songsonlyilike

Other than, say, Oasis, is there an artist that has done a better job of channeling the sensibilities of the Beatles than early Matthew Sweet? This song hit the spot on a sunny Sunday morning.

Here’s another in the infrequent series of Cover Flow compilations where I string a bunch of covers together in sequential order, originals first. Enjoy the lyrical stylings of Ozzy Osbourne, Karen O., Michael Stipe, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Black Francis and more by clicking above to stream, or you can download here or here.

Last year I posted a Christmas mix more to entertain myself than anything. As it turns out, more than just me downloaded and enjoyed it, and have even gone so far as to share it again this year. So I have made a new one. You can download it here or here. I hope you enjoy it, and that you and your family have a wonderful holiday season!

It’s a goddamned miracle! Here’s another Cover Flow mix, called “I Started A Joke”, featuring some bands that, sticking with the theme of the blog, only I like.

If you’d like to download the file for posterity, you can do so here until I exceed my download limit.

I’ve thought about doing this for a while, taking cover versions and putting them into the same mix with their originals in descending/ascending order. I’ve ripped off Apple’s “Cover Flow” name for the series (I expect a C&D soon) and have taken the name of the first song in the queue as the name of the particular mix, which makes this “Cover Flow - Dark Globe”.

I plan to make more of these, but if you look at how frequently I update this blog, you probably realize that this will never happen again.

Here are a couple of different links to the same file: here and here.

Most bands come and go out of radio station studios, making an impression of some sort (friendly, cranky, smelly) then disappearing into the ether, maybe to be seen once or twice more. I can honestly say that we came very close to being genuine friends of The Airborne Toxic Event. Always pleasant, never fussy and only occasionally smelly, but that’s the downside of living communally in a van.

I have three or four versions of “Sometime Around Midnight”, which are all just fine, but this acoustic version of Kris Kristofferson’s “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” by Mikel and Anna still makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. And there’s a lot of hair back there.

It was already a strange day in the studio when The Ting Tings stopped by. Katie was quiet and didn’t seem too pumped to be in the Second Worst City in America (who would be?), Jules couldn’t be bothered to remove his semi-ironic fake Wayfarers and to top off the weirdness, there was an action/adventure movie being shot right outside the studio windows, low-flying helicopters, car-chases and all.

Ultimately, the action flick was just what was needed to break the ice. We ended up spending an hour or two with Jules and Katie and they couldn’t have been nicer (or more British). They cranked out two songs acoustically, which happened to be two of my favorite songs of 2008. This is one of them.

Brian Fallon of The Gaslight Anthem performed an all-request set for a roomful of fanboys in 2008.

Courtney Taylor-Taylor and Fathead of The Dandy Warhols stopped by the studio one morning and performed live. While initially giving off the air of jaded, over this rock-stars, they both ended up being really friendly, fun and funny guys.

This is their acoustic version of “Bohemian Like You”.