MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: MATTHEW SWEET & SUSANNA HOFFS - UNDER THE COVERS VOL. 3

Sweet and Hoffs return in their alter-egos of Sid n' Susie, in their ongoing series of pop covers.  While the previous two have covered the 60's and 70's, this one is dedicated to 80's new wave and college rock tracks.  That means it's straight out of my record collection, made up of music geek tunes from back in the day when you were defined by your playlist.  I'm pretty sure most of these ended up on my Walkman mix tapes.

As usual, the duo do a bang-up job, with pretty faithful recreations.  Much of the fun is just how close they come to sounding like the originals, without being perfect.  Lindsey Buckingham's quirky solo hit Trouble is a great example, where they do his breathy vocals, each singer somehow managing to sound like the original.  Sometimes they just come close, like on REM's Sitting Still, but mirror the music to great effect.  And when they choose a cut that can't be mimicked, like The Smith's How Soon Is Now, then they just prove what talented performers they are.

Mostly, its a laugh, and why not?  I can't think of a reason to not hear the Dave Edmunds/Elvis Costello number Girls Talk, The Pretenders' Kid, or Save It For Later by the English Beat any old time.  And the inclusion of XTC's Tower Of London?  Geez guys, wish I was friends with you first time around for these songs, I wouldn't have felt like such a geek.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: JAKE BUGG - SHANGRI LA

Most 19-year old pop stars from England are X-Factor contestants doing cover versions (looking at you, One Direction).  Then there's Bugg, who exploded two years ago with a #1 British album and actual credibility.  He even came up with his own sound, a hybrid folk-punk-rockabilly that was so retro it was brand-new again.  Plus, he rocked, not popped.  The real deal, then.

Still, he's ambitious and impatient, moving quickly on to album two.  He's spoken of wanting to write in different styles, sucking up influences like a vacuum cleaner.  He's jumped from his council estate upbringing to Los Angeles and celebrity producer Rick Rubin.  And Rubin's given him his wish, letting him try on a whole lot of different sounds to see what sticks.

The first three cuts, including lead single What Doesn't Kill You, stay pretty close to the album one feel, vigorous acoustic guitar over a thumping band and Bugg's thick Nottingham nasal vocals.  With the nu-rockabilly out of the way, Bugg then goes wandering, some mellow stuff here, rockers there, even a country number to close.  At its weakest, it's generic British rock from the lesser Weller and Oasis camp.  But that's only a couple of cuts.  His desire to make important music is hampered by still-developing skills, but numbers such as Messed Up Kids grow on you quickly, with a catchy riff and lyrics about the latest lost generation of kids in England. 

Bugg's certainly doing more valuable music than the rest of his generation, and seems keen to keep doing that.  Hats off for stretching so soon in his career, rather than taking the easy way and making the same album as the first.  Shangri La isn't as great as his debut, but in the big picture, may be just what he needs for a long career.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY; BILLIE JOE + NORAH - FOREVERLY

An interesting duo for sure; Jones has certainly showed an interest in roots-country before, but Billie Joe Armstrong?  The Green Day guy has been wandering from punk, but this is a whole other highway.  In the end, it doesn't matter who they are, it's whether it's any good.

What this album isn't also matters, because it isn't the Everly Brothers you know from the golden hits collection.  No Wake up Little Susie, no Crying In The Rain.  Instead the inspiration is the brothers' 1958 album, Songs Our Daddy Taught Us, which was made up of old weepers and folk songs, hill music and murder ballads.  Don and Phil laid into these songs with their trademark harmonies with love and respect for the traditions they had been raised on.

Of course there have been plenty of roots revival albums made, and lots of traditional folk ones, by modern upstarts.  But it is quite something that Armstrong and Jones have decided to focus on this distinct part of the Everly Brothers career.  You'd better be good harmonizers if you do, and they do it very, very well.  We knew she could, but Armstrong again is the surprise here, as he turns in not just tuneful vocals, but a pretty fine impersonation of an Everly.  Only on the ancient Barbara Allen does he decide to sing in his nasally punk voice, to the detriment of the piece.  It's almost like they decided to do at least a couple of tracks not quite so Everly, so they wouldn't be accused of taking all the songs verbatim.  Meh, they shouldn't have bothered.

