| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Carl |
Posted - 03/14/2007 : 12:06:04
I've never heard of him before, but Glaswegian solo artist Steven Lindsay does a rather lovely cover of Monkey Gone To Heaven that you can listen on his MySpace page:
http://www.myspace.com/stevenlindsay
http://www.londonist.com/archives/2007/03/interview_steve.php
The first single from the album will be a cover of The Pixies’ “Monkey Gone To Heaven”. How did you
come to record that?
When I was in a band before, there were a few occasions when the record company said, “You should do a cover
version,” and when they tell you think, “Nah, I don’t want to do it”, but when it’s your own idea it seems like a
better plan. I was a Pixies fan and I always liked that song and it tied in with the oblique nature of some of the
other things I was listening to, plus it was a bit of a challenge to do something different with it. I did it in about a
day. I didn’t have any intention to make a big deal of it. Initially I thought, “That’ll be interesting. We’ll stick it on
the MySpace site or something,” but when people heard it they were like, “Oh, that sounds alright!” |
| 8 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Carl |
Posted - 05/22/2007 : 12:47:28
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article1803478.ece
From The Sunday Times
May 20, 2007
Cover and duck
Can you take a truly great track, rerecord it, and make it even better?
MARK EDWARDS
I received the news that Steven Lindsay had a new album coming
out with mixed emotions. On the one hand, his previous record,
Exit Music, was phenomenal – lush, melodic, soulful – so a new
one was welcome. But the news that Lindsay’s album, Kite, was
on its way came with the added nugget that he had done a cover
version of the Pixies’ Monkey Gone to Heaven. This is one of my
favourite songs – I’d say one of the greatest songs ever written.
Musically, every second is mesmerising. Lyrically, it is enigmatic
and extraordinary – offering hope to the human race in a time of
chaos. At least, that’s how I choose to interpret it – but has
anyone ever written a lyric open to more differing interpretations
than “If man is five, then the devil is six, then God is seven/ This
monkey’s gone to heaven”?
Anyway, you understand my quandary. Monkey Gone to Heaven
is perfect. Untouchable. You don’t mess with songs like that.
Clearly, Lindsay was about to ruin one of the greatest rock songs
of all time, to sully my memory of the original – and, at the same
time, to add a fatal flaw to his own album. But what’s this? Where
Kim Deal’s bass thumped magnificently in the original, we now
have tinkling keyboard arpeggios. Where Black Francis sneered
the sci-fi lines about the “underwater guy” who is killed by the
sludge, Lindsay offers us something more akin to Prefab Sprout.
Lindsay isn’t trying to “do the Pixies”; he has wrested control of
the song and steered it into his own territory. And it works.
Lindsay can’t scream like Francis, but he knows that the hope in
the song lies in the way you sing “God” and “seven”, and in those
harmonies in the chorus.
This rarely happens. The great cover versions almost all emerge
when someone spots unfulfilled potential in a song where the
original performance was only half realised. You don’t redo one of
the most powerful performances of one by the most powerful
bands and hope to come out of the process with your dignity – or
that of the song – intact. But Lindsay’s version has made me like
the song even more.
“I know that Monkey Gone to Heaven is sacred ground,” Lindsay
admits when we discuss it, “but doing someone else’s songs is
always fun. You enjoy a meal more if someone else cooks it,” he
adds, explaining that the fundamental angst of recording your own
songs – is it any good? – is removed when you cover a classic.
“I recorded it on a whim when the album was more or less
finished,” he continues. “I thought it might be a B-side or a hidden
track, but it turns out to fit really well on the album. And I think I
succeeded in making it different.”
The difficulty in covering a really great song is highlighted by the
fact that it’s almost impossible to think of a really great cover of a
Beatles song. Many have tried, but few have come up with overall
performances that rival the original. The best Beatles cover I’ve
heard in a long time is by the Irish singer-songwriter David Kitt,
whose version of And Your Bird Can Sing unexpectedly veers into
kraut-rock territory. As with Lindsay’s Monkey, the success of the
cover version lies in taking the song into radically different territory.
