Cover jam of the day and live concert radio shows: Tool / "No Quarter" [Led Zeppelin]

I was driving down to the South Side this afternoon and tuned into WRCT during the ride. Whatever DJ was on played two straight songs of live Led Zeppelin—"Misty Mountain Hop" and one other— and I was digging it. It got me wondering whether there are radio shows out there that devote themselves to replaying "classic" concerts from the past. I mean, there are Grateful Dead and Phish and DMB junkies—and others focused on bands with extensive live discographies—who collect bootleg recordings of live shows and debate which were best and discuss them with others, but I'm thinking about a show that has a different band every week. I can think of a number of live albums I enjoy listening to, and I'm sure there are lots of bands who sound great live but maybe not so much on record. Anyone know of such a show out there somewhere in internet/radio-land? Maybe a live recording blog of classic shows? Point me towards it!

The next song the DJ played was … well, I thought I correctly heard him say "Tool playing 'No Quarter' " and I wasn't sure until a minute or so in, and then … yeah, that's what it was. One of my absolute favorite Led Zep tunes played by a band that I don't really know and haven't bothered to listen to ever, but this version actually sounds really good. Faithful enough to the gloomy cock-rock guitar of the original, creepy-as-hell vocals, absolutely pounding drums. Yeah, this is a great cover. Wikipedia lists several other covers of this song, which I will be investigating, for sure.

"Lock the door, kill the light No one's coming home tonight"

Cover jam of the day, local record stores, and vinyl to mp3: The Karl Hendricks Trio / "Out On The Weekend" [Neil Young]

Hey Pittsburghers, in case you were blissfully/woefully unaware: Paul's CDs in Bloomfield is closing its doors forever in a few weeks, and it will be replaced by Sound Cat Records, operated by current employee and living indie rock legend Karl Hendricks. Kinda sad, but kinda interesting and hopeful news, I must say. As Paul's clears out their inventory to make room for Karl and his wares, they are having ever-increasing sales. Last I heard, everything is 50% off! The vinyl is kinda picked over, but there's still plenty left, so go check it out!

I went there last week to see what I could find, and walked out with a big stack of LPs and 7"s. Oh yeah, don't forget to peruse the 7" singles at the front counter. Factor that into your shopping time, and don't just give a percursory looksee as you wait at the register. There are some good finds in there. Case in point: I snagged 3 original Karl Hendricks Trio singles for $10, and by that I mean $5! And yes, that is the very same KH whose name I mentioned above, and he was there at the register as I paid and he thanked me for buying them. I mean, I don't think any money of the purchase was going to directly to him (or indirectly, even) and yet he still looked grateful that I was buying his music. Cool dude, that Karl. I said, "No problem, I enjoy it", and gave him a smile. It's the best I could think of at the time.

One of those singles I bought was "The Worst Coffee I've Ever Had, Part Two". I was literally buying all of the vinyls of his there, so I didn't look too carefully past the awesomely cartoonish artwork. A few days later, when I got down to playing all of them, I noticed that the B-side to this is "Out On The Weekend", a Neil Young tune from Harvest! I quickly pulled out my vinyl copy of that album, played track one, then skipped over to this tune for comparison. In a way, it is a "faithful" cover—same lyrics and attitude, no big reinvention of the song's melody—but it's decidedly Karl's own—decidedly more uptempo, fuzzy guitars, sweet rock solo in place of the harmonica. It's a truly great indie rock cover of a truly great and historic folk rock tune.

Here's the Karl Hendricks Trio version, as recorded from that vinyl single I bought straight to mp3 on my laptop via some fancy-shmancy software that came with my turntable. It's not actually that fancy, but it's kinda handy. I'll try to take advantage of it more because I've basically never used it and this version turned out rather nicely. I'll try to share some vinyl singles I have that don't exist elsewhere on the web, so stay tuned for that! So yeah, here's that tune:



And now, here is Neil Young's original version:

Jam + Cover jam of the day: "This Must Be The Place" + "Bret Easton Ellis Novel"

Artists: Miles Fisher (covering Talking Heads and Bret Easton Ellis) + Netherfriends
Songs: "This Must Be The Place" + "Bret Easton Ellis Novel"
Film/novel: American Psycho

The entertainment value of this video by Miles Fisher is decidedly more dependent on your familiarity with the film American Psycho than the Talking Heads song. I'll confess this song was totally new to me (my knowledge of 1980s music is terrible, even with good music from that era, for whatever reason) so I can't pass too much judgment on the cover version. I will say a few things, though, because I'm already here and I have some opinions. For one, I hope this isn't a "great" Talking Heads tune because I'm pretty underwhelmed. For two, this song wasn't even featured in the American Psycho soundtrack, but it was in the film Wall Street (twice!), as well as Lars and the Real Girl and He's Just Not That Into You, plus the TV shows Judging Amy and Northern Exposure, so there's that. For three, it's been covered by some well-loved indie artists (here's a version by MGMT from a live show way back in 2003, and here's a version by Arcade Fire that was recorded as a B-side to "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)"), so there's also that. Maybe I should be writing about those versions. But no, because, for four, this video is a super homage to so many scenes from the American Psycho film that it has to be shared. I actually watched the film for the first time (straight-through, anyway, I've caught pieces on TV before) a few months ago, then started reading the novel a few weeks thereafter, and I just finished that a few days ago. If you haven't seen the film, this video will seem really weird and incomplete and the song will probably sound like an unnecessarily cheesy 90s electro-pop remake of a classic 80s single. But coupled with a boatload of references to so many classic scenes from the film (working out in the living room, comparing business cards, picking up Christie, axing Paul Owen/Allen to Huey Lewis & The News, pointing to the mirror mid-threesome, etc.) and Fisher's seriously striking resemblance to Christian Bale's portrayal of Patrick Bateman, and the bookending body-bag scenes, and the way that the song actually kinda grows on me ... yeah, it's pretty fun. Is it an outstanding work of musical art? No. Is it entertaining? Hell yeah.

Here's Miles Fisher's version:

and here's Talking Heads' original version:

In case you're curious, Miles Fisher is an actor/musician who you may remember as Paul Kinsey's friend/drug dealer on Mad Men (and for that you may have an "Aha!" moment like I did; a friend shared this video with me when we were talking about the film a few months back, and I just now looked up who this guy is, and now it all makes sense). He also has an EP of electro-pop available to buy, and his videos have a lot of views on YouTube, so there's that, too. Seems like an interesting fellow!

Lastly, I'll share this video of an actually great song that I really like from a (current) artist I really like (and wrote about before) and it's a superb video made by the artist himself. This is Netherfriends' song "Bret Easton Ellis Novel" and it's a great tune and it's perfectly appropriate to share here, so enjoy this stop motion animation: