Some more covers for Friday

tippi

‘I’ll give you Cat Power…’

OK…meant to do this last week, and then with going away decided to focus on my lovely family.

Anyway…some covers, yes?

Franz Ferdinand -‘Womanizer (Britney Spears cover).’ mp3

Cat Power -‘We Dance (Pavement cover).’ mp3Laura Cantrell -‘Love Vigilantes (New Order cover).’ mp3

Buffalo Tom -‘Going Underground (The Jam cover).’ mp3

Curve -‘I Feel Love (Donna Summer cover).’ mp3

Alabama 3 -‘Speed Of the Sound Of Loneliness (Nanci Griffith cover).’ mp3

Lemonheads -‘Different Drum (Mike Nesmith cover).’ mp3

LCD Soundsystem -‘No Love Lost (Joy Division cover).’ mp3

Flaming Lips -‘Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen cover).’ mp3

Cud -‘You Sexy Thing (Hot Chocolate cover).’ mp3

Love will tear us apart…again

red-road-film-poster

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been able to pick up a few bargains in shops, as the recession starts to bite and I feel guilty about spending too much money on music etc.. Last week I picked up Red Road on DVD, which I’d been meaning to buy for ages, having read rave reviews about it, and having not got round to seeing it.

Like many films set in Scotland over the last ten years ago, it’s quirky, stylish and very dark, more in the vein of, say Shallow Grave, Hallam Foe, or Morvern Cellar than the likes of Local Hero. Anyway, worth seeing (Fopp have it in stock for £3, but it’s worth more).

It finished with a gorgeous version of ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ performed by Honeyroot, which I think I’d heard somewhere before, but had to track it down and post it here. Simple, stripped down, and very affecting:

Honeyroot -‘Love Will Tear Us Apart.’ mp3

…and for sheer contrast:

Alabama 3 -‘Love Will Tear Us Apart.’ mp3

…and both of the Swans’ takes on it:

Swans -‘Love will Tear Us Apart (Michael Gira vocal).’ mp3

Swans -‘Love Will Tear Us Apart (Jarboe vocal).’ mp3

Some more covers for you all

Well, I know these have been posted before, but I figure that you might like to hear these if you haven’t before…

First up, my support of Lightspeed Champion this year annoyed a few folks, but I stand by it, especially when he does covers as good as these…

Lightspeed Champion -Back To Black (Amy Winehouse cover).’ mp3

Lightspeed Champion -‘Xanadu (Olivia Newton-John and Electric Light Orchestra cover).’ mp3

Endearingly shambolic, and a wonderful version:

Raincoats -‘Lola (The Kinks cover).’ mp3

I was passed this cover by the record company, proof that some record companies areaware of the support provided by blogs.

Alabama 3 -‘Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Division cover).’ mp3

Another cover of a post-punk era song:

Belle and Sebastian -‘Final Day (Young Marble Giants cover).’ mp3

I spent ages trying to track this down. Cheers to Steve at Teenage Kicks, hope your blog is up and running again soon, mate!

Cud -‘You Sexy Thing (Hot Chocolate cover).’ mp3

Proof that great songs DO get to no.1, Rihanna’s Umbrella topped the UK charts last year for ten weeks, spawning these two covers. If anyone has an mp3 of her collaborating with the Klaxons doing a mash-up of ‘Umbrella’ and ‘Golden Skans’ please email me and I will post it here.

Biffy Clyro -‘Umbrella (Rihanna cover).’ mp3

Manic Street Preachers -‘Umbrella (Rihanna cover).’ mp3

The greatest ever Scots band take on one of America’s greatest bands, and do them justice.

Delgados -‘California Uber Alles (Dead Kennedys cover).’ mp3

There are apparently folk who do not like this cover. They are idiots. That is a fact, not an opinion:

Slits -‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine(Marvin Gaye cover).’ mp3

Keep it tuned to 17 Seconds

…not that I have figured out how to do podcasts yet…but I will

It’s been a busy 48 hours here at 17 Seconds towers. Trying to work my way through all the music I’ve been sent to review (hence the three reviews yesterday). Interviewing Jamie Lidell (lovely gent) – which will hopefully appear here soon, along with the long-promised Amplifico and Rosie Taylor Project interviews. Going to Jamie Lidell’s excellent gig at the Liquid Rooms in Edinburgh (review will also appear here soon). Involved with choir competition with Mrs. 17 Seconds and friends (we’re through to the next round!) Trying to keep up with everything else that needs doing, including sleep. Oh, and preparing for school

So don’t abandon me, I will be back very soon.

Oh, and I got sent this mp3 from One Little Indian records, Alabama 3 covering Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart. Enjoy!

Alabama 3 -‘Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Division cover).’ mp3

Album Review: Alabama 3

Album Review: Alabama 3 -‘Hits and Exit Wounds’ (One Little Indian)

We thought we had it all in the mid-nineties. Around 1994, 1995…Britpop ruled the world of us British indie kids. Exciting music while it might have owed a debt to the past (let’s face it, music is not made in a vacuum) and we felt we’d won, when our music was being played on daytime radio. Despite what some will tell you, Britpop was not just W.A.S.P.y boys, but people from all backgrounds making music – Elastica and Echobelly were radical in terms of their make-up. There was light at the end of the tunnel, or so we thought, with the hated Conservative regime looking like it would finally come to an end.

But in August 1997, when Tony Blair and Noel Gallagher were photographed at Downing Street we were being sold out politically and musically. Blair didn’t turn Britain into a socialist Utopia, and Oasis never regained what had made them so vital in their first three years. So what came into the void?

Well, in terms of UK music, as Britpop fell apart and Drum ‘n’ bass went back underground, it now appears that what the music press all too briefly focused on was far more important and it took place in South London. Two acts, Asian Dub Foundation and Alabama 3 provided the yin and yang of each other, and produced records that were deeply exciting that drew on music that came from all around the world. This forthcoming greatest hits set from Alabama 3 shows that the band famously describved by Irvine Welsh as the ‘first band he could dance to in the daytime hours without chemical assistance’ have amassed a wealth of material in the last decade or so that is shaming on the music press for forgetting about them.

Alabama 3 took parts of country and western, dance music, gospel, smaterring of hip hop and a hell of a lot of punk attitude and made fantastic songs. They called Brixton their spiritual home (their debut Exile On Coldharbour Lane is a reference to one of the main thoroughfares in Brixton). These men and women keep alive a true outlaw spirit, equal parts Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer, not least because Harmonica player Nick Reynolds is the son of Bruce Richard Reynolds of the Great Train Robbery of 1963.

Even if you only hold this CD in your hand and then listen to the songs knowing nothing of the above, this serves as a fine introduction (and a nagging reminder to this author that he needs to investigate even more too). ‘Woke Up This Morning’ is perhaps the band’s best known song, and is included here (The press release undrelines that it has not made the band as much money as people think. Larry Love is quoted as saying : ‘The only swimming pool in my back garden is made of plastic’). As is their fantastic cover version of ‘Speed Of the Sound Of Loneliness’. As is almost law for greatest hits sets, there are two new tracks, a collaboration with Orbital on ‘Ska’d for Life’ and an Arthur Baker mix of ‘Mansion On The Hill.’

This greatest hits set also, at eighteen tracks, does what can be a hard feat: namely, that the songs feel fresh and makes you feel that they have considerably mroe to offer us yet.

****

Hits and Exit Wounds is released on One Little Indian on April 21.

Hear Alabama 3 here

Alabama 3 websitemyspace