Bryan Ferry – something of a master of the cover version – pulled
off the same trick with his radical reinvention of Bob Dylan’s A
Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, as did Jimi Hendrix with the man’s All
Along the Watchtower – both providing a harder edge to the
original. But again, try to find many more Dylan cover versions that
stand alongside the original and you’ll be looking for a long time.
Cat Power took the opposite route to Hendrix when she covered
the Rolling Stones’ Satisfaction. Instead of adding a rock edge to a
quiet song, she took a classic piece of rock and removed all the
rock elements from it. Perhaps the most famous electric-guitar riff
ever played is consigned to the dustbin; so is the chorus. The
result is almost unrecognisable, but riveting. The Swedish singer
Stina Nordenstam took a similarly minimal approach to Prince’s
Purple Rain. It is as if she took apart a car engine and rebuilt it in
perfect working order, despite leaving most of the bits lying on the
garage floor.
So, those are three ways to cover an untouchable song and have a
chance of producing something worth hearing: strip it down, pump
it up or take it down an entirely different musical route. The fourth
way – the hardest – is to somehow turn in a performance that
matches the intensity of the original. The Stranglers managed it
when they hurled their way through Dionne Warwick’s Walk On
By. David Bowie also succeeded when he ran through a fairly
faithful version of Pink Floyd’s See Emily Play; as did Tori Amos
when she gave her distinctive interpretation of Nirvana’sSmells Like
Teen Spirit; as did Kathryn Williams when she recorded the Velvet
Underground’s Candy Says.
These successes are far outstripped by the failures, but there are
a few artists around who might just find a new angle on an old
favourite. Below are 10 that could be worth a listen. They might not
succeed, but we’d like to hear them try.
Cover me beautiful: tracks we’d love to hear
Super Furry Animals: Ashes to Ashes (David Bowie)
Babyshambles: Where Have All the Good Times Gone? (Kinks)
Lily Allen: Uptown Top Ranking (Althea & Donna)
King Creosote: God Only Knows (Beach Boys)
The Streets: Reasons to Be Cheerful (Ian Dury)
Gorillaz: Sign o’ the Times (Prince)
Flaming Lips: Strawberry Fields Forever (Beatles)
Sufjan Stevens: Wichita Lineman (Glen Campbell)
Outkast: Living for the City (Stevie Wonder)
Kaiser Chiefs: 19th Nervous Breakdown (Rolling Stones)
Found the video on Dailymotion!
IndieLondon.
Steven Lindsay - Kite
STEVEN Lindsay was once described by
a music magazine as “possibly the
greatest undiscovered songwriter in our
midst”.
Originally trained at the Glasgow School
Of Art and more Damien Hirst than
Damien Rice, Lindsay never really
intended to be a singer and musician.
He toyed with fame briefly in the 1990s
with his band The Big Dish and albums
like Creeping Up On Jesus and Satellites but it wasn’t until 2004 and his first
solo release, Exit Music, that people began to sit up and take note.
Exit Music was adored by critics – The Daily Telegraph called it “a quiet,
timeless masterpiece”, while the Guardian referred to it as “the kind of disc
that could start its own cult”.
Kite, his eagerly anticipated follow-up, is a selection of 11 songs book-
ended by two brief instrumentals that are designed to build on the success
of Exit Music and maybe even reach a mainstream listener base.
It’s certainly got a good chance, if his cover version of The Pixies’ seminal
Monkey Gone To Heaven is anything to go by.
Electronically based and built around a sombre piano score, Lindsay’s
haunting delivery makes for a quietly mesmerising alternative version –
proof positive that cover versions can be worth doing.
Pixies fans might have something to say about the lack of guitars but it’s an
achingly poignant reinterpretation that makes you feel sad and uplifted at
the same time.
The rest of the album, however, struggles to reach such great heights. At
times, it soars. The opening and closing instrumentals are beautifully
composed.