It really is quite refreshing to hear them copy and cover the style.  By the time I'm Here to Get My Baby Out Of Jail comes along, at cut 8, sung almost solo by Jones, you've pretty much forgotten who these modern stars are, or what year it is, and have sunk back into the pleasure of timeless music and vocals.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: JOHN HIATT - HERE TO STAY: BEST OF 2000 - 2012

John Hiatt has been a huge influence on roots music fans and songwriters for years now, but he's best-loved for his pair of late 80's albums, Bring The Family and Slow Turning.  After decades of pounding away at the star factory on major labels, the new millenium saw him move to the independent circle, signing with venerable folk company Vanguard.  2000's Crossing Muddy Waters saw him turn from the rock combo even, dropping drums and electric guitar for a stripped-down, largely acoustic effort.  I thought he was going folk full-time, and was a bit concerned by this, as the dude can rock righteously.  It turned out to be a side-step, and he soon returned to the full band, even bringing back slide wizard Sonny Landreth, the swampy fixture of his sometimes band The Goners.  There was life, and this best-of proves it well.

Since many have neglected him, they should know Hiatt has never neglected his craft and drive.  For all those who just know Have A Little Faith In Me, this set is a great place to reconnect, as it finely cherry-picks rockers and a couple of ballads from his eight albums in this period.  Master Of Disaster is classic Hiatt, with rich rhymes and a dark, comic take on rockers aging less than gracefully.  What Kind of Man, from The Open Road, is nasty country, the kind of stuff the Stones were doing with Tumbling Dice, another mean character that might have been Hiatt at one point in his life:  "I cheated on my love, I cheated on my taxes/Burned bridges, ground axes."  Blues Can't Even Find Me, from his most recent disc, Mystic Pinball, is about being down and feeling nothing, and nobody can describe that kind of lonesome like Hiatt.

Look, I'm as guilty as everyone else, I didn't even get the last two albums, but with handy reminder, I'll remedy that soon.  There's no drop in quality from his heyday, and his only sin is consistency, as in consistently excellent.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: DAVID BOWIE - PICTURE DISC REISSUES

Back in the old days, when everybody still bought music in stores and stuff, record collectors were considered the oddballs.  Many artists disliked their intense interest and annoying habits of knowing every obscure song and the name of the bass player in their high school band, and the music industry didn't spend an enormous amount of time worrying about them either.  They knew they didn't have to put a lot of work into selling to them, they'd buy anything that had their favourite musician's name on it.

A funny thing happened around about the time the internet darn near killed the record labels.  With profits dropping everywhere else, the one place companies could still rely on was their catalogue division.  And those collectors were still buying.  What used to be chump change for the labels was now all that was keeping them in the black.  The ability to sell the same music over and over again to largely the same people, by clever repackaging, is a much-valued business model.  All those deluxe sets, super deluxe sets, greatest hits, boxed sets, 25th anniversary editions, they are all marketed at collectors.  And who's behind the vinyl boom of the past couple of years?  Old, and new collectors, as another generation of lifelong purchasers is indoctrinated into the club.

Remember 45's?  Who's still playing them?  I'm not really sure if they're playing them, but collectors are buying them, new ones.  Those Record Store Days, half the sales are in 45's, Jack White has his own label for them, they're getting as hot as LP's.  Of course, collectors have loved 45's for years, with a big boom coming in the late 70's, when punk and new wave artists started putting out tracks just for the 7-inch.  Back in the day, we used to hunt out any British import we could, for the rare b-side, and the picture sleeve.

That brings us back to today, with a wise old 70's artist doing the same thing with the same music he was doing then.  David Bowie has been celebrating the 40th anniversary of his great 45's by reissuing each one as a special, limited-edition 45.  Every few months, to coincide with the actual 40th release date, another arrives, in the same format:  a gorgeous picture disc 7-inch, with a colourful shot of Bowie on one side, and a nice in-action photo on the other.  The A side is the single in question, the AA side (no B's for Bowie) is a live version of the same, previously unreleased.  Man, they've thought of everything here, getting all the collectors excited.  It's worked, too.  These limited-edition singles have completely sold out in the last year, with some now going for $75 on eBay.  For a 45!

