YouTube Cover Theater « Kenny Smith

YouTube Cover Theater

Remember what the train conductor said

My four tokens to the general usefulness of things today:

I graded a lot of things.
I prepared a bit for my comps defense.
I read a lot about Libya, the slow-motion thing that can’t be stopped, with fascination.
And I built a mobile version of my website.

The world really needed that last one. Someone poked fun that I didn’t have a mobile version to the blog yet. But late this evening I added a plugin for that too. So you can easily see this drivel anytime.

I tinkered with this one for a while, but couldn’t make it go. So I found another one to build from. I’m on the fence about it, but what do you think? The mobile site is here. The mobile version of the blog is … well, found on your phone.

It is a curious thing, but I like that particular mobile theme on a friend’s site, but I’m not sure it works here. When these are the problems in your life you’re doing OK, though, so I won’t be too upset about it.

My comps defense is rumored to be next week. So I’ve been consolidating a few ideas I’d like to incorporate into that conversation.

On Libya, these types of stories are always good reading, and the reporting here is fine:

“This is the greatest opportunity to realign our interests and our values,” a senior administration official said at the meeting, telling the experts this sentence came from Obama himself. The president was referring to the broader change going on in the Middle East and the need to rebalance U.S. foreign policy toward a greater focus on democracy and human rights.

It will be interesting to see how long this shiny spin on things remains in place.

“In the case of Libya, they just threw out their playbook,” said Steve Clemons, the foreign policy chief at the New America Foundation. “The fact that Obama pivoted on a dime shows that the White House is flying without a strategy and that we have a reactive presidency right now and not a strategic one.”

So the next few weeks should be interesting.

Baseball this evening, Auburn hosts Arkansas this weekend, but dropped the opener 6-5 in 11 innnings. The bullpen is still working itself out and Auburn stranded eight runners on base and seven of those were in scoring position.

We had pizza after the game at Mellow Mushroom. We noticed that Moe’s Original Barbecue is now open downtown. Finally, our style of ‘cue. Now we just have to become regulars.

YouTube Cover Theater is a little feature intending to point out the art of people making music in their homes to their video camera. There’s a lot of talent out there, some of it is more than worth sharing. I hurriedly picked REM as this week’s featured cover act. It didn’t seem the best pick at the time, but now I’m glad of it. Their music seems to have a lot of room in it for others to play. Unfortunately none of these particular three covers have been seen by more than 2,000 people.

Doug McKenna is an independent artist, but unfortunately his site has been neglected. Nevertheless, Sweetness Follows is a good tune and he does a nice job here:

My favorite REM song, and it is a shame this has only 59 views. Unfortunately there’s not much biographical information about the guy here, but his treatment of Driver 8 is good fun:

In a different career on those rare times when I had to play music at radio stations I’d always end my shift with this song, so we’ll end this post the same way.

Friday / YouTube Cover Theater / cycling / friends / video — 1 Comment
4
Mar 11

Thanks Shimano

What not to do on your bike: destroy the crank set first thing.

My Felt showed up two weeks ago and this afternoon I finally had a chance to take it out for a spin. Five miles out — and fortunately close to home — the aluminum machining was ruined.

So that was frustrating. And will be costly to replace and set me back a week.

But at least I have all of the necessary bike accessories.

And, hey, I’ve reviewed a book blurb, chewed through my grading, started staring at my dissertation notes and more this week.

We had dinner tonight with hysterical friends. Andrew, with whom The Yankee and I studied at Alabama, was passing through town. That brought out one of his friends from undergrad at AUM.

From this conversation we’ve learned one of life’s most important questions: are you salad curious?

YouTube Cover Theater returns with three quick samples from Pete Yorn. First up is a cover of a Yorn duet with Scarlett Johansson, Relator:

There’s his turn of the century first single, Life on a Chain:

And, finally, this, which is more interesting for the story than the cover. The guy here had just retired and bought this guitar with his last paycheck:

What would you buy with that last check?

(Cranksets don’t count.)

Friday / YouTube Cover Theater / video — No Comments
25
Feb 11

YouTube Cover Theater

Spartan effort, to be sure, but it has been a tired, empty day. So we’ll just get straight to the YouTube Cover Theater, where the talents of anonymous people are shared online because they have a camera and somewhere to host their artistic abilities. This week’s featured cover artist is indie-favorite Gillian Welch. I spent all of Tuesday night studying listening to her music, so it seemed a fitting way to wrap up the week.

First, there’s this incredibly solemn version of I Dream a Highway:

Sam and Sue play around with a song you might have heard here or there:

Catrina Rogers handles Gillian’s standard, Time the Revelator, with a lonely AM vibe:

And since many people may not know Gillian’s work aside from that tune and a few movie appearances, I’ll include a video of her covering a song herself.

One day someone will invent an instrument even my talentless hands can master. And I’ll start a band, and we’ll find another band that likes to do ensemble pieces. And we’ll play medium-tempo stuff and swap out the leads. Somewhere along the way someone will come up to me and say “Why don’t you play The Weight?”

I will say “Because it has already found perfection.”

Friday / YouTube Cover Theater / music — No Comments
11
Feb 11

YouTube Cover Theater

Just the fun stuff today as most everything else wasn’t really a lot to talk about. So we’ll play the music, making the point once again that the world is full of artists in their bedrooms, kitchens and garages and they just needed YouTube to come along and help show them off.

This week’s featured artist being covered are Minnesota’s favorite sons, and one of my favorite bands, The Jayhawks. They have a large catalog and a small, devoted following. There aren’t a ton of covers on YouTube, but what you get is choice.

From Rainy Day Music:

I’d be willing to bet a lot of Jayhawks people find this to be an underappreciated song, this is Smile, from the album of the same name, as performed by Marco Ferri:

I might have put Russ in this space before, but here he’s playing The Yankee’s favorite Jayhawks song, Angelyne, in split screen, on a 2kulele.

That’s also from Rainy Day Music. We make up our own lyrics to that one. Usually it has to do with pancakes.

There doesn’t seem to be a proper cover of my favorite Jayhawks song, from the woefully under-appreciated Hollywood Town Hall, so I’ll just put the official video here:

It is startling. I’d say “They look so young!” And then I realize that video is almost 20 years old. Mark Olson, the guy with the straw hat, turns 50 this year. Gary Louris is sneaking up on 60. Two years agoOlson and Louris recorded an album. They’re due to release another record in what is considered their classic band lineup later this year.

Friday / YouTube Cover Theater / video — No Comments
28
Jan 11

YouTube Cover Theater

Nothing of import to share, just a day of Email and reading and phone numbers. So we’ll get right to the good stuff, the magnificent return of a weekly feature that proves the point there is plenty of art out there just waiting for a play to show off, like YouTube.

The premise is that a musician is picked and we display a small handful of non-professional musicians covering their work. The musician this week is actually a band, Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros. They started out with their initial success online, so who knows where the people you watch today will end up.

First off Eric Smalls offers up his take on a song called Janglin. You’ve probably heard the original in a commercial here and there. Smalls makes it a bit more mellow. His mother, if you read the comments, really likes it. You might too.

Andy Glover plays 40 Day Dream and he gives it a nice little sound.

This is the song for which most people know Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. There are predominantly more covers of this tune on YouTube than any of their other ones. And while I don’t generally like kids singing, because it is just novel or odd or both. (But not your kid. Your kid sounds great.)

This little girl is adorable and and will blow you away.