Beach Boys cover

I'm mid-way through my exams now (thus the reason I haven't posted in over a week), but that hasn't stopped me from having a little fun! As a quickie, I'd like to give you this:

All the instruments were played by me. I used a drum loop, and recorded some custom parts for it with my keyboard, and recorded all the vocal tracks, which took forever and a day. Hope you like it! :)

Yours truly,
Auctioneer

New covers and collab info

Action shot! I think I'm playing Cuyahoga in this picture...

While I may not have much time for writing during this exam period, I have been able to make a few videos for my YouTube account. Due to the time-consuming nature of making tutorial videos, I've stuck to mostly covers, but I did have time to make my first ever bass 'how-to-play' in the form of Radio Free Europe. Here are the links to the new songs, listed below:

• ÜBerlin (Cover)
• Radio Free Europe (Bass) (How to Play)
• Wolves, Lower (Cover)

The cover of Wolves, Lower was particularly difficult to perform - the guitar part alone is complicated enough, but singing at the same time is nigh on impossible! In other news, we have been treated to some juicy information about the work currently being done by Peter Buck and Mike Mills. Mike has been busy as ever, appearing in a "Strings Extravaganza" at Mercer University, acting as MC for the night and also performing on piano. I've yet to find any good footage of the concert (the best I've had is a half-second shot of Mike playing midway through an advert for the show), but I shall keep looking.

Details have also emerged of a collaboration that took place last year between Saint John and the Revelations and Peter, Scott McCaughey and Bill Rieflin, which you can read about on his website here. Like before, we are sketchy on details and unaware of what was recorded and played, but hopefully some audio from the sessions in Seattle will make their way to us hardcore fans eventually!

Finally, we return to Mike, and the recent news that he will be joining Peter, Scott and The Baseball Project for their "Regular Season" tour. That's right, folks - the Project are hitting the road once again, barely a month after their last outing, the "Cactus League" tour. Although I can't say for sure, my guess is that Mike will be on keyboards, but whether he will be playing every show or just some is unclear.

It seems everybody's been pretty busy lately, but what about Michael? Since his BBC 6 Music interview, no mention of him has appeared anywhere. He's probably trying to get rid of all that jetlag. :)

Yours truly,

Auctioneer

Live @ The Shore + Exams part deux (Now updated with links 23/4/11)

As much as I've been trying to put it off, exam time is rearing its ugly head once more, this time for real. Starting May 4th, the following month will be filled with stress and underprepared students as the population of Great Britain attempts to pass the tests set before it.

So, with that cheery note aside, onto some important information! Three days ago (15th April) I performed a gig at a Dundee club with my friend Robbie, who joined me midway through the set. Because this was an acoustic show, and pretty much solo, I had the freedom at play whatever I wanted for however long I wanted to. And what better for a hardcore R.E.M. fan to play than... some R.E.M.? :) Here's the setlist in full:

1. I Am a Rock (Simon and Garfunkel cover)

2. ÜBerlin (R.E.M.)

3. Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando and I

4. We Were Young (original song, the first time ever played!)

Robbie came on for the next four:

5. Beautiful Day (U2)

6. (Don't Go Back to) Rockville (Dedicated to Mike Mills Tribute and REMFan.It)

7. Use Somebody (Kings of Leon)

8. The One I Love (in swing rhythm, like the bonus track on the IRS Document re-issue!)

I'll be posting links as I upload them to my YouTube account, so check back. Now, I think I best get some revision done. The exams are only a few days away, after all!

Yours truly,

Auctioneer

New project for the Auctioneer!

There comes the time in each person's life where anonymity cannot be sustained. The fact is, I am just too overcome by the desire to look stupid on camera than I am... well, not to be. That's why I've started up my own covers/teaching project on YouTube, which you can find here. On this page, I will be recording cover versions and how-to-play videos of R.E.M. songs, in no particular order - this is really more of an arbitrary thing!

My first video was in December of last year, when I recorded a 'how-to-play' of Discoverer. While I initially intended to leave it at that, the video gained popularity, and so I decided to make a few more. Also of note is the fact that my Discoverer video was the first non-R.E.M. video of that song on YouTube. That was why I made it. :P

Above are the videos I've made so far: 'how-to-plays' to Wolves, Lower and Discoverer, and covers of Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando and I and Moral Kiosk. I hope you enjoy them, and requests are always welcome. Over and out!

