At a recent show in London’s Royal Albert Hall, Feist, and her current tour mate M. Ward, took the stage together to cover the Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Sometimes Always.” Continue reading »
Back Track looks back at an old cover that deserves a new spotlight.
The Pixies released their last studio album, Trompe le Monde, in 1991. With an album cover of eyeballs, and several songs exploring the world of sci-fi, it seems an unlikely place to hear a Jesus and Mary Chain song, but nestled within the tracks is an explosive cover of “Head On.” Continue reading »
In an effort to raise money for breast cancer, the appropriately named blog Just Like Honey has released a compilation featuring eleven artists covering the Jesus and Mary Chain hit “Just Like Honey.” Among those artists is the electronic group Keep Shelly in Athens. Continue reading »
In the Spotlight showcases a cross-section of an artist’s cover work. View past installments, then post suggestions for future picks in the comments!
In 1984 a band from Glasgow released a song that sounded like the inside of a jet engine factory, only you could hum it. The song was “Upside Down,” and it stayed on the UK indie charts for almost a year and a half. The band was The Jesus and Mary Chain, less content to push the envelope than to blow a hole through it with feedback and distortion. With their first album, Psychocandy, they made it official: here was a group that combined the squall of The Velvet Underground and the tunefulness of The Beach Boys to make torture chamber pop, producing a wall of sound that surely had Phil Spector nodding approvingly. Continue reading »
Two free new cover EPs to direct you to today. The first comes from Roberts & Lord, a duo that met by trolling Myspace. Ex-Simian singer Simon Lord (the voice of that “We Are You Friends” song) stumbled across California producer Rafter Roberts while looking for a collaborator online and they decided to work together. The electronic experimenters soon found themselves a home on Asthmatic Kitty – aka Sufjan Stevens’ record label – and released full-lengthy debut Eponymous and this free COVERS EP. Download two tracks below (including a must-hear “Because”), then grab the full thing here. Continue reading »
Dum Dum Girls already released a cover of the year contender with “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out,” but frontwoman Dee Dee Penny has returned with a new cover. This one comes as the debut single of Les Demoniaques, her new group with San Francisco singer Tamaryn. The cover is Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Teenage Lust” and you can stream it below. Continue reading »
In Prince’s recent Lopez Tonight appearance, he once again attacked one of his favorite targets: cover songs. “I don’t mind fans singing the songs, my problem is when the industry covers the music,” Prince told George Lopez. “You see, covering the music means your version doesn’t exist anymore. There’s this thing called the compulsory license law which allows artists to take your music at will. That doesn’t exist in any other art form – there’s only one version of Law & Order, but there are several versions of ‘Kiss’ and ‘Purple Rain.’” Continue reading »
Apr 062011
Quickies rounds up new can’t-miss covers. Download ‘em below.
• The Submarines re-whet our appetite for The Jesus and Mary Chain covers last week, and Cali folk-rockers Dead Rock West continue the boy-girl duet theme with a threatening, much less romantic “God Help Me.”
MP3: Dead Rock West – God Help Me (The Jesus and Mary Chain cover) Continue reading »
