Two weeks since the storm, and by most accounts, we're making real progress in our tiny town. Houses once broken disappear overnight, leaving empty spaces; others, chimney-less and battered, cover their gaping roofholes with tarps, until the valley below the town hall begins to look like a patchwork quilt: patches of peaked sky blue, newly exposed summer lawns, lumber, the stone grey of bare foundations. People go to work, and school. The local news moves on to other topics; there are long moments when I forget that the place where I live and love [...]
Last week's songs with titles ending in Blues theme over at collaborative music blog Star Maker Machine may have ended - this week we'll be posting songs that name a type of bird in their title - but my cup runneth over with coversongs that fit the Blank and Blues theme, including a good handful of folk blues numbers ripe for the picking. No true blues on my end today, of course, but many of these leftovers are quite upbeat when it comes down it - and regardless, it's good to [...]
The newest twigs and branches of the folk movement are still growing strong, if this month's inbox is any indication - and that's a very good thing, indeed. So today, for our regular midweek feature, we present news about a set of relatively new, relatively young artists that we've posted about before, making them ineligible for inclusion in our regular New Artists, Old Songs feature series...but perfect for a particularly focused edition of (Re)Covered . A majestic set came in last week from Arborea , [...]
This April, Europe's super indie Truck Festival will debut its brand new American component , this being the aptly titled Truck America Festival . Set to take part in the inaugural festivities, which run from April 30 - May 2 at the Full Moon Resort in Big Indian, NY are upstate NY legends Mercury Rev, as well as White Rabbits, Neil Halstead, The Joy Formidable, The Sadies, The Silent League, and Hopewell. More bands will be announced soon; tickets, priced at $120.00, are available here .
I somehow managed to reach full-bore adulthood without hearing a lick of Tom Waits . Which is probably all for the better: as I've noted many times , my long-standing preference for melodic voices is only now giving way to a mature appreciation of the unique beauty that springs from powerful truths filtered through broken instruments. And anyway, the Tom Waits songbook is eminently adult, both in the way it looks at the world through bleary, jaded, ancient eyes and the way it rattles about with themes of alcoholics, lonesome trainwatchers, [...]
It's been a busy week, what with re-election to the local School Board, midterm grading, and Passover coming to a head all-at-once. To compensate, I've timeshifted this post a bit, writing ahead in time stolen from sleep and paperwork, so that the family can spend the weekend in Boston while I pass words and coversong along via some template trickery. Which is to say: as you read this, I'm not here right now. And since we're drifting in the complex currents of past tense grammar, why not reach back [...]
In the early days of Cover Lay Down, I spent some time covering the emergence of artists like Teddy Thompson , Rufus Wainwright , and Sam Amdion , all new voices who walked in the footsteps of folksinger parents; more recently, we heard Neill MacColl, son of Kirsty, in duet with Kathryn Williams , and Ben Taylor as a tagalong in discussion of the life work of his father James . This may seem like a high percentage of "folk kids" for a blog that's only been around since [...]
Cover Lay Down
Consequence Of Sound
Music Singles Chart #109
I’ll Just Leave This Here #161
Florence + The Machine – Spectrum (Calvin Harris Remix)
