Centro-Matic covers: Flashes and Cables, Triggers and Trash Heaps

Centro-Matic, late of Denton, TX. What can I say, other than that they've consistently been one of my favorite bands of the last 20-ish years?  Beautiful, gentle, obscure and impressionistic tunes as well as unbelievable overdriven and compressed shouters.  A real artistic collaboration between the four members and often just alchemic magic.

Never had taken any of their tunes out for a spin but was feeling this past Sunday like I'd knock out a couple quick ones.  Super fun to chew on and warble.  Tried to keep it simple, recording the vocal and guitar live (Epiphone Casino with a touch of delay, phase type of things) and overdubbing harmonies and a shaky egg.

JK

Flashes and Cables:

https://app.box.com/s/ly0qgnceajnafbam5pf54g83iukmdeke

 

Triggers and Trash Heaps: 

https://app.box.com/s/fq7efdg490w0xmbzb2c9r5qt5v6vqpad

Neil Young covers

What can I say?  I'm not the only one for whom Neil is perennially and indisputably the central musical figure.  Man, I could just cover his songs forever.  His songwriting and playing and artistic vision in general... His particular guitar tone and style, lyrical wit and sincerity, simultaneous looseness and unswerving focus.  There is nothing more to be added.  So I've added some covers!  At least these are of a couple deep cuts/ stone cold classics.  These versions have been sitting around literally for years:

"Emperor of Wyoming".  Secret instrumental greatness from that first, weird, good-not-great, first solo LP.  I realize Neil is THE Les Paul guy but, all respect to Old Black, it's always fun to bust out the Gretsch and twang away.  Having the Bigsby tremolo to play with really suits my limited guitar skills!  This one also benefits from the baritone and some nice sounding "pianner", and apparently dates from a time when I still knew how to play a little pedal steel...

"Winterlong".  Semi-secret pop greatness, for many years available only on the "Decade" collection (still the best "best of" compilation out there, from then 'til now)... 

https://app.box.com/s/csu5w2c3fqgaduk8dxq7jryvq5y0y2vk

https://app.box.com/s/hudgs2v9fbuv5kk76y319ytdh41dvjyy

Woodpile: Son Volt’s “Wide Swing Tremolo”

More Woodpile songs here, as I continue to work out the new(ish) Mac/ interface/ software and re-learn those neglected instruments.

By the time of Son Volt’s 1998 “Wide Swing Tremolo” release, the band was heading into the wilderness.  By all accounts they “won” the first round of LP releases after the breakup of Uncle Tupelo.  But the attention and, yeah, surprising popularity dissipated quickly (with Wilco seeing the inverse, exponentially; a story for another time). The second Son Volt album, the as-good “Straightaways”, garnered mostly shrugs and the third LP even less, though in this case the response was pretty much deserved.  “Wide Swing Tremolo” at minimum just felt off somehow, and it honestly was not so good.  It did turn out to be the end of that first, best lineup featuring the stop-start drumming of Mike Heidorn, the bass and letter perfect harmonies of Jim Boquist and the crunchy guitar and other instrumental textures from his brother Dave.  But “Wide Swing Tremolo” contained a handful of full-on classics that I’ve gone back to again and again for two decades, as much or more so than the rest of the catalog. Figured I take a stab at a few....

JK

Medicine Hat:
https://app.box.com/s/9x77ghucquaywvofa0l7820nn6sj1miy

Hanging Blue Side:
https://app.box.com/s/l772jatpmr2vsqx2lews0682lz8j560c

Driving the View:
https://app.box.com/s/5liheyvqclf85euoi3isu66gccxdfu7u

Woodpile: The Byrds’ country rock

Ah, the Byrds: Criminally underrated and one of my all-time faves.  Perhaps unusually, I dunno, my gateway was the country era rather than the chart-topping chiming-Rickenbacker jangle-pop era.  I still recall picking up that “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” CD from Record & Tape Traders in Towson, MD, taking it back to my summer squat at the DU house and, upon firing it up, quickly shutting the door and thinking, “Uh... This is WAY more country than I was picturing, but.. still... I think this may totally be my thing....”.  Sent me down a Gram Parsons rabbit hole and then a Clarence White one, and there I remain to this day.

