James McManus

Jack hails from Cambridge, MA and currently attends college in snowy Central New York. He was raised on a strict diet of his father's Bruce Springsteen and Clancy Brothers records and has since developed a taste for American folk music, jam bands and indie rock. In high school Jack and some friends started the blog Pie Tonight Cheese as a place for them to ramble about music to their hearts content. He spends his summers driving boats on Block Island and knows more about 18th-century pirates than anybody else he knows.

Punch Brothers Record Acoustic, Bluegrass "Kid A"

Posted by James McManus at 9:00 am 1 Response »
Feb 162012

Punch Brothers, one of the predominant groups of the recent “newgrass” acoustic revival, have always had a penchant for cross-genre experimentation, incorporating jazz song forms, Bach sonatas and rock covers into their live sets and albums. For their brand-new album Who’s Feeling Young Now?, Chris Thile, Noam Pickelny and company have finally decided to record their cover of Radiohead‘s electronic masterpiece ”Kid A,” which has been the closing song of their live set since 2009. On stage they usually transition from “Kid A” into their cover of Gillian Welch’s much more traditional and upbeat “Wayside/Back In Time,” contrasting the two styles, but on the album it appears on its own, proving its worth as more than a live novelty. Continue reading »

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Watch: Cillie Barnes Turns Around Dawes' "Million Dollar Bill"

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Feb 142012

In the most recent edition of The Voice Project, an ongoing project employing covers from indie artists to raise money and awareness for the plight of women in Uganda and Central Africa, Cillie Barnes invited cameras into her home to record her singing an interpretation of the song “Million Dollar Bill” by fellow LA folkies Dawes. Barnes, the musical moniker of Vanessa Jeanne Long, teamed up with Joe Keefe on acoustic guitar for the cover, which mostly follows Taylor Goldsmith’s original composition, except for a few glaring changes. Continue reading »

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Watch: Birdy Debuts Live Recording of Phoenix's "1901"

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Feb 072012

15-year-old vocal phenom Jasmine van den Bogaerde, who performs under the cutesy stage name Birdy, has been slowly releasing stunning cover videos for about a year now, starting with her take on Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love” and following up with “Shelter” by the xx and others on her YouTube channel. While her debut album came out in November in the UK (where Birdy lives), it won’t hit American shelves until May 20th. In anticipation of her impending North American invasion, Birdy just dropped a new video of her solo piano take on Phoenix’s 2009 hit “1901,” treating it as gently and beautifully as we’ve come to expect from this wunderkind of covers. Continue reading »

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Garrison Starr Softens The Killers' "When You Were Young"

Posted by James McManus at 11:00 am No Responses »
Feb 012012

Over the course of her nearly twenty-year career, Mississippi songstress Garrison Starr has taken up a number of side bands and projects on top of her prolific output as a solo artist. As a token of appreciation to her fans she recently released a free EP entitled Not for Nothing that includes this beautifully tender acoustic treatment of The Killers’ 2006 single “When You Were Young,” which is the lead track from the band’s fantastic sophomore effort Sam’s Town; younger audiences may also recognize it from Guitar Hero III. Continue reading »

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Watch: The Tallest Man On Earth Turns Bandleader on Thin Lizzy's "Dancing In The Moonlight"

Posted by James McManus at 1:00 pm 2 Responses »
Jan 312012

Swedish singer/guitarist Kristian Mattsson, better known as The Tallest Man on Earth, has made a name for himself worldwide with his unique brand of jagged-edged acoustic folk. After leaving his Swedish rock band to be a folksinger, Mattsson gained a following with his powerful hoarse voice and intricate acoustic guitar work, before mostly switching to hollow-body electric guitars on his last few tours. This shift away from an acoustic sounds seems to be developing even more now, as earlier this week he appeared on Swedish game show På Spåret with a full band to cover the classic rock hit “Dancing In The Moonlight” by Irish rockers Thin Lizzy. Continue reading »

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Watch: Jingle Punks Hipster Orchestra Turn Jay-Z and Beyonce Classics into a Medley for Blue Ivy

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Jan 262012

After conquering Nirvana and then releasing an album of orchestral indie rock covers in September, the Jingle Punks Hipster Orchestra have set their sights on hip-hop, starting a project that they call “Four Strings and an 808.” Their newest release features a medley of hits from hip-hop’s most recently newsworthy family, Beyonce, Jay-Z and the newborn Blue Ivy Carter. In the video they point out that listening to classical music helps development in infants, so they made it their mission to provide baby Blue with classical takes on her parent’s tracks. I’m not sure how beneficial “Big Pimpin’” could be for an impressionable child, but for adults it sounds pretty impressive. Continue reading »

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Strangers Get Glitch-y on Tears For Fears' "Shout"

Posted by James McManus at 3:00 pm 1 Response »
Jan 202012

Mysterious London electronic wizards Strangers have uploaded some great melodic electro-pop originals and covers to YouTube, including a recent take on Lana Del Reys’ “Video Games”. Explained as a cover that occurred to them “on a whim in a writing session,” their most recent video offers their take on the 1984 hit “Shout” by fellow Brits Tears For Fears, a song that fits their own style quite naturally, and not just because of their London accents. Continue reading »

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Their Ocean Take "In Your Eyes" Into Outer Space

Posted by James McManus at 5:00 pm 4 Responses »
Jan 122012

When choosing a song to cover for a recent “Pop Cultures Collide” session, Their Ocean’s Keith Kreuser explained that they simply wanted “something that had lyrics that didn’t suck and that we could possibly update a little.” Using these criteria, they settled on one of the most legendary pop songs of the ’80s, “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel. Applying their own electronic style to the cover, Kreuser says they approached the track “as if we were underwater in a spaceship filled with peanut butter.” Continue reading »

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