At this year’s Newport Folk Festival, Portand’s swinging roots rock quartet, Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside was quite busy. Playing local clubs, the main festival, and the afterparty, the band was celebrating the recent release of their debut album Dirty Radio. During their set Deer Tick’s John McCauley joined the band for a performance of the title track from John Prine’s 1999 duets album In Spite of Ourselves. Continue reading »
Riding high on the wave of folk popularity, The Avett Brothers have taken the music world by storm with a combination of genuine talent, relentless touring, and prodigious album releases over the past few years. Though the quality of original work like their most recent LP, the Grammy-nominated I and Love and You, would be enough to keep attracting new fans, the Avetts have also produced a remarkable number of high-quality covers in recent years. There was a massive field to choose from, including this month’s Roger Miller cover, but we’ve narrowed it down to the five finest covers from the North Carolina siblings and their bandmates. Continue reading »
Live Collection brings together every live cover we can find from an artist. And we find a lot.
You think Vermont music, you might think flanneled hippies strumming mandolins. Not Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. They may come from the great wooded north, but their big soul sound comes straight from Dixie with a side of south-side Chicago. Potter is a vocal tour de force, a skinny white girl with an enormous voice. She can do a two-hour show without fading a bit and her hot four-piece band keeps right in step. Searing guitar solos abound, but nothing can upstage that voice.
Through years of near-constant touring, the band has amassed quite a stack of covers. In our latest Live Collection, we collect every concert cover we could find (thanks archive.org!). That includes blasts through Blondie, My Morning Jacket, and a whole lot of Neil Young – including a 14-minute “Cortez the Killer” that should be required listening for any rock band. Josh Ritter joins the band on John Prine’s “Pretty Good,” but otherwise they don’t need any help in blowing the roof off any building they play.
As a special bonus, below the main set we have the thematic new covers from their 2009 New Year’s Eve show. The band had clearly been spinning the Top Gun soundtrack a lot; they cover seven songs from the darn thing! And not just the original soundtrack either. The band apparently took to the 1999 Special Edition CD, cause they run through three of the four old-school bonus tracks as well. In between ’80s classics like “Take My Breath Away” and “Danger Zone,” the band throws out Top Gun lines as a wink to clued-in audience members. “This is Ghost Rider requesting permission for a flyby!” Permission granted. Continue reading »
The amazing thing about this album is that it didn’t come sooner. An indie-Americana tribute to country/folk songwriter John Prine seems so inevitable. He may never have become a household name, but anyone who ever recorded a song with steel guitar or mandolin knows Prine. With bands like My Morning Jacket and the Avett Brothers spearheading an alt-country revival, Prine’s slyly sarcastic songs about love and life are due a second showing.
The artists who appear on Broken Hearts and Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine comprise a who’s-who of young folk/Americana bands, but these obvious admirers choose some very non-obvious tracks. The usual-suspect songs are largely missing in action. No “Paradise,” no “Sam Stone,” no “Illegal Smile.” The only no-duh selection is “Angel from Montgomery,” one of four songs from Prine’s self-titled debut. The rest span the gamut, dusting off tunes from the ‘80s and ‘90s alongside the canonical ‘70s material.
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Under the Radar shines a light on lesser-known cover artists. If you’re not listening to these folks, you should.
What is it about Iceland? Yes, sometimes it spews enough ash to shut down European flights for weeks. Sure, sometimes it accumulates debt that threatens the entire global economy. Everyone has their faults. The music Iceland exports seems universally fantastic though. Does Iceland simply not have any pop-punk emo kids? Where are the ear-bleeding Top 40 rappers? Does the Icelandic populace just have better taste than everyone else?
The country continues its winning streak with Ólöf Arnalds. Ms. Arnalds debuted in 2007 with – say it with me now – Við Og Við. She works closely with Sigur Rós piano/xylophone player Kjartan Sveinsson and her latest single features Björk. Icelandic musicians stick together.
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