No, I’m not dead; I’ve just been very busy. I’ll be working on a website for someone with a friend all this weekend, so maybe i’ll have some time to update. 🙂
Happy Fall!
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Mat Weddle – Hey Ya! (Acoustic)
Ok, this is an excellent acoustic cover of Outkast’s “Hey Ya!,” courtesy of Mat Weddle of the band Obadiah Parker. I’m impressed, and I think you will be, too.
Enjoy.
I received the David Crowder Band’s latest release B Collision, or (…the Eschatology of Bluegrass) in the mail earlier this week, and man, has it been a treat to listen to. B Collision provides a stripped-down, acoustic treatment to some of the songs from DCB’s previous full length, A Collision, along with a few live cuts from their 2006 tour with Robbie Seay and Shane & Shane. David Crowder’s offerings have been strong in the past, often very creative while remaining catchy; he won’t be shoehorned into a hole. A Collision featured genres ranging from rock to folk to bluegrass, to, well, jsut plain weird (in a cool way). Following in the footsteps of this tradition, B Collision does not disappoint.
The track listing is as follows:
1.) Intro (I’ve Had Enough)
2.) A Beautiful Collision
3.) Wholly Yours
4.) Everybody Wants to go to Heaven (LP)
5.) I Can Hear the Angels Singing / (…andeverandeverand…)
6.) Be Lifted (live with Robbie Seay and Shane & Shane)
7 .) I Saw the Light (live with Robbie Seay and Shane & Shane)
The first song on the album, “Intro (I’ve Had Enough)”, starts off very lo-fi, with Crowder sitting down and getting ready before he begins playing. A quiet banjo enters midway through the intro, sounding as if it’s in the back of the room away from the microphone for a nice effect.
Track two is my favorite currently, with a glitchy-electronic feel behind Crowders voice that builds until beautiful banjo-picking takes the limelight at the chorus. Magnetic tape whirrs and clicks encapsulate much of the track, but the feel remains organic throughout.
Track three, “Wholly Yours,” is a different treatment of a song off of A Collision, remixed with slight electronic flourishes and featuring subtle banjo on the latter half of the song.
The LP version of “Everybody Wants to go to Heaven” gracefully follows, clocking in at a generous 4:56, an expansion of the 1:04 version found on A Collision.
Track five, “I Can Hear the Angels Singing” fades into a interlude of crowd noise under the moniker “(…andeverandeverand…),” initiating the live portion of the album. “Be Lifted” and “I Saw the Light” were recorded on the road in Kansas, and they capture the live feel of Crowder’s shows rather well.
Anyway, I was very happy with this purchase; David Crowder continues to push the boundaries of his music in the pursuit of good art, and it’s a gamble that has continued to pay off with each new album. B Collision is highly recommended, in my book.
On Saturday I drove down to Richmond with a friend to catch Copeland play with Lovedrug at Alley Katz. Besides the fact that it was an early show (5 to 9 PM) and inundated with tons of Emo kids that all looked the same (“I need some Pumas and a lip ring, STAT!”), Copeland was AMAZING.
Wow.
Due to Lovedrug and a couple of the other openers running over, Copeland only got to play for about 35 minutes, but it was still totally worth, it, a sonic feast for the ears. They led off with “When Paula Sparks” off of Beneath Medicine Tree then continuted with a number of their songs off of In Motion.
To top it off, my friend and I stopped by Chick-Fil-A on the way back for dinner and a chocolate milkshake. Mmmmm.
To sum up, Copeland is one of my favorite bands, and for good reason. They sound as awesome live as they do on their LPs, so if you get a chance to watch them play somewhere, it will behoove you to do so.
Copeland’s new album, Eat, Sleep, Repeat is set to be released on Halloween of this year (10.30.2006). I can’t wait; from what I’ve heard, it’s shaping up to be another solid album. Copeland makes the cut when it comes to bands whose albums I’ll always buy.
Well, two of my UVA classmates (and dormmates) Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian have made it big, according to this article. If you’ve never been to Reddit before, I suggest you try it out; it’s similar in theory to Digg in that its a socially aggregated and moderated news source, but Reddit deals with all types of news, not just technology (yes, I know that Digg recently expanded into other categories besides technology recently, but Reddit had that as its core model long before.) The interesting line in the article, I thought, was this:
Reddit, which attracts 50,000 visitors a day, reached profitability in April, Ohanian said. The company doesn’t disclose revenue figures.
Way to go, guys. It’s great to see my friends’ ventures taking off and making a splash.