Bettie Serveert have been around since 1986, coming up with the likes of Superchunk, Pearl Jam, and Belly, and forming the basis for bigger (but less talented) bands like Garbage. Their 2010 release, “Pharmacy of Love,” is a testament to why this band is better than all the other bands who sound like them. It’s the talent, stupid. Their songs are tight, and their musicianship is top notch. The drumming on “Love Lee,” for example, is relentlessly upbeat, while the chopping guitar and bassline come through in waves, making the heart race and the head bob and weave. And then, of course, there’s Carol van Dyk’s vocals. Van Dyk has always had solid range, but she’s not prone to acrobatics. That’s part of what made this band less “pop” than Shirley Manson’s soundalikes–van Dyke is steady and even, not selling the song on the chorus alone.

It’s amazing that the band is still on fire after all these years. The sound is a little dated, sure, because noone is making music like this any more. But if you can get your ’90s chick groove on, this album is a treasure.

Semaphore

Deny All video:

Cover albums are usually a collection of songs that sound pretty much like the originals, with some really eclectic choices to show how cool the band is.  In other words, they’re about establishing credibility for musical tastes, but not so much for musical skill.  It’s much easier to be creative when someone else already did the creating part of the job.

But not so, “Turn Ons,” the debut album by Supergrass side project Hot Rats (starring Gaz Coombes and Danny Goffey).  The songs here are more than covers—they take on the originals in meaningful ways, even changing the very composition.  The most obvious example is their falsetto, almost emo cover of The Beastie Boys anthem, “Fight for Your Right To Party,” which I didn’t even recognize until I did a double-take on the lyrics.  But there are subtler examples as well.  The Lovecats, for example, is beautifully reworked from goth to psychedelic punk, and Bike is reworked from psychedelic rock to psychedelic new wave, while Squeeze’s “Up the Junction” goes from soulless Europop to a song with painful meaning.  Honestly, I knew all the lyrics to that song and must have listened to it a hundred times at college parties, but I never realized it was a desperate song about an alcoholic who destroys his own marriage.

You’ll be curious about this album because it’s a covers album and, hey, who doesn’t love covers?  But you should get it because it’s very, very good.  And unlike most covers projects, it might actually surprise you.

Fight For Your Right to Party (YSI)

BONUS!

Party for Your Right to Fight-Atmosphere (YSI)

Before you can begin to enjoy Heavy Glow’s

“The Filth and the Fury,” you have to forgive them for swiping the name from the Sex Pistols.  You have to, because they are absolutely nothing like the Pistols.  Heavy Glow are a blues trio with blazing guitar, energetic drums, and rough(ish) vocals.  Are they like The White Stripes?  A little.  But their music is tighter, better organized.  Are they like Black Keys?  A little, but the vocals are much better and they focus on extended 1970s-style guitar solos.  Their well-produced EP features modern blues like “Red July” and heavier, stoner jams like the single, “Love Ghost.”  The EP consists of 5 songs recorded in one 6-hour session.  And it sounds like it, too.  There’s a sense of improvisation and freedom, the sound of sweat and smiles, mixed in with the dirt and grind.

The CD that the band sent me also has two unlisted bonus tracks that are just as good as the five “official” listed tracks.  When I looked it up on iTunes, it looks like you just get the five there.  So order the CD from their website or something.  This is a trio that should be on your radar.

Love Ghost

Last April, I prayed that a group of really obnoxious looking kids called The Strange Boys would get some hype and love. Sometimes, dreams come true.  In the Red Records (Black Lips, Jay Reatard, Mystery Girls) will release the Austin, Texas band’s latest foray into organ-driven, 1950s garage-style nasal punk this month. The band has grown a little bit, but they still sound a bunch of weirdos practicing in their basement.  And that D.I.Y. sound is what makes them so much fun . . . And so damn good.  It’s the kind of music where anything can happen.  The single, “Be Brave,” is freakin’ awesome.  And you gotta dig the lyrics, too, even if you have to strain to understand them sometimes.  A favorite is from the lead-off track, “I See,” which goes: “Tonight’s dinner is tomorrow’s shit/Enjoy it before it stinks.”  It sounds like it’s trying to be profound, but comes off as just rude.  Love that.

The album is already out in Europe, and I’m warning you: Don’t sleep on it.  The Strange Boys fucking kick ass.

I See

Video for “Be Brave,” with lightswitch-flickering strobe effects!

So Valentiger’s “Power Lines to Electric Times” is actually a 2009 release, but I’m just now getting my ears on it.  At first listen, I thought, “Eh.  A little Byrne, a little Neil Young, it’s pretty standard indie.”  But as I moved through the record, I heard a vulnerability and rawness that went beneath the lo-fi surface.  I found tunes that are catchy because they’re real, not because they’re trying to be hip.

Valentiger’s record is the cure for indiecool, the remedy for topically infectious music that tries too hard to have a real impact.

Check out a few tunes . . .

Leaving Town

Never Ready

. . . Or check out the whole album, and get a T-Shirt to boot!  This is a band that wants to be heard by you, dear readers!

To win a free copy of the CD and a T-Shirt:

Drop me a comment telling me why you deserve it.  The best answer will win.  Winner will be selected in 7 days, and I will send that winner an e-mail asking for his/her address.  So check your e-mail, because if you don’t respond within 24 hours, I’ll go on to the next-best answer.

Good luck!

