Here we are on the home stretch, Day Four of the cover project. I have to say we are easing down this road (see what I did there?), but do not fret, we have more. Five more tracks today on tap from: Bear Medicine, Psalmships, Quiet Hollers, John Comitale and Shawn William Clarke! With only being familiar with 4 of these artists prior, I am excited to bring you ‘new to me’ musicians here on the project.
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Bear Medicine open day four with a fantastic cover of the Palace Music track of Old Jerusalem. This song is incredibly well put together and it almost was never recorded! With a bit of miscommunication on which song the band was going to submit for this project – they all did not end up working on the same song before showing up to start recording…Josh from the band described it as the below:
…for some reason i accidentally told the band the wrong track number on the album. so for two weeks, unbeknownst to me, the band had been individually working on a new arrangement of we all, us three, will ride. oops. so when we got to the studio and i started playing through old jerusalem everyone looked very confused. but after all the confusion, i think it worked out better this way. now nobody knew what was going on and all previous plans had to be thrown out the window. but i think the blank slate really helped us come together and make something in the moment that we would not have been able to achieve had we come in to the situation with all of our preconceived notions. what happened was a simple live one take recording that had minimal vocal harmony overdubs and a couple flute and cello harmonies added in. after mixing for a while i kept getting the feeling that there was still one texture missing. banjo. so we called up our good friend Joe Harbison (Ford Theater Reunion) who stopped by and laid down a lovely fluid part that really tied everything together. all in all this was an amazing experience for all of us to step outside our normal modes of writing and recording to create something new out of something old.
The full line up:
Psalmships has been around Slowcoustic’s listening landscape for a couple of years now. As ‘Psalmships’, Joshua Britton records ‘Music From The Dark’ and I often lament on his Jason Molina vibe. He does not change my opinion with this cover track of Death To Everyone. Co-hort and no stranger to Slowcoustic Brad Hinton joins in and makes this a complete Pennsylvanian affair (Philly area, I believe). So I leave you with this ominous and dark brooding, yet powerful, BPB tune to keep you awake at night.
Visit Psalmships: Website | Bandcamp
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Shadwick of Quiet Hollers reached out to contribute to the cover project once he saw me tweeting about it weeks ago – now here we are. I admit I am a stranger to Quiet Hollers, but with the cover of You Can’t Hurt Me Now, that might just have to change. By the look of some of the live show pics via their Facebook page/website, we might all need a bit more Quiet Hollerin’ in our lives.
Visit Quiet Hollers: Website | Facebook | Bandcamp | Reverbnation
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The photo above belies the delicate folk song that Comitale performs for our cover project. John performs a song from the Get on Jolly EP that has Will Oldham joining up with Mick Turner (Marquis de Tren) for a numerical selection of music. This under-appreciated release finds some love here in the track 81 for the cover project (you might also want to swing over to JC’s Bandcamp page for a listen to ‘Even If Love’ for more Will Oldham cover love).
Visit John Comitale: Bandcamp
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Shawn William Clarke closes out today’s covers with a beautiful version of After I’ve Made Love To You. The particular verse that clinched it for Clarke to choose this song of the 5 albums he scoured was;
In your arms I’m softly resting
Memories of you undressing
And your lips my final blessing
I never knew
The embrace that I’d been lacking
Has been found with kisses smacking
And two bodies there attacking
I and you
And a little back story and info on the track;
I first heard his music when a friend made me sit down with “I See A Darkness”. At the time I didn’t see it. It took a few years, and a bit of patience before I began to recognize his genius as a storyteller. He says things in a way that I never hear, except from people emulating him. Anyways, after going through about 5 or 6 albums, I settled on the song “After I Made Love to You” from the album “Ease Down the Road”. I called my friend Kristian Pedersen to help record and mix the track. He also provided a little bit of Wurlitzer. Finally I need a female singer. After some deliberation, I got a hold of Allie Sunshine who interpreted the song perfectly.
I know I am saying this again, but with today’s post full of folks I was not immediately familiar with, I think I am coming out on top here. Another great track from SWC to cap it off.
Visit Shawn William Clarke: Website | Twitter | Facebook
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Are you getting tired of all these covers yet? Didn’t think so. Tomorrow is unfortunately the last day but it holds another five covers to round out the week. I look forward to meeting you back here, same place, same time.
~Sandy