Friday Cover Up - How About A Four-Way High Five?

Yep Things are about to get REAL messy around here...


First we have the widely praised duo Tennis. Cape Dory (via Fat Possum) has been very successful, yet rather than rest on their laurels, the band now brings us 'Is It True,' a Brenda Lee cover. Alaina Moore explains why they chose the cover... "Brenda Lee has been a great source of inspiration for me. We stumbled across the song 'Is It True', a less popular single she recorded later in her career and loved it not just for her more mature, crackly voice, but for the randomly awesome inclusion of a very young Jimmy Page on electric guitar. The song is such a jam, we really enjoyed the chance to record it ourselves. Despite the limitations of recording it on a 4-track cassette, and then having to mix it in a pinch on an 11 year old lap top, that crashed regularly, all the parts we love are there."

Tennis - Is It True (Brenda Lee cover)


J. Irvin Dally's new limited-edition vinyl 7" Sun Room / Teething comes out in a week, and it promises that there is more to come from the man who brought the excellent Despistado EP to us last year. So, along with a taste of the 7", here is a recent coer he did of the classic Stones track 'Wild Horses'...

J Irvin Dally - Sun Room
J Irvin Dally - Wild Horses (Rolling Stones cover)


Crystal Antlers - how you keep playing with me! I slated the first taste off their upcoming LP, 'Summer Solstice', then totally dug the track 'Two Way Mirror'. Now here comes another lovely scuzzy number in the form of 'I Slept In An Arcade', the Black Randy & The Metrosquad cover, which can be found on a compilation called Beat LA. The compilation is the result of the efforts by Narnack Records founder Shahin Ewalt, along with Toddrick Spalding and Angel mendoza of Greatminds Records, to help out the victims of the horrific earthquake that destroyed the nation of Haiti at the beginning of the year. A plethora of current LA artists (who also included No Age, Boom Bip, Imaad Wasif and Lucky Dragons) covered songs written by alternative, punk and rock musicians of the past that helped to define the LA sound (other covers are of The Germs, Gun Club, X, Minutemen, The Urinals and The Doors). Proceeds from the compilation benefit Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), one of the leading relief organizations working in Haiti. You can buy one here - as you can see it's a very worthwhile cause, and you get a lot out of it too!

Crystal Antlers - I Slept In An Arcade (Black Randy & The Metrosquad cover)


The "money shot" in this cover whorefest comes from Digital Leather - two posts in one day big guy! He is also an interesting musician when it comes to reinterpreting covers, as the below Jay Reatard song 'Hurts So Bad' attests. Im sure Jay (who was a close friend of Foree's) would love it, as I know you will too!

Digital Leather- I'm So Gone (Reatards cover) by digitalleather

Desperate Times Calls for Desperate Folk

Got an email from Michael over at The Decibel Tolls, extolling (ah, sorry...) the virtues of one of his 'peeps' (AKA pushing the wares of one of his label charges), J Irvin Dally. I had a quick perusal of the Decibel Tolls write-up, and was suitably impressed...until I read the similar bands section. Fairport Convention are never going to be filling my top 10, 20, 50, 100 bands of all time - they're ok, but loads are better in my opinion. So to pin the hopes of success on a 'nothing' band was a little offputting, especially as another band, The Incredible String Band, whilst good, arent exactly somthing to excite the massess either (again strictly my opinion - which is always right).

But Michael hassled me, so i listened to the Despistado EP thats hitting any second now - and it is great. Really really good. Think freakonica - think the inevitable Animal Collective comparisons, think jazzed up Jim James, but toned down with a more down home twang. I cant agree more when stated that Dally's gear sounds like Devendra Banhart before he found Jesus in the bright light that is celebdom. But even that is something of a disservice, as Despistado has its own iconic feel, bereft of flounce and flair, ponce and parading about. This mild-mannered multi-instrumentalist has instead crafted a delightful EP that is so intellegent with its structure, the way in which the field sounds, the electronics, the rattling bottles, weave in with Dally's soaring vocals and surreptitious finger pickings to create a pastiche of SoCal desert meanderings so sweet that a cup of salt might be all it takes to bring you back to earth.

I am very impressed with this stuff. And believe you me that if Sonic Masala had a label up and running instead of in the beer clouded dreamstates of not so much reality, we'd be snatching this guy up pronto. As it stands, Michael's Crash Avenue Publicity is looking after him, so get in touch big wigs. Enough of the self-professed genuises and give a real one a crack - it might make the world a better place.

J Irvin Dally - Salt Water
J Irvin Dally - Brasil (Adelir de Carli)