The Other Cover

Far Niente Winery 2007

i guess i need to work on my year end lists. i've already picked out the best singles of the year which i only have three, but maybe i'll have more. so, before the craziness of the past few weeks, i went to see spiritualized for their acoustic mainlines tour at bimbo's 365. after reading all the positive reviews on other shows from the tour, i was looking forward to it as the only other time i got to see them was in 1997 when they opened up for radiohead and they preceded to play feedback for an hour with barely any discernible lyrics. i enjoyed it, but i think everyone else in the audience felt like it sounded like microphoned fingernails against a chalkboard. so, we get to the show and it turns out to be a sit down affair. fine. 3 gospel-like singers, 3 string players, one rhodes electric piano and one guitar playing and singing jason pierce. great idea, but.... what makes spiritualized so great and the fact the 'ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space' is one of my favorites is that they create all of these layers of sound by the vast amount of instruments they use while not overwhelming the song itself. the greatness is not with the lyrics or pierce's voice. it adds to the overall piece, so when you strip out what makes these songs unique, you are left with something far from interesting. oh well.


Joy Division - Ceremony (Alternative Rock) - after hearing radiohead's version of 'ceremony', i noticed that thom yorke was trying to imitate ian curtis rather than bernard sumner. this track is a rare version with ian curtis on vocals. the movie 'control' is worth seeing although it does make the guys in new order look a bit inconsequential, but they were part of 2 of the most influential bands ever in music.

Radiohead - I Want None Of This - from the 2005 help! release, it's basically a solo piece with a piano. they played it a bunch of times on their last tour, but here's the original. haunting.