If you don’t regularly visit rbally, then you’re missing out on what is probably the best dag blanged music blog out there. Loads of great, rare recordings of excellent music.
The post from January 1 just about knocked me out of my chair it’s so good. It’s an Elliott Smith performance from 1998 in Stockholm. Unbelievable sound quality, great performance. Do yourself a favor and download it.
The last track is a cover of Big Star’s “Thirteen”. I’ll post it here– with massive amounts of thanks to Jennings at rbally– along with the original.
“Thirteen” by Elliott Smith
“Thirteen” by Big Star
Yikes. Both are so good. I had never thought of the Big Star and Elliott Smith sounds as being tied together at all, but I guess it makes sense that they were an influence of his. Maybe Elliott had been humming this tune in his head before he wrote “Say Yes”:
“I’m In Love With A Girl” by Big Star
Big Star is a band that I should really know more about. That Elliott Smith cover made me read up a bit and listen to the albums I happen to have in my collection, and some of what I read looped back to a music conversation I had with a coworker just last week.
In the midst of the flurry of Best-of-2006 lists, this coworker had mentioned being pretty nonplussed with all the fawning over Cat Power’s The Greatest that was going on. I happen to think she’s pretty fantastic, so I told him to watch the video for “Lived in Bars” and try to not fall head-over-heels in love with Chan Marshall.
“Lived In Bars” by Cat Power
He loved the video, and wrote me back to tell me that, being from Memphis, he not only recognized the bar in which the video was shot, but that he also recognized the old guy in the white shirt as William Eggleston, noted color photographer and father of a friend of his.
Turns out that Eggleston was also friendly with Big Star, and his photo “The Red Ceiling” was the original cover for Big Star’s album Radio City. There’s a great story about Eggleston playing piano on a Big Star song (with an accompanying mp3) at photographer Christian Patterson’s blog. You can clearly hear Eggleston’s cane fall to the floor towards the end of the song and you can hear the smile on Alex Chilton’s face as he tries not to laugh. Good stuff.
Incidentally, if you’re interested, I found another good blog post on the Eggleston-Big Star connection at gotreadgo.
You just made the post I had planned to do in my blog for a while now (about Thirteen). I am a huge fan of both Elliott Smith and Big Star and this song is just lovely in both versions (that i usually listen to back to back, on repeat).
Anyway, I had planned to do it, but I’m glad you beat me to it, because yours is far better than mine would have been. Thanks so much for the link to the Eggleston/Big Star download and the story behind it. I really apreciate it.
*bookmarks blog*
Great minds! Thanks for the comment, Isabel.
To mgdistrict,
Didn’t know where else to leave you a message…
My name is Rosy Nolan and I just released an album that I would like to get reviewed. It is called “Phantom Hymns.” It’s a mix of Americana and Southern Rock.
If you are interested, I’d be happy to send you a copy.
To check out some of the tunes off the album, you can go to:
http://therosynolanband.com or http://myspace.com/therosynolanband
Thank You,
Rosy