While second track Put Up The Flag is lush, breezy and genuinely easy to
listen to. The guitar loops are entrancing and Lindsay’s vocals are well
delivered.
The Flood is epic in a strangely quiet sort of way, embracing some mighty
themes without the need to grandstand, while Catch A Star offers another
highlight.
But just occasionally the album struggles to overcome the restrictions posed
by Lindsay’s haunted vocal style, no matter how enchanting some of his
instrumentals.
It’s this, more than anything, that prevents me from raving or hailing it as a
classic. Fans of Exit Music will doubtless hail his return as something of a
second coming. But as impressive as it is in places (and that Pixies cover in
particular), I wasn’t completely taken with it.
Download picks: Put Up The Flag, Monkey Gone To Heaven, Catch A Star,
Deep
Track listing:
1. Hairshirt
2. Put Up The Flag
3. Skywriter
4. Monkey Gone To Heaven
5. Flood
6. Kite
7. Metropolis
8. Catch A Star
9. Deep
10. Giving Up The Ghost
11. Memory
12. Light Sleep
13. Motorcade
Review by Jack Foley
IndieLondon Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Contactmusic.com
Steven Lindsay
Steven Lindsay
Monkey Gone To Heaven
Video
Steven Lindsay releases his new single, Monkey
Gone To Heaven, a cover of the Pixies classic, on
June 25th 2007. His new album Kite was released
earlier in June.
Steven Lindsay's extraordinarily effortless cover of
Pixies' Monkey Gone To Heaven that really gives
the game away: knowing yet naïve, insular yet universal, Lindsay's sanguine electronic arrangement and
stunning vocal performance serve to make this song as meaningful and direct as it could ever hope to
be. For the record, Lindsay says that his reason for choosing the song was that he "had been listening
to stuff that switched me into music in the first place like Bowie's Low/Heroes phase, early Roxy Music,
post-Punk and things with a strong aesthetic and more of an oblique sensibility. The Pixies song
always fell into that category for me." Steven Lindsay toyed with fame briefly in the 1990s with his band
The Big Dish and albums like Creeping Up On Jesus and Satellites but it wasn't until 2004 and his first
solo release, Exit Music, that people really began to sit up and take note. Exit Music was one of those
rare items, a record instantly recognisable as a classic but also one that grew and grew in the memory
leaving an indelible impression in your head.
Site - http://www.myspace.com/stevenlindsay
AngryApe.
Steven Lindsay - Monkey Gone To
Heaven
Published Thursday, 21st June, 2007 at 12:53 PM
You've got to be either pretty brave or pretty stupid to try and
cover a classic like Monkey Gone To Heaven by the Pixies, but
that's exactly what Steven Lindsay has done for this new
single (out on June 25th).
Lindsay has veered away from the raw original and slowed the
track down, adding a spooky atmosphere in the process. It's
obviously not as good as the Pixies version, but he has done a
good job in trying to reshape the song into his own sound.
You can judge for yourself whether the cover is any good, by
checking out this new video.
Download (STREAM)
stereogum: New Steven Lindsay Video - "Monkey Gone To Heaven". |
| coastline |
Posted - 03/18/2007 : 12:52:00
quote:
Originally posted by nicole
I DO like R.E.M.'s version of First We Take Manhattan better than the Leonard Cohen version. But I don't know, I'm weird about calling it better.
Pixies' cover of I Can't Forget is the song that made me start listening to more Pixies. And I do like that whole I'm Your Fan compilation a lot.
I can respect all that. And you're right -- hard to say this or that is "better." Best to say "I like it more."
By the way, welcome to the forum, in case nobody has said it.
Grand Marnier and a pocketful of speed. We did it all day until we started to bleed. |
| nicole |
Posted - 03/18/2007 : 11:39:52
I DO like R.E.M.'s version of First We Take Manhattan better than the Leonard Cohen version. But I don't know, I'm weird about calling it better.
