Covers, covers! It's cold, pull up the covers!

Just go over a few recent listens real quick.

Various Artists - Introducing Townes Van Zandt via the Great Unknown

I'm a huge Townes Van Zandt fan. Hell, my Mom used to drag ME through Van Zandt County on the way to Dallas as a child. Introducing... is a covers record and not a very good one either. Such great songs done with such a thrown away attitude. J. Tilman's cover of "My Proud Mountain" is forgettable as is Stephen Duffy's (founding member of Duran Duran) cover of "Poncho and Lefty." Don't waste your time.

Grade: 1.7

Hellsongs - Pieces of Heaven, A Glimpse of Hell

Hellsongs are a Swedish group that specialized is re-imagining metal in a haunting, yet gentle, way. Sparse, forceful, and beautiful can all be used to describe the music and the female vocals are at times over-powering in their emotion. This record has covers of Iron Maiden, Halloween, Accept, & Ozzy among others all set with cello, acoustic guitar and piano. A record like this is proof that great songs are great no matter how they are performed. I must, however, recommend the EP over this full length due to the quality of the production being a little more lo-fi and having a more airy quality to it.

Grade: 6.3

Lemonheads - Varshons


I'm a huge 1990s Lemonheads fan, but the newest incarnation of the band that appeared a few years ago isn't the same band. Gone is the youthful delusions and now we have the leftovers-semi-lucid echos of druggy ramblings. It'd be like meeting Chuck Bukowski at 4:30 AM as he's stumbling home and completely incoherent. That being said, this record of covers is actually quite good. Dando and Co.'s cover of G.G. Allin's "Layin' Up with Linda" is great as is Leonard Cohen's "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye" with Liv Tyler and Linda Perry's "Beautiful" (what most people would recognize as a Christina Aguilera track). All have the tenderness that was present in so much of their earlier work. To bookend these three review I have to mention the cover of Townes Van Zandt's "Waiting Around to Die." Townes' original possessed an upbeat feel, but Evan injects a Cohen-esque aire to the track that makes it slightly more hopeful. A lot of Evan Dando fans were honestly waiting around for him to keel over, but after putting out a record of such quality, albeit no original tracks, I will keep an eye out for fresh material from them.

Grade: 6.8

Massive Attack -Heligoland

I've listened to the new Massive Attack a dozen time now and I think I'm ready to sum it up. First off, it's an mediocre record with great production. The songs are simplistic in structure and fail to deliver anything beyond a single idea that dragged and pulled throughout every track (with the exception of 'Saturday Come Slow' and 'Atlas Air'). There's exactly three tracks I love and I really could live without the rest. 'Saturday Come Slow' with guest vocalist Damon Albarn is probably the most sincere track on the record, although it hardly sounds anything like Massive Attack. My other two favorites are 'Atlas Air' and 'Girl I Love You' (however I do find the horns in this 'Girl I Love You' as annoying as a homeless man trying to convince me he needs money to feed his wife and kids). 'Atlas Air' contains a truly unique and grimey bass line that I just love and 3D's lyrics/voice really shine here. So, the album as a whole blows but 'Atlas Air' is a winner along with 'Saturday Come Slow' and 'Girl I Love You', but again, I'm pissed over the poor choice in adding horns to 'Girl I Love You'.

Grade: 6.7

Big Fan

Patton Oswalt shows a different side of his talent in this film, which explores fandom and the power that celebrity has over people. Months ago, I won tickets to a screening of this film here in Seattle, but I didn't make it despite being a huge fan on comedian Patton Oswalt. I'm glad I didn't make it actually, because I found part of the picture quite painful to endure. In the film, Patton plays super-fan Paul Aufiero whose sole area of success in life is being able to call into local late-night sports talk radio (hosted, surprisingly, by Scott Ferrall) and get in without the long wait. He still lives with his mother on Staten Island and works at a parking garage for his career despite being 36 years old. After an encounter with his favorite player at a Manhattan nightclub, Aufieri's true character is unveiled when he must make a choice to voice the truth and doom his beloved New York Football Giants to another season without a post-season or lie and let the events go unpunished and let the Giants fortunes fall where they may. Despite Oswalt's enormous comedic acumen, there is little comedy in this film and he manages to portray the pathetic single-mindedness of fandom and all of it's delusions. The subject of fans transcends sports. Just think about your favorite actor or musician or artist or designer, etc., chances are that even the most gregarious of them, put in a certain situation, can and do come off as complete assholes. I've always believed that it's best not to meet people with any amount of fame and if you do see them in public, then a simple head nod and nothing above a "thank you" is necessary. If only poor Aufieri and the millions of other fans out there would heed this advice, we might have more modest talented people out there instead of the celebrity culture that has evolved over the last few decades. I thought this movie was disturbing and asked a lot of great questions, but in the end only showed the weakness of the human condition and offered no growth through experience.

Grade: 7.8