week FIVE

First off: Thanks to everyone who called in this show. It's great to know who's listening and to get great feedback from my listeners. I hope to hear from all of you next week :)

1. Willy Mason did just about the coolest cover ever when he re-did the hip-hop classic "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash. You can collect it here and finally recognize how great the lyrics are.

2. In other folk artists covering rap songs splendor, Bonnie "Prince" Billy is creating a cover album which you can read about here. On the show, I played his version of "Ignition" by R. Kelly and it was fantastic. You can pick it up here (along with a bunch of other cool covers)

3. Xiu Xiu covers "Ceremony" by New Order and does a better job than anyone else who was smart enough to hop on the covering-New Order and Joy Division bandwagon. Pick it up here.

4. Jonathan Richman covered "Back In the USA" and he's coming to Santa Cruz! And we're giving away tickets! Start researching here and stay tuned on KZSC for those freebies :)

Remixes and covers (week FOUR) recap

1. Kanye West did his own version of Peter Bjorn & John's "Young Folks". I totally fell in love with it and it is now my favorite rework of the (much remixed, covered, reworked) song. Find your own copy here.

2. I got kind of obsessed with the song "Nothing Compares 2 U" which was made famous by Sinead O'Connor in the 90s. Turns out the original is by (just guess......) Prince! I also found an incredible version by Dan Kelly. The song makes me stretch my vocal capabilities to an unfortunate and antisocial extent. I suggest you discover the Dan Kelly version and re-discover the O'Connor versj.

>> Pick up the Dan Kelly version and notice how it's labeled as a Sinead O'Connor cover. Now feel smart for knowing better :)
>> Download the original by Prince - [via z-share]
>> Watch the amazing and tear-jerking video of Sinead O'Connor's version.

3. I rediscovered my love for Flosstradamus' incredible mashups. "Overnight Star" is simply amazing and everything else he does isn't too far behind. Pick up a couple of tracks here.

4. Music discovery in the key of "oh, that's a cover?": Blondie's "Hangin' On the Telephone" is, in fact, a cover of the same song by The Nerves. As an anticlimax, Blondie still does it better.

of the greatest (week THREE)

Welcome to week 3 of Remixed & Revised! Highlights for tonight's show will include:

(1) Prince covers! Prince is one of my favorite pop artists and thankfully all the covers I find of his stuff are consistently awesome. This week "When You Were Mine" will be played by Prince, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone. and Tegan & Sarah, all of which are available if you do a simple search for "When You Were Mine" over at The Hype Machine (a great music source bee tee dubs).

(2) Grizzly Bear! Just released their Friend EP with covers of "Knife" (the best song evvs) done by CSS (which I'll play), as well as Band of Horses and Atlas Sound. There's also a new version of "Alligator" that features The Dirty Projectors as well as Beirut! If that's not enough to make you feel like someone just dumped a load of confetti on you, I don't know what is.

(3) No Man's Woman is a compilation of songs originally done by women, covered by, well, men. It's a feminist thing, you see. The CD was just released 2 days ago, and I'll be playing a cover of Sinead O'Conor Prince's "Nothing Compares 2 U" done by Dan Kelly

(4) Beatles Regrooved is a pretty solid Beatles cover album. I know, how many more covers of the Beatles could there be? Answer: more. I normally wouldn't go for something so predictable, but these electronic covers are pretty rad.

(5) Norman Palm just released his "Boys and Girls" EP with covers of "Boys Don't Cry" and "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun". Pretty sweet if you ask me. Myspace here.

(6) Fiona Apple. I love her cover of "Across the Universe" from the Pleasantville soundtrack. I saw the movie again a few days back and remembered how great her version is. Plus, next year the movie (and cover) will be 10yrs old, which means it's cool again.

the Highlights (week TWO)

On tonight's show, you're going to hear some great songs coming off of full. blown. ALBUMS!!! (I know, it's totally rockin.) Here's the best of the best:

1. Bridging the Distance: a compilation of covers by bands from Portland, OR. It's chalk full of great stuff and the money is raised to support p:ear (which supplies mentorships to youths and homeless alike). Read more about it here.

What you'll hear on the show:
A Billy Idol cover (done beautifully), a cover of "Tangerine" by Led Zeppelin, a cover of Jimmy Cliff's "The Harder They Come", and a Heart cover. All beautiful.

2. The Late, Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered
A compilation album that comes with a full disc of covers done by great musicians like Death Cab For Cubie, The Flaming Lips, M. Ward, and T.V. on the Radio.

What you'll hear on the show:
T.V. On the Radio doing "Walking the Cow"

3. Architecture in Helsinki's own response to their own album In Case We Die called We Died, They Remixed. In short, a great title with some pretty great remixes. I'm a fairly big fan of Architecture, and the full CD is almost just as satisfying as their original stuff.

What you'll hear on the show:
2 remixes of "Do the Whirlwind": one by Hot Chip, one by Yacht, and a "Maybe You Can Owe Me" remix by Qua

4. Another great indie-pop band creating a remix/cover album for themselves and giving it a good name: Stars' Do You Trust Your Friends?. The name's pretty fitting because the Montreal-based Arts & Crafts label is just about the friendliest (and sweetest, and cutest, and prettiest) label out there. Remixes and covers are done by The Dears, Minotaur Shock, Jason Collett, Montag, Final Fantasy, and Metric among others.

What you'll hear on the show:
Covers/remixes by Final Fantasy and Montag

5. Dump's horribly named Prince cover album: That Skinny Motherfucker with the High Voice
A solo project of Yo La Tengo's bassist James McNew where he covers only Prince songs. I was about to rant about how his choice in naming his band and his album suck, until I read this Wikipedia trivia:

The title That Skinny Motherfucker With the High Voice? comes from the Prince song Bob George (from The Black Album) in which Prince assumes the identity of a cursing, gun-wielding alter ego who murders a woman and dismisses himself as "that skinny motherfucker with the high voice".

Pretty cool. We like Prince. Mainly because Brad Neely quotes him twice and also because I named my blog after Neely's references. I swear it has nothing to do with how catchy fun dancy his songs are.

What you'll hear on the show:
Covers of Raspberry Beret and 1999 (look for the pocket full of horses line in 1999!)

introducing (week ONE)

Welcome to the new new new Remixed & Revised blog! I'll be posting the highlights of each show here, with links on where to get some of the songs or albums I featured. Remember that you can always access my playlists by going to KZSC.org.

Last week featured a lot of really good stuff that I've been collecting over a long period of time, so I unfortunately can't show you were to get all the songs. However, My Old Kentucky Blog has been working on a covers project for quite a while now. If you head over there, scroll for a while, and look on the left-hand column, you should find links to a bunch of posts for different songs. There are literally 100s of covers on this blog. I chose a few to play, but if you really love covers, this is the place to look.

Another song I'd like to stress is the remix of Taken By Trees's "Too Young". I found the reworking at Pitchfork and it's really pretty amazing. You can also access Taken By Trees' myspace for more songs, which I highly suggest. I can't tell you how many blissful naps have been set to Victoria Bersgman's voice (she sang on "Young Folks").

I'd also like to point out my show's mission statement in action. Last week I played a Hot Chip remix of "Launch Yourself" by a band called Adem. I've loved this song for quite a while, but never looked into the original artist's work until last week. Turns out Adem is an awesome musician, and one that I wouldn't have discovered had it not been for Hot Chip's superior mixing skills. Check them out here.

Don't forget to tune in every week, as every week is going to be quite different. I have a lot of neat stuff planned for tonight, so look forward to a great show and a great new post soon!