Pixies' cover of I Can't Forget is the song that made me start listening to more Pixies. And I do like that whole I'm Your Fan compilation a lot. |
| coastline |
Posted - 03/18/2007 : 11:32:57
Right on! Good to have another Leonard Cohen fan on this forum, Nicole. And at the risk of letting this thread get completely derailed, I'll do my best to steer it back to the Pixies -- but I still have to defend my original statement.
There's more to Leonard Cohen than "Hallelujah," of course, but there have been some great covers of that song. I think my favorite is k.d. lang's -- I do consider her great. And I think it's better than the original.
As for Cohen's other songs, here are some I think are better than the originals, though I'll admit that not all of them are by well-known artists:
"Bird on the Wire" -- Johnny Cash
"First We Take Manhattan" -- R.E.M.
"Avalanche" -- Jean-Louis Murat
"A Singer Must Die" -- Fatima Mansions
"Tower of Song" -- Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
"Sisters of Mercy" -- Sting & the Chieftains (that one might be debatable, but only because of Sting, not the Chieftains)
"Don't Go Home With Your Hard-on" -- David McComb & Adam Peters
And, to tie this back to the Pixies:
"I Can't Forget" -- Pixies
I've also heard some amazing versions of Cohen's songs by Tori Amos, including "Famous Blue Raincoat" (the original, though, is my favorite song by anyone ever) and a live "Suzanne" a couple years ago that gave me chills.
Grand Marnier and a pocketful of speed. We did it all day until we started to bleed. |
| nicole |
Posted - 03/18/2007 : 08:15:36
quote:
Originally posted by coastline
In a perfect world, someday all the great artists will be covering Pixies songs and doing them even better -- like has happened with Leonard Cohen's music.
 Please pardon me, for these my wrongs.
No one does Leonard Cohen songs better than Leonard Cohen! Aaaaah! I am so tired of people underappreciating the original version of Hallelujah especially!
And "great artists" my foot. Rufus Wainright sucks and I'd almost rather Leonard Cohen REMAIN obscure and underappreciated than have people like Rufus Wainright be the ones giving his work a new audience.
I have yet to hear a cover of Hallelujah that doesn't just seem to me to be distorted to sound more, I don't know, satisfying. Now, I don't know all the musical jargon, but the original, to me (from Various Positions), is brilliantly subtle, almost frustrating in its note choices, like with the word "heard" in the first verse. But I guess John Cale is the one to blame, and can't be mad at John Cale, mostly because he's the one who added the viola to "Heroin", which I think is one of the best things anyone has ever done musically.
And I mean, yes, John Cale's version is very very pretty, but every single other cover version I've ever heard seems to be a carbon copy of that one vocally. Maybe John Cale was covering Leonard Cohen, but everyone else since has been covering John Cale. Like, oh, I'm a creative singer-songwriter with a unique, smoky voice, so I bet it would be extremely moving if I did a cover of Hallelujah.
Anyhoo, that was way off-topic, and hardly even relevant to what I was responding to. Je regrette. This MGTH cover: I don't like his vocals, but I like his interpretation of the melody with the piano. |
| Douglas |
Posted - 03/14/2007 : 14:56:57
I think it was alright. Works pretty well and is definately more interesting than WIMM? cover no. 100 trying to sound like the original |
| pixiestu |
Posted - 03/14/2007 : 14:31:49
I'm not too keen on this cover.
"The arc of triumph" |
| coastline |
Posted - 03/14/2007 : 13:05:03
It "sounds alright," indeed. I hope we someday hear a lot more of these sorts of treatments of Pixies songs. "Monkey Gone to Heaven" always seemed like it should be a real rocker, with the "Devil is 6" and all that being screamed, but the subtle version is great, too. My other favorite Pixies cover is Bobby Bare Jr.'s "Where Is My Mind." I swear, I like it better than the original.
In a perfect world, someday all the great artists will be covering Pixies songs and doing them even better -- like has happened with Leonard Cohen's music.
Please pardon me, for these my wrongs. |
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