The Pitchfork Music Festival has finally arrived! It kicks off at 6 pm CDT tonight with z=z local heroes Mission of Burma, performing their album Vs. in its entirety. If you’re not able to attend, the entire festival is being webcast. Given the high potential for a Midwestern version of a Glastonbury-style mudfest - the forecast is for thunderstorms all three days - that might be the best way to experience the concert. No word on whether the vids will be archived for your later enjoyment.

webcast link

In honour of Rush’s appearance yesterday on the Colbert Report, and Ted Leo’s appearance this morning on the soon-to-be-defunct Bryant Park Project on NPR, here’s Ted Leo’s cover of Rush’s “The Spirit of Radio.” The story is that this song was inspired by CFNY, Toronto’s independent/alternative radio station, which was a formative musical influence on me as a kid growing up in the city (it’s now 102.1 The Edge). Three things I love in one neat package.

MP3: Ted Leo - The Spirit of Radio (Rush cover; recorded live at WFMU)

Following up on their (presumably successful) compilation of Radiohead covers, Rapster Records corraled a dozen electronic artists to create their own versions of David Bowie songs and released Life Beyond Mars: Bowie Covered. As a lifelong Bowie fan and someone who loves electronic music and covers, I feel like I personify the target demographic for this album (and I did, in fact, buy the CD). Sadly, however, I found the song quality to be rather uneven. As might be expected, given the genre, the song choices are heavy on Bowie’s Berlin years, and the standout track is definitely Matthew Dear’s cover of “Sound & Vision.” Most artists chose  lesser-known Bowie songs, rather than hit singles - understandable, really, as who’d want to take on the challenge of reinterpreting a beloved masterpiece? - but the The Thing took a different approach. Their ‘cover’ of “Life on Mars” has nothing discernibly in common with the original besides its title. I’m going to politely describe its style as ‘experimental,’ including sounds like rusted metal-on-metal creaks and squeaky balloons. I’d suggest the version below instead.

MP3: David Bowie and Arcade Fire - Life on Mars (live)

Life Beyond Mars: website amazon

“]

[click photo for Performer Magazine article on ELP

Musically, think electroclash crossed with hip-hop, with a dash of punk, and a soupçon of opera, thanks to classically-trained Jess Riley’s soaring vocals. The Boston-based (check) band sing songs like “Disco 3000,” about going to the future and trying to get with ‘permatan honeys’ at a club where ‘everyone is beautiful/and owned by Monsanto’ (lyrics: check). Lead singer and bassist Dan Paluska is an award-winning robotics engineer for art installations - check out this insane video of one of his pieces - and guitarist Grant Kristofek is a  design consultant; we share a colleague, in fact. (day jobs: check).

Their album, Straight Talk on Raising Kids, is permanently embedded in my car stereo, to say nothing of my brain, since many of their songs are catchy to the point of becoming earworms (hooky: check). However, they really come into their own live. Like Dan Deacon or Holy Fuck, they just seem like they are having enormous fun on stage, and that gets communicated to the audience (great live: check). Electric Laser People play at Church on August 20th. Go check them out.

More Electric Laser People: myspace website allmusic bio buy

MP3: Electric Laser People - Disco 3000

Guest blogger Scott, who’s familiar with my preferences regarding singing at concerts, says:

This isn’t necessarily a great cover, but it’s one of the best illustrations imaginable (short of a performer actually stopping and berating someone, which would be awesome) of why you don’t sing from the audience. Everyone is basically behaving themselves, except for one guy, who drunkenly sings along (and then mis-sings along) at the quietest parts of the song.

MP3: The Dresden Dolls - Karma Police [Radiohead cover]

Previously: Concert etiquette: miss debcha speaks; Listen local: The Dresden Dolls

Here at zed equals zee, we’re big fans of education. As musicians go, Queen guitarist Brian May pretty much has everyone beat - after setting his doctoral work in astrophysics aside to concentrate on music full-time, he returned to his dissertation some 30 years later, received his PhD, and is now Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University (the photo above is of him at his investiture). We’ve already talked about the Bon Savants, whose lead singer, Thom Moran - as everybody knows - worked as a rocket scientist at MIT, although I don’t know what his academic background is (they are playing at the Middle East Upstairs on Wednesday, July 9th, so you could probably ask him). There are also a couple of artists that I can think of who are actively balancing academic and musical careers.  Another z=z fave, The Franklin Kite, features a frontman who did a PhD in astrophysics at MIT, and is now doing postdoctoral research at that university up the river. Even more notably, the lead singer of Bad Religion, Greg Graffin, not only has a PhD in zoology from Cornell, but he teaches at UCLA - apparently, he is on the timetable to teach Life Science 1 in the upcoming winter quarter (January 2009), after which the band will return to the studio.

Know any other scientist/academic/musicians that I missed? Tell us about them in the comments!

MP3: Bad Religion - Let Them Eat War

[embedded YouTube video; if you can't see it, click here]

A slightly-belated celebration of the Fourth of July, via some nice folks from the mother country.

]]> http://zedequalszee.com/2008/07/04/old-school-comsat-angels-independence-day/feed/ http://zedequalszee.com/2008/07/02/free-pitchfork-fest-downloads-at-emusic/ http://zedequalszee.com/2008/07/02/free-pitchfork-fest-downloads-at-emusic/#comments Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:56:00 +0000 debcha http://zedequalszee.wordpress.com/?p=328

Probably the single biggest contributor to having a good time at a live performance is familiarity with the music. The Pitchfork Music Festival grasps this point - as it has for the last couple of years, they’ve teamed up with eMusic to provide free downloads of songs by artists who’ll be performing. If you plan on attending, it’s a great way to familiarize yourself with the bands you may not know. And if you can’t make it, it’s a terrific way to get a taste of the always well-curated festival. Ignore the pissy comments - there are some great songs there. Try Mission of Burma’s “Academy Fight Song,” Animal Collective’s “Grass,” and Apple in Stereo’s “Energy” for a start.

Pitchfork Music Festival downloads at eMusic

Following up on our previous post, here are three heavy metal covers done right. Arab Strap (pictured above) do a version of “You Shook Me All Night Long” which should erase any memory of Celine Dion’s butchery. And as promised, here’s Emm Gryner’s quiet, piano-based version of Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train.”  Finally, the Dresden Dolls dusted off Black Sabbath’s 1970 anti-Vietnam-War anthem,  “War Pigs,” for their live shows:

Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

MP3: Arab Strap - You Shook Me All Night Long (more Arab Strap)

MP3: Emm Gryner - Crazy Train (more Emm Gryner)

MP3: The Dresden Dolls - War Pigs (live) (more Dresden Dolls)

“

UK-based magazine Total Guitar recently published its lists of the 30 best and the 20 worst covers of all time. They chose Celine Dion’s version of AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long” in the latter category, which is definitely a worthy contender (that’s AC/DC, above). The BBC World News has a 36-second excerpt, and you can see how much of it you can take (I had heard enough at about the six-second mark).

As you might expect from a magazine called Total Guitar, their best cover ever was Jimi Hendrix’s version of “All Along the Watchtower.”

Stay tuned for a much better cover of “You Shook Me All Night Long.”

Agree or disagree with their choices? Feel free to nominate your own in the comments!