Shanghaiist: Shanghaiist Happy Hour at Abbey Road: Featuring Whitesnake, Fats Domino and, yes, Elmo

andrew

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 17:48:26 +0800

speaking of mashups, still crossing my fingers for dj BC to make the cut

andrew

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 17:45:15 +0800

speaking of mashups, still cr for dj BC to make the cut

The Walrus

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 12:20:17 +0800

'The Jam" have covered 'Rain". It was on their "creation direction reaction" best of boxset - Disk 5, song 12. Good cover too...

Micah

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 11:23:14 +0800

Hmm, I've got the John Lennon tribute concert by Shanghai bands from the Ark Livehouse last year. But only on CD, not MP3.

Dan

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 07:37:30 +0800

Just downloaded this: Need to be reminded just how singular a phenomenon the Beatles were? Take a listen to This Bird Has Flown, Razor & Tie's 40th anniversary indie-rock tribute to their second album of 1965, Rubber Soul. Tributes to other artists that aim to include songs as timeless as "Drive My Car," "Norwegian Wood," "Michelle," and "In My Life" typically have to cover their entire careers, and even then that's often not enough. This, however, is a one-album show, sequenced in the same order as the original, and the same thing could have been done with almost any other of the Beatles' LPs, with similar results. In some cases--the Donnas' "Drive My Car," Dar Williams's "You Won't See Me," Rhett Miller's "Girl"--the arrangements are a little too note-perfectly faithful to remain compelling. But a good number of the tracks here are sufficiently obscure to keep things interesting even if their arrangements do hew a little too closely to the originals. Into this category fall Yonder Mountain String Band's "Think for Yourself" and Mindy Smith's "The Word," two rarely covered songs it's a delight to hear recast in the Americana mold. The best listens on This Bird Has Flown, however, are those that exhibit some of the experimentalism and innovation that was the mid-period Beatles' hallmark. On "If I Needed Someone," Nellie McKay turns George Harrison's Byrds pastiche into a breezy day at a Brazilian beach; Low strip "Nowhere Man" to its bones in a typically minimalist performance; the Fiery Furnaces recast "Norwegian Wood" as a keyboard-driven funhouse extravaganza; and Sufjan Stevens warbles "What Goes On" beyond recognition, taking it from country Ringo vehicle to jazzy woodwind spectacle. The disc closes with the Cowboy Junkies' "Run for Your Life": with murderous lead vocals and ominous, threatening instrumentation, it's a far cry from the slight number that weakly ended the original. Here's hoping there's a follow-up in 2006 for the 40th anniversary of Revolver. --Benjamin Lukoff

Anton

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 19:05:16 +0800

That's assuming every reader on the site has been following Shanghaiist for two years. Fair enough, though.

sarcasmo

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 18:45:33 +0800

is it possible that after two years some readers still don't get dan's dry sense of humour (and can't follow links)?

Anton

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 18:41:50 +0800

The Beachwood Sparks?! hahaha who the hell are the Beachwood Sparks

albert

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 18:36:38 +0800

Beatles and the Beachboys. :-) Never heard of the Beachwood Sparks before.

jenming

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 18:21:38 +0800

"Tortillas filled with beef sauce, mushroom, and other vegetables" Either there's a comma missing between those words, or I'll stick to veggies :)

Dan

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 17:42:32 +0800

Albert, This is not the final list. Most of the mashups probably won't make it, and neither will the dreadful Swingle Singers. I had never heard of the Beachles -- I can only assume it is a mashup of the Beatles and Beachwood Sparks. See you tomorrow. Dan

albert

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 17:24:14 +0800

Though I guess that wouldn't really play too well at a happy hour, the two of them just have a weird connection in my mind.

albert

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 17:21:03 +0800

Does DJ Danger Mouse really count as Beatles covers? Very little of the Beatles is recognizable in those mashups. But if you're going to include mashups, how about The Beachles?