March 11, 2008

The votes are in and we can say the mandate from last week’s Cover Wars belongs to…….Grateful Dead.

This week’s edition features a song so fantastic that dudes in many bands have no problem whatsoever citing the opening lyrics, “I am an old woman named after my mother”. Three-chord songs really are a thing of beauty. Wikipedia tells me that, Songwriter Harlan Howard once said “All you need to write a country song is three chords and the Truth.”

That’s all that original performerJohn Prine has here, and it is most certainly was an instant classic. Let’s take a look at a few renditions after the jump.

How does an aging alt.rock band connect with a new generation of music fans? Well if your R.E.M. you hook up a the music discovery website iLike and allow people

Armed with a new record and a new guitarist, The Black Crowes brought their “One Night Only” tour to a capacity crowd at the Park West on Friday. For seven nights across the country, the Crowes will perform the new Warpaint record in its entirety along with a brief set of classics and covers.

In times of change, the band always seem to revert back to a club tour to get their bearings. They had a similar setup on the East Coast to kick off 2005’s reunion, and this run proved to be a similar situation – allowing the band the comforts of intimacy while road-testing the material before delving into their usual outdoor summer plans.

These shows also provide a means for new recruit, Luther Dickinson, to ease himself into the mix – a transition that is more than already under way. Luther’s stamp is all over Warpaint, making it a surprisingly focused record whose weak link appears to be Chris Robinson’s lyrics. The songs themselves are the most interesting to come from the Brothers Robinson since 1996’s Three Snakes and One Charm, something which Dickinson and bassist, Sven Pipien can be given a lot of credit for. Pipien finally seems comfortable in his role, and is downright assertive on the new material – a welcome change from his playing during the awkward By Your Side days. Read on for more…

Forget about the buzz that has surrounded Vampire Weekend, because if music blogs had existed back in the mid-90s Radish would have become a household name rather then a footnote in the career of Ben Kweller. At the tender age of 15, Kweller and his grunge-based trio found themselves at the center of a major label bidding war – all of whom were looking to sign the next Nirvana (a band they were heavily influenced by, check their video for Pink Little Stars).

Radish eventually landed on Mercury Records, appeared on Conan, Letterman and even The Weird Al Show, but hype doesn’t necessarily led to success and their debut album Restraining Bolt was a commercial flop. The band’s sophomore effort was recorded, but never released and Kweller fled to New York City to pursue a solo career – all this by the age of 19. While many could have easily faded in obscurity, Ben decided to do things his own way and slowly built his solo career from the ground up. Read on to hear more about his slacker-infused indie-pop…