There are two out right now, lots of copies available, grab them now if you're worried about missing out.  Bowie's cover of The Pretty Things song Sorrow was more a British hit, taken from his covers album Pin-ups, and I've always loved his more spacey version.  The live b-side comes from a 1984 concert in Vancouver, a decent funky take from the Let's Dance years.  The other was a song forced out in England thanks to the huge demand for his songs at the peak of his Ziggy years. Life On Mars? had been an album track on 1971's Hunky Dory, but Bowie couldn't record new stuff fast enough, so it was pulled for a single.  The British public loved it just the same, as it reached #3 on the charts.  Here the b-side comes from a more vintage source, a 1972 Ziggy-era concert in Boston.

Prices are not stable on these discs, with the new releases going anywhere from ten to twenty bucks at different stores.  Oh, they're pretty things though; you'll be hard-pressed to walk away, even though that voice in the back of your head is reminding you that you already own the song, probably two or three times.  You know you want it though.  Collectors are pathetic.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: COWBOY JUNKIES & VARIOUS - THE KENNEDY SUITE

Well, this ain't your normal Cowboy Junkies album, not by a long shot.  Instead it's a rock musical piece, created by the group along with a grand hosts of pals, about the assassination of John F. Kennedy.  Huh?  Well, the 50th anniversary is coming up Nov. 22, and composer/lyricist Scott Garbe had the bright idea.  Michael Timmins of the Junkies jumped on board to produce, along with Andy Maize and Josh Finlayson of The Skydiggers.  Then they assembled the large crew, arranged it all and have themselves a tight little collection.

First off, Junkies junkies, this rocks a lot more than their usual albums, thanks to guests such as Jason Collett, Harlan Pepper, Lee Harvey Osmond (type casting) and ex-Rheostatics Martin Tielli and Dave Clark.  Considering the subject matter, it's quite a bouncy disc at times, which reflects the interesting take on JFK murder.  All the various plots and schemes of the times are brought into the lyrics, from Castro and Cuba to what Jack Ruby was thinking.  Mostly, it looks at the event from different and sometimes unexpected angles.  There are three sisters who come to Dallas to get a glimpse of Kennedy, the local cop who was driving in the car when the bullets flew, Osmond himself when he does the deed, and even the President is given a voice, after the killing as he's about to be buried.

It's not a strict narrative, but rather slices and imaginations, which actually works better for the songs.  If anything, it feels more like a Skydiggers album, and that's a fine thing, too.  There isn't a dull song on it, it's highly listenable, certainly intriguing.  When Margo Timmins finally appears, it's a jazzy, spooky, slow number as Jackie Kennedy contemplates it all.  Lyrics are included, it's fun to read along, and like all good theatre, it makes you see things differently.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: VAN MORRISON - MOONDANCE DELUXE EDITION

The question is, how into Moondance are you?  Not just the song, but the whole album.  What we have here is an album exploded, with three 70+ discs of different takes, early versions, alternative mixes and out-takes, as we walk through the studio sessions.  Plus, two more discs, the original album remastered, and a Blu-ray audio version too.  There are three previously unheard cuts, but for the most part you're listening to, say , take 16 of Into The Mystic, as Van and band try to perfect the arrangement and tempo.

All that is pretty fascinating, if you indeed love the original album, and are interested in how tracks develop from rough ideas to full band creations.  It can also get tedious, after 25 minutes of Caravan stops and starts.  Really, you have to decide your level of interest:  The 5-disc treatment for the obsessive, the 2-disc, with an overview of the alternatives, or just the single album.

Whichever, you have to have this, even if you still have a perfectly fine copy of the CD or album.  They've done a tremendous remaster of the original, with the horns much clearer, and much more space between the instruments and backing vocals.  I'm hearing lovely little touches I never knew were there.

It is a glorious album, of course, with one of the great Side 1's of all time:  And It Stoned Me, Mooddance, Crazy Love, Caravan, and Into The Mystic.  Listen again to the subtle answering horns after Morrison sings "When the foghorn blows".  If you get the expanded set, check out the alternative instrumental take of Moondance, with completely different solos.  And you should be tempted by a major out-take, the famous I Shall Sing, dropped from the album but picked up by Art Garfunkel, who had a sizable hit with it.  Note to purchasers:  The 2-disc deluxe set is only a couple of bucks more than the single disc, so you might as well get at least that.