Yours truly,
Auctioneer

Exams finished (finally) - News roundup + video reviews

Click on the image to find out why I'm happy. :)

As I sit down comfortably on my computer chair once again, I breathe a sigh of relief, content with the knowledge that my exams are over and done with. I do have one more day left of German exams, but they're not the kind you can really revise for.

Which means I can get back to what I really enjoy - blogging! Sadly, during my absence (I did, however, post a couple of bootlegs - just scroll down) much has happened in the R.E.M. world. Although I only mentioned it in a small update earlier last week, I am pleased to once again relay the fact that our good friend Ivana from Mike Mills Tribute has once again made the news at R.E.M. HQ, with her amazing cover of Discoverer from the new album! By major coincidence I was browsing the site at the time the news was posted on the HQ. I was bored, so a refreshed the page, and a weekly roundup popped up out of nowhere. Curious, I clicked on it, and down at the bottom of the article was Ivana's link! Naturally, I raced over to Mike Mills Tribute and, in a whirlwind of exclamation marks and smiley faces, I told her the news. :)

This isn't the first time Ivana's been on R.E.M. HQ, however - last year, her cover of Wolves, Lower, recorded to celebrate the band's 30th anniversary, was also picked up by the kind folk at the R.E.M. offices in Georgia. You can see the video here.

But that's not all! Recently, the band released some new interview material via various websites, plus a live video of Mine Smell Like Honey. While the interviews themselves don't tell us very much, the "making of" video gives us our first ever glimpse of All the Best, a song from Collapse Into Now which we hadn't heard before now. Below is the video on YouTube:

Not only that, but Alligator Aviator Autopilot Antimatter (try saying that three times fast!) is featured a lot more heavily, with a little snippet of the previously-unheard chorus. I don't know about you, but I think this'll be a head-banger.

And of course, Mine Smell Like Honey is here. Despite my initial poor reviews of the song, I had always maintained the belief that it would sound much better live, much like I'm Gonna DJ from Accelerate. I'm not normally one to blow my own trumpet, but it looks like I was right on this one!

Michael's voice has a much more gravelly, rock-style tone than in the studio version - his vocals on the record sound like a smoker whose voice is giving out. Granted, Stipe does smoke, but I've never noticed it prior to MSLH. Also, that third backing vocal has gone, allowing us to at last clearly hear Mike's harmonies. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm glad that extra vocal isn't there. This song has been around since the days of Accelerate - I have two recordings of an instrumental version that they played during the '08 tour - and in retrospect we can see the similarities. With heavy guitars, the band never staying too long on one musical idea... this could easily have been on the last album, were it not for the strange 'pop song' feel to it. Just a guess, but I think that may have been aided by the arpeggios that the lead guitar plays.

There are some other videos lurking around, but nothing that gives us anything really new. While I'm looking forward to Collapse Into Now, I'd rather the band stopped releasing content until March. Why, you ask? The answer is plain and simple - the more I hear songs from the album, the less I think I'll be blown away by it. And judging from what we've seen so far, that's exactly what the new record deserves: the opportunity to blow us away.

While we're on the subject, the first reviews have surfaced! Alas, so far they haven't been very positive. Q gives it just 2 stars, and UNCUT, while being a little more generous, still only gives the album 3 stars. Rolling Stone and Gigbless are the two reviews that are better-than-average, with 4 stars each! As for the bad reviews, I'd like to repost what I wrote on MMT on the subject yesterday, which pretty much sums up my feelings towards the press:

It seems that the press are just going to compare this album to the rest of R.E.M.’s back catalogue, which IMHO isn’t in the least bit fair. The band are probably never going to have another “Automatic for the People”, so why keep reminding us?

You really just can't compare R.E.M.'s latest ventures with the work they did in the 80s and 90s, because that was then and this is now. It's important to take their new albums at face value, rather than prattle on about how the band aren't relevant anymore. So what if Oh My Heart isn't as melancholy as Drive? So what if Discoverer isn't as politically charged and relevant as Finest Worksong? Besides, when you take all their albums from Up onwards, this is looking like it'll be the best yet.

Keep in mind this is just my opinion. I'm neither right or wrong on this one, and it's up to you how you see the band in the 21st century. Don't like Collapse Into Now? That's fine by me. But whatever you do, approach in the same way you should with all music - with an open mind.

Yours truly,
Auctioneer

UPDATE: R.E.M. HQ has just posted a feature on Losing My Religion, in celebration of its 20th anniversary. Head over there and take a peek!

