10/9 Radio Show

Guided by Voices - Tyson's High School
Dum Dum Girls - Lord Knows
Real Estate - Green Aisles
Silver Jews - Honk if You're Lonely
The Feelies - Later On
Mazzy Star - Halah
Widowspeak - Gun Shy
Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Am I Demon
Thee Oh Sees - If I Stay Too Long
Bent Shapes - Boys to Men*
Avoxblue - The Confessional*
Haunts All Houses - Moon*
Banditas - Harmony Glass*
Mean Creek - Sunlight*
Ex-Magicians - Richard Karn*
Full Tang - Itchy Back Jack*
Ty Segall - Goodbye Bread
The Jesus & Mary Chain - Some Candy Talking
The Fresh & Onlys - Long Slow Dance
Kurt Vile - I Know I Got Religion
Woods - Bend Beyond
Wet Hair - Visit the Mirror

* Boston-based band

Listen to the archived show here and here.

The hallmark of our post-modern times is the death of originality (or so I was told in my college philosophy classes), and therefore, it's not surprising that you can't listen to an album these days without encountering at least one cover song. While there are plenty of forgettable and even offensively bad covers, a well-done cover song can lead to awareness and appreciation of the original and can sometimes even supersede it.

Here are a couple of covers I played on today's show:

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Am I Demon (Danzig cover)

I honestly don't like the original version of this song at all (which perhaps has less to do with the quality of the music and more to do with my own personal intolerance for metal). With the powers of his acoustic guitar and vulnerable vocals, Will Oldham transforms the heavy-handed Danzig original into something that is a delicate and beautiful. While preserving Danzig's melody and lyrics, he absorbs the song so completely into his own style that it sounds like it could have been written by Oldham himself.

Thee Oh Sees - If I Stay too Long (The Creation cover)

 

Thee Oh Sees are one of my favorite players in the resurgence of fuzz-laden garage rock that has been dominating the college radio waves, and it is not surprising that they should pay homage to some of the most talented forefathers of the genre. Thee Oh Sees add on layers of vocals and a kick-ass psyched-out guitar solo, but their cover is essentially faithful to the original version by the Creation-- a testament to the timelessness of this 1967 tune.