Until then, I hope your ears bleed.
