Last night London’s Barbicon theater held a tribute to Tom Waits’ seminal Rain Dogs. Performers including St. Vincent and the Tiger Lillies covered every song off the game-changing record, collaborating with a backing band that included Steve Nieve on keys. High-quality videos of both their performances have cropped up on YouTube and…wow. As she so often does, St. Vincent will knock you on your ass. Continue reading »
This Week on Bandcamp rounds up our favorite covers to hit the site in the past seven days.
Something of a dreamy electronic feel in today’s bunch. Hazy beats and watery synth burble along under most of these tracks in the service of what is, in several cases, really a folk aesthetic underneath. As the temperatures rise, these sounds soundtrack those moments sitting under the sun in a half-awake daze when it’s too hot to move. Well, except for the Tom Waits cover, which is a different approach from a familiar name. Continue reading »
Tom Waits’ singing voice sounds like Christian Bale’s version of Batman eating a handful of gravel. Somehow in spite of (or maybe because of) his eccentric style, he remains one of the most influential performers around. At the age of 61 he’s still touring and making new music, influencing yet another generation of musicians. Continue reading »
When Delta Spirit titled their EP The Waits Room last year, we hoped against hope that it was a Tom Waits covers disc. There was indeed a connection – they recorded it in the same closet-turned-studio Waits uses – but the songs were originals. Darn. Our faith was rewarded, though, because when they showed up to Daytrotter, they didn’t perform Waits Room cuts; they performed honest-to-goodness Tom Waits songs. Hooray! Continue reading »
The Low Anthem first hit the Cover Me radar with their 2008 album Oh My God, Charlie Darwin. Alongside 11 haunting folk originals lay a barnyard rave through “Home I’ll Never Be.” A piece by written by Jack Kerouac and given music decades later by Tom Waits, “Home I’ll Never Be” instantly indicated the cover potential of this Rhode Island quartet. The just-released Smart Flesh continues the pattern, opening with a cavernous take on George Carter’s “Ghost Woman Blues.”
With those two on our radar, we figured they’d probably covered other songs in their brief career. We were right. Below we’ve collected 20 cover songs by the Low Anthem. It’s not quite enough for an official Live Collection, but it’s quite a set nevertheless. They dig into folk music in all its forms, from old-timey tunes like “Two Sisters” to modern folk gems like the David Wax Museum’s “Let Me Rest.” Continue reading »
2011 may prove to be Bob Seger’s most active year since the mid-‘80s. He’s announced a rare tour with dozens of dates and, accompanying it, a new album. He just dropped the first single and, whaddya know, it’s a Tom Waits cover! Continue reading »
Live Collection brings together every live cover we can find from an artist. And we find a lot.
Hailing from Chicago, IL, the Smashing Pumpkins helped blaze a trail for the wave of apathy that infected most ’90s alternative rock. They also gave hip kids from the Midwest the first nationally-recognizable band they could take pride in since Cheap Trick. Formed in 1988, the Pumpkins enjoyed over a decade of fame and influence until noted in-fighting brought about their dissolution at the turn of the millennium. After numerous side-projects and member-shuffling, the Pumpkins have once again taken to the stage under the leadership of Billy Corgan, perhaps one of rock music’s true auteurs.
The Pumpkins have celebrated their diverse influences via cover songs throughout their career. A quick scan of their recorded catalog reveals studio takes of tracks originally by acts like the Cars, Van Halen, Alice Cooper, the Cure and Missing Persons. Their live shows are similarly peppered with covers that one might not expect to hear from these iconic slackers. Some of these do seem like a natural fit though: it’s not too hard to draw a line to the Pumpkins from Neil Young, Depeche Mode or Pink Floyd, for instance. Continue reading »
This past Tuesday Counting Crows singer Adam Duritz announced a new project on the band’s Facebook page. For the week leading up to Valentine’s Day, he would cover one love song a day. He’s four days in and we’ve got ‘em for you below. So far he’s tackled, in order, Steve Earle, Ryan Adams, Tom Waits, and the Cars. Four down, three to go! Continue reading »
The Best Cover Songs of 2011 
Under the Radar: Camera Obscura 
Noah Blows Up on YouTube with Acoustic Cover … 
Ellen and the Escapades Whip Up “Addicted To … 
Superhumanoids Get Sleepy With Cover of Ramon… 
Ryan Adams Does an Acoustic Version of Danzig… 
They Say It’s Your Birthday: Jonathan Richman 
Hey, Here’s More Lana Del Rey Covers 
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