Biff Swenson Presents: Cover Up: A Covers Compilation (2011)
No. This is not an official album. But it is a sick compilation full of bands that play that twinkly emo punk stuff that is really cool these days. And whether you like the term "Twinkle Daddies" or just "rad music by rowdy teenager in cut offs and vans that want to come play in your dingy basement, get rowdy drunk, break your lamp, gather more beer money for their next show and leave"... They do got that special something-something in their playing that seems to just, well... twinkle.
As I was leeching around trying to find something else to post than my original intention, I decided I'd check out the very helpful and perfect site for this task, Cover Me. Cover Me have got their shit together when it comes to finding all the current covers around from today, tomorrow and yesterday. I was looking around on their site for a bit until I came across some freebies that I feel like I was meant to remind myself to grab and ended up forgetting. One of the freebies was this bad boy; a stellar compilation compiled by music lover and label man, Biff Swenson. Familiar names like Chalk Talk, 1994!, By Surprise, Boys & Sex, Dads and Quiltary, Algernon Cadwallader scatter the mix with picks of tracks from artists like underground legends and big name indie acts: Guided By Voices, Pedro the Lion, Pavement, NMH, DC for C, Pixies to big names and stars: Bruce Springsteen, Beastie Boys, Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Velvet Underground to newbies, oldies and inbetweeners: Snowing (yep, being covered not covering), Phoenix, The Big Boys, and Squeeze. Even the unfamiliar names like Static Sex, The Not Fur Longs, It's a King Thing, and Omeed Goodarzi that play more of an acoustic/singer-songer style or just not "twinkly" do a great job with their respective cover. So much so that they almost tramp the bigger names they are lined up with.
Although this is a compilation curated by Biff Swenson, a lot of the songs were actually either exclusively for the project or never before released. The only tracks not exclusive are Chalk Talk's, Grime Slide's, and The Consecos's.
It was pretty sweet of Biff Swenson for putting this comp together and putting it out here on the internet!
I'd also thank Cover Me for helping me find this gem, but they called the 1994!'s sixty one second Beastie Boys' cover a misfire. I don't mean to nit-pick or jump to conclusion/troll/overreact or any of that stuff but this is punk era Beastie Boys before they made it okay for white boys to rap. 1994! played the cover spot on and in perfect punk rock fashion! Fast, short and to the point! They didn't even throw in any math rock or screamo flair (not that that's a bad thing) that could off-set someone who tends to listen to a lot more contemporary music.
If I had to pick my least favorite bits of the mix, I would have to go with the Phoenix cover by Nicholas Gianatiempo and The Death Cab For Cutie cover by Grime Slide because I hate -HATE- vocoders. If I had the chance to create a perfect world out of the one we have now, I wouldn't get rid of vocoders. no, instead I would only let Robert Schneider of The Apples in Stereo (and Robbert Bobbert for the children) use the effect and have all the other offenders of said instrument banished to the underworld, which would then be a tiny room that only played music by Linkin Park, Nickelback and Coldplay and the song "Someone Like You" by Adele. There's a door to escape but the handle is too hot to touch and only makes the music louder.
My favorites have to be: "Gold Soundz (Pavement)" - Dads, "Wouldn't It Be Nice (Beach Boys)" - Chalk Talk, "Gigantic" - Boys & Sex, and "Motor Away (Guided By Voices)" - By Surprise.
No comments:
Post a Comment