Today's cover is the bittersweet, indie-disco fused Boy From School by Hot Chip. Dispensing with the electronics however are four indie covers; 3 acoustic renditions by Grizzly Bear , British India and Portastatic and 1 slightly more rocking number from Maritime (which oddly enough ends in an acoustic fashion). Grizzly Bear - And I Was A Boy From School British India - And [...]
Filed under: News , Exclusive , Spinner Interview , New Releases It may have taken North Carolina indie rock pioneers Superchunk nine long years between recordings, but it's not like band members have been idle in the time leading up to the recent release of 'Majesty Shredding' -- frontman Mac McCaughan and bassist Laura Ballance continue to help run Merge Records, the successful indie label they founded over two decades [...]
Filed under: Concerts and Tours , News , Exclusive , Spinner Interview If there was ever a standard-bearer for indie rock, North Carolina stalwarts Superchunk would surely wave the flag. While the quartet may have taken a rather extended hiatus from recording and touring over the past decade, they never really went away. Frontman Mac McCaughan and bassist Laura Ballance continued to oversee the pioneering indie label they founded, celebrating [...]
File this under great "did that just happen" moments. Portastatic released a trio of great albums in the aught's: Summer of the Shark (2003) Bright Ideas (2005) Be Still Please (2006) After Summer of the Shark set the standard for this new era of band-based Portastatic I was super excited for Bright Ideas, and it [...]
Up until 2001 I was luke-warm on Portastatic. I liked a lot of the songs but my heart belonged to the rockin' and rollin' of Superchunk and the lo-fi fiddling of Portastatic just did not click with my brain. Had I been aware of the Superchunk drought we were about to embark upon I would [...]
I'm not going to walk through Superchunk's album history again as I covered it in my 4-part series starting here, so I will summarize to say that their first 5 albums (plus 2 singles collections) were all manner of rockin'. Foolish is generally considered the first big shift in direction for Superchunk, and while I [...]
Much has changed in my musical interests since I compiled this original list 3 years ago -- new songs, new bands, a fading of my interest in the favorite music of my youth. But much has stayed the same, including the #1 overall. The top of this list was probably the most difficult to assess but I couldn't find another song I was willing to admit was better than "Trailer Trash". So Modest Mouse holds on. And we'll start the list right now. This post will be in 4 parts, starting with the top 20. Come back next [...]
Mac McCaughan is very prolific. Co-founder / front-man / chief songwriter for Superchunk. Main dude for Portastatic. Co-founder / owner of awesome Merge records. Defender of independent music labels and makers. Visual artist. And more. All of these things have resulted in a constant stream of output over multiple decades. Mac's passion and talent can hardly be contained in [...]
Michael Lavine When Guided By Voices announced they were calling it a day back in Summer of 2004, I marked the occasion with a tribute cover of the week which basically consisted of me scraping together all of the GBV covers I could find and tossing them onto the internet (where they mostly came from in the first place). So it seems appropriate that as Guided By Voices have reunited and will play tonight as the grand finale of Matador at 21 in Las Vegas, I should bust out some/most of [...]
For those who don't know, this is the thirteenth iTunes Mixery . Here's how it goes: I play iTunes on shuffle -> tell you which song comes up -> provide the mp3 and a tidbit -> continue until five songs and embarrassment are complete. Again, nothing's off-limits – I don't "fix the mix". Have a look into my life… Sprengjuhöllin - "Worry till Spring" [MP3] ( MySpace ) Warm Icelandic (see what I did there??) acoustic pop with comforting vocals and a soft, soothing pace. Sun Kil Moon - [...]
For those who don't know, this is the thirteenth iTunes Mixery . Here's how it goes: I play iTunes on shuffle -> tell you which song comes up -> provide the mp3 and a tidbit -> continue until five songs and embarrassment are complete. Again, nothing's off-limits – I don't "fix the mix". Have a look into my life… (I picked the photo because the mix became pretty emo and teenagey). Sprengjuhöllin - "Worry till Spring" [MP3] ( MySpace ) Warm Icelandic (see what I did there??) acoustic pop with comforting vocals and [...]
