As we noted over the weekend in The Year's Best Coverfolk, Part 1: Tribute Albums and Cover Collections , it's been a good year for full-album coverage. Overall, though, despite the fact that, in terms of sheer mass, covers from tributes overwhelm singletons in my collection, what I've found this year is that a significant majority of the songs that lingered, and demanded overplay, came from a mixed bag of borderline genre albums and single shot coverfolk tracks, via the usual sources, from YouTube, Soundcloud, studio appearances, website and bandcamp singles, and more. [...]
Classical + bluegrass = a truly amazing album.
Crooked Still - Freewheeling Boston acoustic ensemble celebrates their ten year anniversary and impending hiatus with this seven track collection that includes a handful of new songs as well as covers from Paul Simon, The Beatles and John Hartford...each member of the acclaimed string band chose one song to arrange and direct the band // Release : Friends of Fall (October 11, Signature Sounds) // Sounds like : Many have tried to mix a fresh contemporary outlook with traditional instruments and authentic bluegrass and Americana but few have succeeded to the extent that [...]
Crooked Still is one of our most-covered artists here on Cover Lay Down, and for good reason: their work continues to resonate and evolve in deep and breathtaking ways, while retaining the core beauty and fire which has marked their work since the beginning. From their emergence in 2001 as a firey quartet out of the Boston collegiate scene, framed around an innovative, improvisational style, and high-energy stringplay at the center of what was otherwise a sparse yet nuanced tradfolk stringband sound, to the sonic expansion of last year's Some Strange Country, their sound and sensibility have [...]
To enter any contest submit an email to contest[at]thebaybridged.com with your full name in the body and the concert you're entering the contest for in the subject line. You may only submit your name once to only one contest. Winners for each show will be decided using the guidelines listed below. Thursday, July 21st Memory Tapes, Sleep Over, Painted Palms @ Slim's To win a pair of tickets to the show be the THIRD person to enter! The show starts [...]
Blogophilia refers to the series of mixes that were developed from promotional mp3s found on different music blogs. As we've grown, we've come to rely less on other blogs and more on what we're sent that we review or feature. We receive a lot of requests to repost old Blogophilia mixes, and have to kindly refuse because of space issues. Well, that's going to change. This summer, we'll feature 2-3 Blogophilia posts a week until we're current. If you've followed this site, you'll know we already maintain links [...]
As in previous years, we're off today, cleaning house and burning the social calendar at both ends for the long weekend. So here's our traditional Memorial Day post, plus a growing set of bonus tracks for our regular readers. For most of my life, the military has been an abstraction. Though war itself lives everpresent in our newsdriven culture, and memorial statues and parades a recurring part of community, my concept of life in the armed forces, and the risks [...]
Our week-long celebration of Bob Dylan's birthday continued with the third in a five-part series that features covers of every single Bob Dylan song, in alphabetical order..
LOVE BOAT(Indie Rock)Sure it's short, but Love Boat's "You Know I Really Want You" is a jaunting good time. A little Johnny B. Goode mixed with early Arctic Monkeys? It's brilliant. Give it a listen below and as always support the band.(Press Play Button Below To Listen) MP3: "You Know I Really Want You"TOY HORSES(Melodramatic Pop)Apparently Toy Horses is a father-son duo from Wales, but like Bob
As of this week, I now carry the title of Music Director at WDVX. It's still a part time gig, but I'm now working a few more hours and carrying several more responsibilities. I get to receive and catalogue all the new music that's coming in to the station, take calls and emails from the music promoters, and prepare our reports for the Americana Airplay Chart. Yesterday, however, I got started by sorting through a few thousand CD's in my Program Director's office to help make space for the new stuff that keeps coming [...]
Regular readers know that I suffer from chronic ear problems brought on by congenitally small eustachian tubes, coupled with a permanent, high-pitched half-hissing, half-ringing noise which worsens significantly when my ears are blocked. Listening to music in this state, I once wrote, is like trying to hear the good stuff underwater, and surrounded by keening whales . What I may not have mentioned before is that several years ago I made the decision to manage these two related medical issues by having tubes installed in both of my ears - a [...]
#15 - I'm Having Fun Now by Jenny & Johnny Jenny is former Rilo Kiley front woman and indie rock goddess Jenny Lewis. Johnny is singer/songwriter/producer Johnathan Rice. The two started working together when Rice appeared on Lewis' 2005 album Rabbit Fur Coat . They continued to record and tour together as their musical relationship turned into a personal one. Rice was so largely involved in Lewis' 2008 release Acid Tongue that it only seemed natural that the pair would [...]
Read Part 1,2, & 3 I don't believe I've ever called Meatloaf by his legal name. His parents named him Kelley, but long before I ever met him, his size dictated a nickname: Meatloaf . [Audio clip: view full post to listen] Download: James Mercer - Journey Through The Past (Neil Young Cover) I first met Meatloaf late in 2004. We both lived in Asheville, NC at the time. We shared a few mutual friends. The first thing that struck me about [...]
It's almost that time of year again... that's right, Thanksgiving is just around the corner with the rest of the holiday season following hot on its heels. It's good to be back to regular posts just in time for the holidays. Food, family, friends, and drinks. So, last year I posted an awesome roast turkey recipe , and this year I wanted to post my mom's vegan pumpkin pie recipe, but I have no idea where it is. So here is one of my other favorite pie recipes (courtesy of my mother)... and some songs. Heck, [...]
You can read my review of the new album from Crooked Still over at Country Standard Time . And while you're doing that... here are a couple of YouTube videos of songs from the album.
This is my third year in a row touting the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival on these pages, and frankly, it's getting more and more difficult to truly add value to our ongoing promotion. Which is not to say the festival has been stagnating - far from it, in fact. It's just that after a decade of attendance, and three years of blogging about it, I'm running short on fresh superlatives worthy of the best grassfest around. The reigning champion of the International Bluegrass Music Association's "Festival of the Year" category [...]
There's little a humble folkblogger could add to the cultural conversation about the Rolling Stones . Heck, without a quick glance at Wikipedia, I can't even name all the players, though after three and a half decades of modern radio culture, I can certainly hum along with their radio hits. There's certainly no dearth of Stones covers out there, either. Yet interestingly, though the songs of Jagger and Richards seem to lend themselves to soul, heavy metal, and both mainstream and alt-country wonderfully, I find few covers from the folkworld in my [...]
The breeze outside is gentle, and the temperature hovers in the low seventies. Our garden is overgrown with tall grasses, I can hear the kids calling breathlessly to each other from the woods behind the house, and the best damn 'grass festival in the Northeast is just two months away. Perfect for an afternoon on the porch with the laptop, a glass of lemonade, and a stack of new and upcoming releases from the broad borders of bluegrass. Nashville-based up-and-comers The Farewell [...]
With each successive album, Boston based acoustic explorers Crooked Still have succeeded in breaking down one genre barrier after another, creating an elegant and visionary interpretation of what contemporary folk and bluegrass music can sound like. "We have modern and traditional influences that confuse the boundaries," says bass player Corey DiMario. "We want to keep blurring those lines to make something all our own." For the fourth Crooked Still album Some Strange Country , due May 18 via Signature Sound, the adventurous quintet worked with producer Gary Paczosa (Alison Krauss and Union Station) to further expand the [...]
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A-Trak - "Round of Applause" / "Where My Money At" (MP3 Download)
Diplo - "Climax" (MP3 Stream)
Out This Week 2/14
Skrillex Uses Satanic and Homosexual Influence to Win Grammys
Jackback Feat. David Guetta & Nicky Romero – Wild One Two
