Review: The Lemonheads, ‘Varshons 2’

 Posted by at 9:00 am  1 Response »
Feb 182019
 

Varshons 2What a strange and contrary man Evan Dando seems to be. Liked and lauded beyond any reasonable appraisal of the breadth of his output, nonetheless he seems a decent enough dude as to get away with it. Yes, he has written some great material, he has an agreeable voice and an extensive taste in cover versions. He’s also written a lot of filler and chosen strange songs to interpret. All in that agreeable voice, a slightly bruised tenor. Moreover, there is the dichotomy between his live persona and his studio self. His later records suggest an acoustic troubadour, plugging in to widen his listeners palate, yet live he turns it all up to 11, chucking everything at the audience at once, good, bad and indifferent, hoping enough sticks, appearing either not really to care or to notice.
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Cover Me Q&A: Jaime Joshi, What Ten Cover Songs Matter To You?

 Posted by at 10:00 am  5 Responses »
Feb 222017
 

Welcome to Cover Me Q&A, where we take your questions about cover songs and answer them to the best of our ability.

joshi

Jaime Joshi lives in South Florida amidst geckos, 24-hour Cuban coffee and soup-like humidity. She has been writing for Cover Me since 2013; of all her pieces, she is particularly proud of her pieces on Bruce Springsteen and Madonna. (She’s the one on the right.)
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The Best Cover Songs of 1996

 Posted by at 12:00 pm  10 Responses »
Sep 302016
 
Fugees

They say nostalgia works in 20-year cycles, and this year the music of 1996 has been in the media a lot. And if you believe the music blogs, it turns out 1996 was a truly groundbreaking year for every possible genre. Over at SPIN: “The 96 Best Alternative Rock Songs Of 1996.” Complex: “Best Rap Songs of 1996.” Junkee: “Ten reasons 1996 was a great year for dance music”. Loudwire: “10 Best Metal Albums of 1996.” Red Bull Music: “1996: Why it was a great year for pop”. Suck it, 1995! (Kidding; similar articles were of course written last year too.)

We’ll be honest: 1996 was not some magical, pioneering year for cover songs. It was also not a terrible year. It was just, you know, another year. There’s no overarching theorem of 1996’s cover songs that wasn’t true in ’95 or ’97. But even so, Cover Me wasn’t around in 1996, so we never made a Best Cover Songs of 1996 list (our first year-end list came in 2009, with the Kings of Convenience’s “It’s My Party” topping it, and you can catch up on all the lists here). So we decided, before the year ends and we take our look at the best covers songs this year, why not take a nostalgic rewind and do 1996 just for fun, twenty years too late. Continue reading »

Cover Me Q&A: What’s a cover song that introduced you to an artist?

 Posted by at 12:00 pm  2 Responses »
Feb 182015
 

Welcome to Cover Me Q&A, where we take your questions about cover songs and answer them to the best of our ability.

Here at Cover Me Q&A, we’ll be taking questions about cover songs and giving as many different answers as we can. This will give us a chance to hold forth on covers we might not otherwise get to talk about, to give Cover Me readers a chance to learn more about individual staffers’ tastes and writing styles, and to provide an opportunity for some back-and-forth, as we’ll be taking requests (learn how to do so at feature’s end).

Today’s question: What’s a cover song that introduced you to an artist?
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Courtney Barnett Quiets Down The Lemonheads

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May 142014
 

Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett comes across as the ideal artist to cover the Lemonheads classic ‘Being Around’. Her almost lazy drawl is not a million miles away from Evan Dando’s as showcased in this recent performance for Sirius XMU. Courtney’s reading of the track owing more to the acoustic version of the song found on the Lemonheads ‘Mrs Robinson/Being Around’ EP than the twangy original from ‘Come On Feel The Lemonheads’. Dando himself was no stranger to covers, that EP itself contained tributes to Simon And Garfunkel and Smudge, the Australian band he would often cover and also work with. Continue reading »

In the Spotlight: Evan Dando

 Posted by at 3:00 pm  4 Responses »
Apr 232013
 

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!

Evan Dando gets a lot of flack for being the poster boy of college-friendly rock in the early- to mid-’90s. He was the subject of focus to Kathleen Hanna (Bikini Kill/Le Tigre/wife of Ad Rock from the Beastie Boys), who wrote a particularly intense zine piece about him, and he was also the target of Steve Albini and Nirvana, who pranked him pretty good. However, his choice of covers as a solo artist and as lead Lemonhead reveal that behind his good looks, he also has a deep appreciation of crafty songwriting, as well as a good-natured and self-deprecating sense of humor. Continue reading »

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