Michael Stipe duets

There was a time (the late 1980s) where Michael Stipe of REM popped up on all sorts of albums, usually to give an up-and-coming or unknown band some help or publicity. This was of course at the time when his main band were making probably some of the best music of their career (leading up to Green) and were poised at the tipping point between indie heroes and global superstars.

Some his protegees poked fun at this help, like the late great Vic Chesnutt did on his Stipe-duet 'Guilty by association' (which unfortunately I could not find any clip of on Youtube) but there remains no doubt that Stipe could add a tingle to any spine when he appeared in their songs. A classic example of this is 'Kid fears' by the Indigo Girls, which I did find a live clip of below:

I love the way he sidles onto the stage in the shadows and wonder how many of those in the audience at that gig knew he would show up. He starts his bit a lot higher than the spooky way he does it on the album version, which is well worth checking out.

Another band he supported around that time was 10,000 maniacs, and their album 'In my tribe' features Stipe on the jaunty 'Campfire song', which again I could not find on Youtube, but I did find another duet below:

I have recently written about the third in my trinity of lovely Stipe-vs-female vocals of that time, with Kirsten Hersh on 'Your ghost', but he also did duets with male performers, and I like the duet below on Patti Smith's 'Because the night' (which I love) with Bruce Springsteen:

And I will finish on a song which presented a rare case of Stipe including a duet on an REM album, which was 'E-bow the letter' on 'New adventures in hi-fi', seen here with Thom Yorke not being even slightly mistaken for Patti live:

I have written before on this blog about the best duets Stipe ever did, in my mind, which were again with Natalie Merchant of 10,000 Maniacs, in a guitar shop called McCabes, and which I have on very poor quality cassette bootleg. To hear them singing 'Leaving on a jet plane' and 'Sunday morning', together and simultaneously, and having the sort of fun one would not traditionally associate either of them with, is absolutely lovely and special, and I hope someday someone will clean up that audio and make that great show available again!

Hint, hint, hint.

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A brontosaurus and four yorkshiremen

You sometimes forget what riches are to be found on Youtube (scant roses scattered among the many turds, with a good nose or a trusty map needed to steer you right), and it was only recently that I thought to check what Monty Python material may be found there; the answer, apparently, is a lot.

Monty Python started on BBC the year I was born and ran for five years, until 1974, and was an effectively unique and never equalled mix of surreal imagery and humour. I did not discover Python in real time, being far more concerned at the time with learning to walk and talk (although I am sure my early efforts at both were silly enough to be consistent), and I actually first discovered it actually through the films ('Life of Brian', of course) and cassettes of the live shows.

There is so much to discuss on Python I think I will come back to it on several posts in the future, but I will kick off now with two sketches which are not perhaps as famous as the Dead Parrot or the Cheese Shop, but which I discovered on those early tapes and still love.

The first is the theory of Miss Anne Elk on brontosauruses, featuring a simply wonderful performance by John Cleese:



I particularly love the spin-off idea of 'Elk theories' scientific observations that are not theories but merely minimal accounts, of which I have come across a few in my ofter life in research.

The second sketch is of Four Yorkshiremen looking back from a position of comfort on their early lives and trying to outdo each other in painting the bleakest of pictures:



This sketch, according to the all-knowing Wikipedia, actually predated Flying Circus, being first performed in 1967, but by a group include Cleese and Chapman, and never appeared on the show itself, although it was in their live shows (including the famour one at the Hollywood bowl).

I cannot say that all Monty Python shows were classics, or that every sketch worked for me, but there is a hell of a lot of gold there, and I will use Youtube to mine some more of it in the future. Click Here to Read More..

Revised forecast for Snow (Patrol)

A few nights ago, I was channel-surfing when I came across a show on Irish TV called 'Other voices', in which musical acts, national and international, play in a church in a (lovely) small town in the south west of Ireland called Dingle. On this occasion, I tuned in midway through an incredible souding song where several guys were making a very unusual choral wordless melody surrounded by strings, and my jaw dropped. The overall melody was only vaguely familiar, and then got more familiar, and then the main singer started back into a verse and I realised with quite a start that it was Snow Patrol playing 'Chasing cars'.

The performance can be seen below; 'Chasing cars' actually starts around the 5 minute mark (after another song and an interview clip) and I estimate I tuned in around the 7 min 52 seconds mark.



