When you decide to cover a classic track there’s always a huge risk of serious suckage, but some bands just have the gift. Easy Star All Stars are freaking pros (Easy Star’s Lonely Hearts Dub Band, Dub Side of the Moon…. blablabla etc etc etc.), and it has has recently come to my attention that Beck is also a cover virtuoso. If you haven’t heard it yet, check out Beck’s Record Club – it’s a gold mine of some soon-to-be classic interpretations of already classic recordings. Beck gathers an all-star cast of musicians and records an entire album in one session. Some of the musicians/friends featured are Devendra Banhart, MGMT, and Feist, as well as members of Wilco and Os Mutantes. Mmmm…. osmu. So far they’ve covered The Velvet Underground & Nico, The Songs of Leonard Cohen, Skip Spence’s Oar, and the most recent is Kick by INXS.
The best part, aside from the exceptional musicianship, is that there is always a video to go along with it. Dig these little gems:
But let me get to the point. This morning I stumbled upon Dirty Projectors‘ ‘Rise Above’ – a cover of Damaged by Black Flag. I think the best part is that they made the songs their own. In an interview by Daytrotter’s Sean Moelle the mastermind behind the band, David Longsteth, says,
[I] wanted to see if I could make this album myself — not as an album of covers or an homage per se, but as an original creative act.
The songs are woven into The Dirty Projector’s patchwork style of vocal and guitar interplay, with the same musical phrasing and peculiarity that first attracted me to Bitte Orca. My early favorites are ‘Gimme Gimme Gimme,’ ‘Depression,’ and ‘Rise Above.’
That quote and the resulting Rise Above remind me of the mission statement at the top of the Record Club website:
Record Club is an informal meeting of various musicians to record an album in a day. The album chosen to be reinterpreted is used as a framework. Nothing is rehearsed or arranged ahead of time. A track is put up here once a week. The songs are rough renditions, often first takes that document what happened over the course of a day as opposed to a polished rendering. There is no intention to ‘add to’ the original work or attempt to recreate the power of the original recording. Only to play music and document what happens.
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Enjoy.
DOWNLOADS
Dirty Projectors – Gimme Gimme Gimme
Dirty Projectors – Depression
Dirty Projectors – Rise Above