Current Spring Tour Dates:
5/13 – Crofoot (Pontiac, MI)
5/14 – Boulder Coffee (Rochester, NY)
5/15 – Arts at the Armory (Somerville, MA)
5/16 -  Union Pool (Brooklyn, NY)
5/17 – 5/21 TBA-Go here for info
5/22 – Annabell’s (Akron, OH)

Finally, don’t miss their field recordings project–videos of the band performing all the songs from Power Lines To Electric Times.

I’ve loved Mark Everett since he was The Man Called E.  His sad, ironic break-ups are to relationship singer-songwriter folk what Bob Dylan’s anthems are to protest rock: Great because they are unflinching and raw, and honest.  End Times, Eels‘ eight studio record, is all about losing a marriage while the world loses its soul.  As his primary relationship ends, the artist tells of a heartless world on which “people will spit [and] give you shit just for looking at them and walking too slow.”  It’s dark and bitter, but it’s also not without love and humor, as is the case with most of E’s albums.

Musically, the record isn’t as challenging as Souljacker, and thematically it isn’t as inventive as Blinking Lights, but it doesn’t have to be—it’s a simpler album, clearer and more focused.  If songs like “Little Bird” and “In My Younger Days” don’t make you stop what you’re doing and just listen, you probably have no soul.  And if “Things the Grandchildren Should Know” and “I Need a Mother” don’t resonate with you, you probably have no heart.  Or at least no family that’s ever had problems.  Maybe you’re Beaver Cleaver.

I expected to like this album, as I do all Eels records, but I didn’t expect to love it.  What a great surprise.  End Times is a great addition to an already impressive catalog.

Little Bird

BONUS!  EELS DOING COVERS!

Sweet Home Alabama (ysi)

If I Was Your Girlfriend (ysi)

Bethany Costentino (formerly of Pocahaunted), who plays lo fi garage punk under the name Best Coast has an EP out. It’s three songs. And way too fucking short. At a little under $2 per song, you should go and pay for it, cheap bastards.

Wish He Was You

As an indie-only blogger with five years of webcred, I tend to have a very full mailbag.  I also have this psychotic feeling of obligation to listen to everything I get–or at least to get through the first track.  Sixty percent don’t get me to track 2.  For another twenty percent, I can’t make it through the whole thing.  Then there’s the remaining 2 out of 10, which get reviewed.  Here’s two.

First, I don’t know why I do, but I really dig the new EP from Ela Caspian, “Stars.”  It’s upbeat pop with few surprises, but it’s played well and it’s catchy as hell.  I always look on self-released material with more mercy, particularly when it is released for free, but I’m not sure Ela Caspian even needed such special dispensation.  It’s cheerful party music, with nothing to offend, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with having a little fun.

Get it at the band’s myspace page.

Stars (YSI)

The second free EP on the menu today is from Jon Hardy and the Public.  Their EP, “Sugar,” is also a free D.I.Y.  And it’s terrific. I really haven’t enjoyed an EP so much in a long time.

The St. Louis band has already established itself on NPR and in No Depression, so you also pretty much know it’s Americana just from the pedigree.  It seems like this is a genre that a lot of new artists play in–maybe it’s easy or something–but that makes it even harder to distinguish a special sound.  Jon Hardy has a great voice–he’s actually a singer–and the songwriting is tight and original.  The music does have that alt-country feel, but there’s enough indie rock in here to make it cool, and there’s no twang to tie it down.  Come for the great cover of “Where Did Our Love Go,” but stay for originals like Hold Your Tongue.

Here’s some samples, but I don’t recommend them.  I recommend going to get the whole thing for free.  Get it free!

Hold Your Tongue

Where Did Our Love Go? (Supremes cover)

“Henry the Van’ is the first cut on Australian Danny George Wilson’s latest record.  It’s a funeral for a friend, who is a car.  “Guess we could try to fix you up . . . Maybe go for an easy roll once in a blue sky . . .”  The concept may be funny, but it’s a lot more touching than most songs about actual people who’ve died.  This is a testament to Wilson’s skill, imagination, compassion, and his ability to communicate.

You may remember Danny George as the singer-guitarist of Grand Drive, a much-loved Americana group, but his solo venture is far, far more interesting.  And make no mistake: This is a Danny George Wilson production.  Despite the harmonies and quality musicianship, Danny and the Champions of the World are really a solo venture.  Wilson most closely mirrors Neil Young’s country rock phrasing, and sometimes the similarity is almost uncanny, but his voice is unique: It’s cheery and optimistic, even when singing about getting old and being sad, and it’s romantically simple.  The lyrics are direct and uncomplicated, but ring true, powerfully: “I wanna feel your hand in my hand tonight . . . Just trying to get back to what we used to be/Just trying to get back to something to believe/Looking down at these restless feet.”

If this album doesn’t make you feel something, maybe you’re dead inside.

And Juno’s got it for thirteen bucks.

Henry the Van (the second best song about a van I’ve ever heard.  The first is “Chevy Van” by Sammy Johns, available on the Rhino “Sounds of the ’70s” collection.)

Yukon Blonde’s debut is a little bit optimistic My Morning Jacket, with some shades of The Delfonics (on “Kumiko Song”) and generally high-quality indie rock.  The band’s debut is coming out March 23rd, and you can catch ‘em on tour.

Yukon Blonde 2010 Tour Dates:

Wind Blows