R.E.M. covers that should NOT have been released

Hello all. In the absence of any major news from R.E.M. HQ (aside from a heads-up on Michael's performance at the Tibet House Benefit in March with Patti Smith), I've decided to do a small feature on R.E.M. covers by bands and artists. God knows there's a lot of them, and some are... well, not great. Appalling, even. So let's get our list started with what is possibly the worst rendition of an R.E.M. classic ever to be created:

1. Courtney Love's (Don't Go Back to) Rockville:

I've never heard Courtney Love, nor have I heard her band Hole, but after listening to this meagre snippet I know I never will, either. This beautiful, melodic country classic from Reckoning transforms itself into a sleazy, atonal hybrid when Love 'sings' it. I use that term loosely - her voice is unemotional and bland, and her grasp of tuning slips slowly away as she eventually decides she doesn't care anymore. Meanwhile, her band have other ideas, noodling away in the background and subconsciously telling Courtney to shut up and get on with the next number. I'm not sure if I would even call this a cover, but as it's so bad I feel it deserves inclusion.

2. Furthermore's Fall On Me:
http://www.covermesongs.com/2010/08/furthermore-fall-on-me.html

No video for this one. To hear it, click the play button just below the article. The song starts off promisingly, with a groovy woodblock rhythm and an a capella from the female lead singer. Cue some interesting chords in the background, and some spooky backing vocals. Unfortunately, that's all there is. An incessant drum loop, with no build up of volume or instrumentation. I expected at least a piano to come in, to give the track at least a little flavour... but alas, it seems Furthermore are unable to provide the energy needed to spruce up what is a lifeless cover. Where's Mike Mills when you need him?

During my research, I came across an article similar to the one I am writing now, by Darren Barefoot. You can find it here. I can't say I agree with all his opinions, but it's an interesting read.

3. The Walkmen's Driver 8:
http://www.covermesongs.com/2010/08/the-walkmen-wrap-up-a-v-undercover-with-r-e-m.html

To play, click the picture below the song title. This is one I'm still undecided on. In comparison to the others above on this page, this is great (although it's not exactly a photo finish), but I can't really make my mind up on this. The intro is awesome, with a fruity organ and rumbling drums that imitate the train that the song's lyrics allude to. My only qualms are the singer's nasal voice, the lack of vocal harmonies which I feel gave the original a new dimension, and the fact that it suffers from the same problem as Furthermore's cover - it just doesn't build up much. At the end of each verse, the band crescendos with drum rolls a-plenty, and then... it drops back down again. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I'd like to have seen a little more. Still, the inclusion of a video is always fun.

Now that you've heard three not-so-good covers (with the possible exception of The Walkmen, depending on your tastes), I think it's time to move on from our bland main course to a much sweeter dessert. This is one  often performed on live tours:

4. The Editors' Orange Crush:

The beginning is odd. On my first listen, I just expected this to be the style of the whole track. A slow, suspended piano and a strange-sounding singer initially put me off, and I just gave up on it. Then I listened for a few more seconds, and then my ears were greeted with the punchy beats and frankly weird vocals of The Editors as they rocked out on Green's epic track. The tremoloed guitars are a nice touch, and the band don't stray too far from the original composition. I just wish somebody had the courage to go up to that high G sharp! Thankfully, the live version with We Are Scientists gives you that soaring vocal line. And now for one that I discovered all by myself:

5. Calexico and Darius Rucker's I Believe:

Out of all the ones on this page, this has to be my favourite, despite the video's average quality. Rucker's country voice is perfect for this track, giving it the 'down South' flair that Michael Stipe had on Life's Rich Pageant. What I think makes it so unique is Darius' bassy-sounding vocal, which in my opinion really brings to life the character portrayed on this song - that old, Southern country gentlemen, who believes "in coyotes, and time as an abstract". The harmonies are sweet, the music is faithful and Darius fits his part like a hand does a well-worn glove.

And there we have it, five R.E.M. covers that'll either melt your heart or melt your brain. I certainly hope it's the former, but you can never be sure, especially with Courtney Love's abysmal cover still festering in my head hours after I listened to her. Darren Barefoot, I think, is overly harsh in his analysis, as Great Big Sea's It's the End of the World cover is rather enjoyable, as is the 10,000 Maniacs version of Rockville. It really does seem to be a matter of opinion. I think I'll leave you with just one more:

Make of it what you may - that's the beauty of a cover.

Yours truly,
Auctioneer