Cover Thursdays: Lover of the Bayou

A pretty good cover on one of my favorite days of the week, this is Lover of the Bayou (originally done by the Byrds) as performed by Mudcrutch the side band of Tom Petty. The only things I may prefer in this cover is the prominence of the piano, the clarity of its recording and the vocal styling of one Tom Petty. The guitar seems lacking in pep and energy, I would like to see a little more strain and passion in the playing, but the bluesy sound really comes through well. The drumming could also be more inspired but it gets the job done. I guess the true value of this cover to me is that it passes on a great Bryds song that might otherwise go largely unnoticed. Hopefully this inspires younger, more intense bands, to go ahead and try to play this one and see what other underplayed gems they can find from the sixties and seventies to reinterpret and revive. Enjoy!!!!


Cover Here

Song of the Week: Hummingbird

Hummingbird - BB King -Indianola Mississippi Seeds

A great blues song that rises to an incredible finale. The ending is just perfect, with a wonderful chorus singing the poetic (in a distinctly bluesy fashion) "don't fly away" a phrase that draws me back to senior year reading "Song of Solomon" by Toni Morrison and the two seem to go together perfectly as both deal with images of flight. The rousing strings at the end is not overblown, but just add a great smooth texture to the piano, drums, and fantastic blues guitar of BB King. The song really does seem to fly and rise on it's own just as this plea of "Don't fly away" becomes most prominent. What a striking and incredible song.

Enjoy

Relevant Music: La Femme Fetal

Relevant Music: La Femme Fetal - Digable Planets

With a lot of talk going around about the abortion issue I thought it would be pretty relevant to look at this track from Digable Planets album Reachin'. It's an interesting perspective from way back (19 years actually) in '93 told with plenty of rhythm to a very funky jazzy beat. The presentation is from the perspective of a young man who is called to a friends house whose had an unexpected pregnancy where they discuss the motives for restricting abortion, the perspective of those trying to restrict it, and the justifications for having one. I don't think any argument about abortion is flawless and this is certainly flawed, or could be argued against as there really may not be a right and wrong answer to the question of abortion. What this song should be best taken for is a fairly light, and if not persuasive, then well told argument fro pro choice. What makes it so enjoyable, like much of the Digable Planets music, is it's laid back and collected tone. It's nice to not have something or someone screaming their opinions down your throat. This song give's you a little perspective and space to think it out for yourself too.

La Femme Fetal

Song of the Week: Girl Boy Tom

Girl Boy Tom - Desert Sessions - Instrumental Driving Music for Felons

Desert sessions are officially (and by officially I mean according to wikipedia) an off shoot amalgam of musicians from along the west coast and south west desert area. In this album and song we have Alfredo Hernandez (Who I like and have listened to in Kyuss, Yawning Man, Che, Queens of the Stone Age and Others) on drums, Dave Catching on bass, and some others who really matter less, except for maybe the guitarist (McBain) who has a semi solo going on somewhere. Anyhow, this is definitely a song that's much more out there, there are basically no lyrics, only wails, and an ever present drive of bass which I really really enjoy. Although it's fairly plain in that it's extremely repetitive it does seem to fit the title "Instrumental Driving Music for Felons" fairly well, as it is for people looking to go nowhere in particular in a fairly fast and driving pace. As Josh Homme was quoted as saying "At Desert Sessions, you play for the sake of music" and that much certainly comes through. This song seems much more like a drug induced jam session with a neat bass line and some nice drum patterns than a really hashed out verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-end made for listener song, and in many ways I find that refreshing and in it's own right pretty neat. Add that to a really low big bass sound, and a screaming guitar added on top and that's a pretty nice little song by me. Having a song without a classic pattern (because this song does have a pattern, and a pretty simple crescendo), that in the end isn't really going anywhere, but was recorded just because the musicians thought it sounded kinda cool is in its own way a really valuable thing. No doubt one of the worst song's of the week I've posted but here it is anyway.

Girl Boy Tom