Ah, the beautiful heat of a sweltering New Jersey summer. It doesn't get more wonderful than that. For everyone who whines about the humidity all summer long, just remember your whining when you're stuck inside because of the snow drift that covers your car in February. A little sweat does everyone some good. And a little sun never hurt anyone. I may have almost died of heat stroke when I went for a run on a crazy hot day when I got back from Scotland in May, but that didn't deter me. The hotter the better, I say. Even while [...]
Last year, New Zealand musician Chris Knox (of Tall Dwarfs fame) suffered a series of debilitating strokes. You have doubtless heard about the benefit album , which features an wide catalogue of artists like Will Oldham, Jay Reatard, and Girlpants favorites the Mountain Goats, all covering songs from Knox's impressive back catalogue. When Pitchfork announced there would be a benefit show on May 6th at Manhattan's strangest-named venue (Le) Poisson Rouge, it included one particularly thrilling bit of news. The elusive Jeff Mangum will do an acoustic set alongside Yo La Tengo, The Clean, Portastatic, Kyp Malone, John Mulaney, [...]
In a rare treat Superchunk/Portastatic's Mac McCaughan and Jim Wilbur will be pulling into Toronto for a rare stripped down performance. The show is part of an advance screening of Matt Bissonnette's new film Passenger Side. There will also be a discussion of the movie (which looks pretty good from the trailer). Following the movie, McCaughan and Wilbur will play a selection of Superchunk and
Get ready for the latest and perhaps rarest benefit concert in recent history. As Pitchfork reports , the likes of Yo La Tengo, TV on the Radio's Kyp Malone, Portastatic, Sharon Van Etten, and the uber reclusive Neutral Milk Hotel frontman Jeff Mangum will come together for a concert this May in benefit of New Zealand punk pioneer Chris Knox! Yes, the inclusion of Jeff Mangum in the previous sentence was intentional. Mangum is actually playing(!) in what will be his first live appearance since he unexpectedly surfaced at an Elephant 6 concert in October [...]
Destroyer ( at left ), like Wu-Tang, is for the children. (And for the reissues .) So Portastic demonstrates on a ripper of a cover of "Foam Hands" which enlists a round-up of rascals for help with the vocals. Also for the children: incendiary guitar tones. Shitgaze this, 2010. Portastic – "Foam Hands" (Destroyer cover) : mp3 ( Make It Sound In Tune is out now on Merge) More : New Music | 2010 Album Release Calendar
For those late to the party, a recap: A couple months ago, I decided to post some of the various Magnetic Fields covers I had in my music collection. Along the way, I went a little overboard and ended up posting pretty-much every Magnetic Fields cover known to man. The result was a six part series titled, "Let's Listen To Some Magnetic Fields Covers", which featured 35 songs in total. The links for all of them can be found below. Since it was the most popular thing we've done around here, I solicited [...]
Bonjour c'est Rigobert. Aujourd'hui pas de remix, mais mon pote Harry vous sert ces meilleurs covers du moment. Au programme et dans le désordre Jay retard, Atlas Sound, No Age, Bee Gees, Bjork, Nirvana.... Audio Jay Retard - Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge (Nirvana Cover) The Lucksmiths - I starded A joke ( Bee Gees Cover) Idiot Glee - Ain't No Sunshine (Bill Withers Cover) [...]
Ok...I know. I didn't get chance to post Ten Tracks You Need last week. Long story, but let's just say that last week was not a good week in any way, shape, or form. It's sometimes amazing to think how 30 seconds can alter your life for days, weeks, months, years at a time. Anyway, I just wasn't in the mood to do TTYN last week or even listen to music. If you know me that's when you know something is seriously wrong. So here we are again and I'm happy to report that [...]
Versions Galore
Spinner.com
One Good Minute
VAGUE SPACE
Chromewaves
Knox Road
The Cover Lovers
Girlpants
Snob's Music
Consequence Of Sound
The Rawking Refuses To Stop!
The Opening Acts
HARTZINE
The Pop Stereo!
A-Trak - "Round of Applause" / "Where My Money At" (MP3 Download)
Skrillex Uses Satanic and Homosexual Influence to Win Grammys
Diplo - "Climax" (MP3 Stream)
Out This Week 2/14
SHOCKING NEWS: Ben Gibbard turns to pills in wake of Zooey Deschanel divorce