That is just simply incredible. I have always had a moderately favourable disposition towards Snow Patrol, and feel they are talented lads who know how to write a good song (much of 'Eyes open' is actually very good) and are almost relutant pop stars despite themselves. However, on the basis of the above, my estimation of them has increased hugely.

The other version of 'Chasing cars' I always liked was the mash-up by 'Partyben' where it was crossed intimately with the Police's 'Every breath you take' to quite interesting effect.



I also loved 'Set the fire to the third bar' with Martha Wainright, as seen on some European TV show below:



The final track I will leave this post with is what I think was the first song of theirs I heard, off an Uncut CD (of course), called 'On/off', a live version of which (unfoartnately not brilliant quality) I found below:



The original of that, without visuals, but worth including for the immaculate sound quality and lovely delicate acoustic sound, is below:



All in all, having listened to these songs as I constructed this post, I think it is time I gave Snow Patrol a lot more attention and credit in future. This last month in Ireland has seen levels of snow and ice almost unprecedented in the country, so maybe it is just appropriate, or nature was giving me a big hint..... Click Here to Read More..

Florence and the Machine

Finally downloaded Florence and the Machine from iTunes; there have been a lot of female acts in the last year or so which have sort of blended in my head into something which did not fill me with enthusiasm, but for some reason I took a chance on this one. It was actually partly her version of 'You've got the love' which I got on a recent compilation (of which more separately), and an accumulation of awareness of positive buzz building in my head.

Overall, I actually really like the album, although I definetely would not go as far as love (on this Valentine's Day). I have a wariness of mad artists, and female ones in particular, and have always been slightly scared of Kate Bush, Bjork and Joanne Newsome and such like. In this regard, Florence certainly qualifies as pretty mad, with the roars and musical eccentricities and wierd instrumentation, but there remains something charming about the album and it sort of swept me up in its rush of OTT energy.

Favourites include 'Dog days are over' (love in particular the opening of the handclaps):



I also really like 'Drumming song' (the name is enough for me) and 'Howl', which strangely reminds me of Josh Ritter's 'Wolves' (something about the lupine must bring out similar rhythms in diverse artists):



Continuing the theme of her songs reminding me of unexpected folks, the guitar at the start of 'Girl with one eye' reminds me of Billy Bragg's wonderful 'Levi Stubb's tears', which made it a bizarre coincidence when a search on Youtube found a duet below between the two, on 'Fairytale of New York', in which Florence's love of the harp lends thic classic a very unusual angle:



Having wandered from the album proper into cover versions, I will end with another totally unexpected find, of her singing Wham's 'Last Christmas':



I know Christmas is long gone, and I did a piece on these songs a few weeks back, and (crucially) it is not exactly a classic to begin with it, but it is still a good cover. Maybe 2009 wasn't as bad as I recently opined for new music, and there are more Florences out there I need to go back and seek out. Maybe. Click Here to Read More..

Finding Greg Laswell via Grey's Anatomy

Just a quick post to show what I love about the internet and how it has really revolutionised the way we can access music. I was watching Grey's Anatomy (or at least it was on while I was reading) when my ears tweaked up at the sound of a cover version of 'your ghost' by Kirsten Hersh (with Michael Stipe), a beautiful duet. Two minutes on later my iPod touch I typed 'your ghost cover version grey's anatomy' into Google and found Greg Laswell's name, which I then went to my PC and typed into eMusic, for which I have a subscription. I had 7 downloads left in this month's allowance, and lo and behold there was his 5-track 'Covers' EP featuring 'Your ghost', along with a nice version of the Bunnymen masterpiece 'The killing moon', and what follows below:



This, 'A woman's work' is apparently a Kate Bush song but his version is just incredible. That is the power of the worldwide interweb, from never hearing of someone to loving their songs in less than an hour. How did we ever do without it? Almost justifies the existence and budget of 'Grey's anatomy' by itself. Greg's homepage is at http://greglaswell.com/.

I will finish with 'Your ghost', but the original Hersh/Stipe version; I found ones with her singing live but this one, although not an actual video, does give the full effect of the duet:



Magic! Now I have just downloaded Florence and the Machine (finally) so need to work on that for a few days and get back with comments. Click Here to Read More..