You’re Just Too Obscure For Me

This is the new set, which will stay up til maybe Saturday. I’ll write a bit about these a little later on. The theme for this set is that all of these are songs that Stephen Malkmus has been covering since Pavement broke up. More later…

Stephen Malkmus “Death and the Maiden”

The Verlaines “Death and the Maiden”

The Malkmus version is taken from 2002’s Flying Nun 21st anniversary compilation, Under The Influence, on which artists from Flying Nun’s roster over the years reinterpret each other’s songs. Malkmus was the only non-Flying Nun musician invited to be part of this project, and his contribution is this beautiful cover of The Verlaines’ “Death And The Maiden”, featuring Verlaines songwriter Graeme Downes on bass.

Stephen Malkmus “Fly” (live in Malmo, Sweden)

J.K. & Co. “Fly”

“Fly” is taken from the only album ever recorded by J.K. & Co., 1968’s Suddenly One Summer. J.K. & Co. were led by the 15 year old singer/songwriter Jay Kaye, son of the guitarist Mary Kaye of Las Vegas’ The Mary Kaye Trio and namesake of the Mary Kaye Fender Stratocaster. The album itself is primarily inspired by Jay’s spiritual awakening as a result of taking LSD, and is meant to represent the birth and death of a fictional man. His band’s career was unfortunately cut short due to their record company’s unwise decision to release the 36 second instrumental intro before “Fly” on the album as a single in an attempt to gain publicity for having the shortest single ever released. This obviously didn’t go over well, and led to very poor sales for the album, and the band were financially limited to touring only in California. Making matters worse, Kaye’s age meant that they could not get gigs in most nightclubs, forcing them to play mostly teen rec centers. Apparently, Kaye is now living in Spain and still writing and performing music.

Stephen Malkmus “Tale In Hard Time” (live on Oui FM, Paris)

Fairport Convention “Tale In Hard Time”

Stephen Malkmus “Alien Boy” (Lamacq session)

The Wipers “Alien Boy”

Stephen Malkmus “The Poet And The Witch” (live in Malmo, Sweden)

Mellow Candle “The Poet And The Witch”

For Pete:

Avey Tare & Panda Bear “Chocolate Girl”

Avey Tare & Panda Bear “Penny Dreadfuls”

Avey Tare & Panda Bear “La Rapet”

Avey Tare, Panda Bear, and the Geologist “Throwin’ The Round Ball”

For those who may be interested, Jody Beth is rerunning the review of Boom Selection_Issue 01 that I wrote for Southside Callbox over the summer. I’ve never been happy with how that review came out, I sort of cringe when I read it; but Jody must have liked it enough to run it again, I suppose.