Bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam!

[venta]

It's Friday, and it's about 3 o'clock. It's time to go underneath the covers (with the lights out).

I always recommend listening to a cover version without knowing what or who it is, so click on the link before reading ahead...

Link to cover version expired

Paris Motel covering Maps, originally by Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

The real problem with a cover is that you can only enjoy it as a cover if you know the original. And I've no idea how well known Maps is.

Anyway, even if you didn't know it, I hope it was a pleasant experience. Because Paris Motel are really, really great. If you've never heard them, then you should pop along to their MySpace and have a listen, or better still go to their website and buy a CD or two. I can't recommend the EP 071 highly enough. Fragile, delicate music with beautiful string arrangements, wonderful lyrics, darkness, humour... honestly, they really are brilliant.

And if you hate the music, the graphics on the website are pretty.

Browsing round their site today, I was just thinking it was such a shame that everything seemed a bit moribund, and they'd stopped gigging and so on, so fired off an email asking if they were ever coming out again. A few hours later I had a lovely reply from Amy May, Paris Motel's lynchpin singer-and-viola player (now that's service). They're busy mixing a new album (produced by one of Elbow) and will be coming out to play in the summer. Hurrah. Everyone should go to their gigs. And buy their albums. And possibly buy their t-shirts, which I'm currently eyeing up and trying to justify.

Comments

[zotz]

Rings no bells, but I quite like it.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I am confused by the magnitude of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. They seem to be surprisingly large for a band that no one ever seems to know anything about. Maybe I'm in the wrong age-group :)

[zotz]

I've heard a lot about them, but I'm not sure I've heard anything by them.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Me too, same boat. But I did like this cover. Not sure whether that means I would like the Yeah Yeahs or just that I would like Paris Motel¹.

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1. That is not a good band name. Too reminiscent of Paris Hilton.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Third behind Radiohead and Bloc Party at Reading last year. I get the impression that pundits like them, but not to the extent that they want to talk about them constantly. Maybe Karen O doesn't do enough interviews.

[mrlloyd.livejournal.com]

Didn't recognise anything, but liked it lots.

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

I continue to approve! 'Maps' is one of my favourite songs and I've seen enough references to it to believe that it's well known in nindie circles (those would be the ones printed on dresses in primary colours). There are many songs which are only really known as cover versions, of course; one obscurity I like is Belle and Sebastian's cover of 'Final Day' by Young Marble Giants, which isn't going to impress anybody.

Paris Motel, too - I was looking forward to seeing them at Truck in 2008 but they cancelled /-: As a cover it's somewhat spoiled for me by the sound of someone blowing raspberries throughout...