Anyway, back here in modern times, I fairly recently was looking to upgrade the recording hardware and software at home, scored a MacBook refurb, began goofing around with GarageBand and thought I’d do another set of “Woodpile” songs to help me work things out.  Figured it’d also be a good opportunity to goof around on the acoustic instruments again and re-learn some things after years I the overwork wilderness.  So...

“You Ain’t Going Nowhere” kicked off the Byrds’ Gram Parsons-initiated country rock era, leading off that legendary “Sweethearts of the Rodeo” from 1968.  Yet another Bob Dylan cover of course.

“Tulsa County” is another cover, non-Dylan, off 1969’s “Ballad of Easy Rider “.  Parson’s exceedingly short stay was done by then and the band was already deep into the Clarence White era.  Best thing yet to come out of Lewiston, ME.  King of the Telecaster and father of the pedal-steel-mimicking B-bender apparatus.  Killed by a drunk driver in LA, 1973 while loading out his gear from a bluegrass gig with his brother.  Just goddamn.

Also peak Clarence, and sung by him on the record, “Truck Stop Girl” is a Little Feat cover from 1970’s “Untitled”.

JK

You Ain’t Going Nowhere
https://app.box.com/s/u6so4to3p2i6cgp75d3tsf1v95eqdzsk

Tulsa County
https://app.box.com/s/uu0vh0s9er00d95msq5axxkbclpq5ipx

Truck Stop Girl
https://app.box.com/s/57o2tt3kbm5f5rjcht15tnms0944h0fs

Cure & Smiths & Pogues covers

Still clearing out the cobwebs, this batch of songs had been in the stalled-out production line since the 2015, partly as an attempt to live inside some songs for the Buttsteaks to possibly cover.  I prefer working on songs in pairs, probably out of ingrained A side/ B side bias, so there are three 45's here, to my thinking anyway...

Out of these, we ended up picking up only "Friday I'm in Love" and doing a nice job of it (including the bridge section that I've never taken a shine to, and left out of this basement laboratory version).  We'd covered the other Cure song, "Push", and the Smiths' "What Difference Does It Make" WAAAAaaayy back in the pre-Buttsteak days of '87 (along with some other still-neglected hits) but likewise left those in the dustbin of history.  "Please, Please, Please..." was recorded just because it's one of my favorite Smiths' songs and I'm still convinced it could work in the right format.

The other "single" is, in my mind, done in the style of the underestimated, late-era, Joe Strummer-fronted Pogues. "If I Should Fall from Grace With God" I did as a St. Patrick's thing.  Was hoping to pick up  "London Calling" for the Buttsteaks, thinking it a no-brainer but we ended up leaving it on the slag heap. It may yet rise again. 

JK

Back up and running: Zevon and Stones covers

Relieved to see that this dumb Blogger deal was still up and running after so many months and years of disuse on my part....  Long and short is the the corona has coincided with an already scheduled work slowdown on my part, so at last there may be an opportunity to take care of business that's been neglected far too long.

As a start here's a pair of covers that Roady and I quickly blasted out in the (then newly re-done and subsequently largely abandoned until recently) basement rock zone in 2015.  For those of you doing the math, that's five goddarned years ago.  Nuthin' fancy.

JK

Mohammed's Radio (Warren Zevon cover)
https://app.box.com/s/d3y06nev5fnfpmcpgh7j0xawji905m95

Torn and Frayed (Rolling Stones cover):
https://app.box.com/s/a689xy49c4iounxhxj4osj083dj7mmri

Re-posted: Echo & the Bunnymen, Psychedelic Furs covers

Goes to show how far in the weeds I am that this promised re-post is months and months overdue....  Recorded by me and Mike down in Baltimore in late 2012, predating the 1st floor renovations at the Roadkill Estate.  Considering that I barely remember the house in it's divided, tenancy days, that's a LONG time!  Funny enough, though, I can still see the horror of the abandoned fridge and smell the yeast and Siberian husky hair encrusted in that carpeting...

JK

The Killing Moon (Echo & the Bunnymen cover):
https://app.box.com/s/guteahq16x5vljw9z7ph



The Ghost In You (Psychedelic Furs cover):
https://app.box.com/s/i37log22lz83tjbno0lb