Vetiver – More of the Past
At what point does homage become pastiche, I have been asking myself recently. I was thinking of bands like Samamidon, Langhorne Slim and the Felice Brothers rather than this, but it still sort of applies, I think. Basically this is a series of old covers, performed with affection and just enough interpretation to make them interesting. Look at the other bands and although they perform orginal material they are so buried in recognisable old styles that I find myself wondering at what point you really can call something ‘re’interpretation. Just an idle speculation, of course. I don’t care what you call it, as long as you’re writing songs as wonderful as those three bands consistently manage.
This is more of a precursor to a new Vetiver album proper, which is due out in the middle of February, but it’s very enjoyable nonetheless. I know there’s an accompanying full album of this stuff which might be too much of a good thing, but I haven’t heard that so I can simply enjoy and gentle, banjo-strewn stroll through this material. It’s old-fashioned, pleasant and highly enjoyable. And, whilst it may not be earth-shattering, it means I will pay an awful lot more attention to their new record when it arrives.
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I’ve got the whole album and i love it, and off the top of my head i don’t think i know/knew of the original versions of the songs covered, before hearing the Vetiver versions.
Point being, i don’t think it matters as all the songs seem to be handled with respect and reverence. In contrast to this Alexandra Burke’s cover of Hallelujah is fucking awful and beyond pastiche….the stupid bitch has even said ‘It just didn’t do anything for me’….die!!!
I didn’t really know any of these either, although a couple sounded vaguely familiar.
She said what? As in, the original didn’t do anything for her or the song as a whole? Actually, I don’t know which would be worse. Just writing that one song is a bigger contribution to the world at large than her entire career will ever be. Useless fucking karaoke whore.
I have the Vetiver album as well, and whilst I enjoy it, I cannot wait for a proper album of their own songs. If it is anywhere near as good as To Find Me Gone I will be a happy man. It’s nice to hear the reinterpretation of the old songs on the album, but I think my appreciation of that album is because I don’t know any of the original songs. I’m not really a fan of cover versions in general.
No, me neither and I imagine that I enjoy it for the exact same reason. If it was songs I knew I would probably be far less keen.
whether a song is a cover is irrelevant really…..isn’t it?
It is what it means to the performer and the listener….i used to be of the same opinion that i didn’t like covers full stop….but then i thought to myself what a pretentious load of gubbins that was….if it’s good then it’s good….end of!
Since I can’t change my avatar I will no longer be commenting as Campfires & Battlefields. I am hereafter “Puddles.” Please make a note of it.
Hey! This damnable machine kept the confounded avatar!
Does ‘puddles’ refer to those sloshy man-breasts of yours in that avatar?
Tom, it’s not so much about that, it’s just a personal enjoyment thing. Once I get particularly attached to a particular version of a song I find it very hard to really enjoy another. Songs like Wayfaring Stranger are exceptions, but it’s a folk song really, and they seem to be different.
I am always fascinated by covers and can rarely stop myself getting excited to listen to them, but I am almost always disappointed. Not absolutely guaranteed, but pretty much always.
Off the top of my head I can’t think of any songs where I knew the cover first… erm, Jersey Girl by Tom Waits, maybe. I think I knew the Boss’ version of that first. And oddly enough I knew both Rod Stewart and Everything But the Girl’s covers of Downtown Train before I really knew the original version, and in both cases I still came to vastly prefer the original pretty immediately.
Umm.. I don’t know, I can’t think of any off the top of my head.
Surely you knew Whitney Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You” before Dolly Parton’s original?
And this song is really quaint and sweet, thanks for it! xoxo
Matthew I’m with you. For me, it’s not a full stop hatred of covers – like I said, I like the Vetiver covers album – it’s just I tend to prefer original versions of songs and original songs. Doesn’t mean a cover version isn’t good, it just means that I don’t enjoy it as much. I guess my main point is I’d rather listen to original Vetiver songs than Vetiver’s interpretations of others songs.
all fucking nonesense. a song’s a song for all that…..
I actually largely agree with Tom in this argument.
Just don’t tell anyone.
(Teehee! Puddles..)
Except it’s not really an argument, is it.
You’re right, actually.
I don’t see how anyone could stand up to you and Euan’s watertight stance of:
“Ooh, I like this, at least until I hear something I like better.”
You can tell he works for the civil service – apolitician in the making, working on the ultimate undisagreeablewith statement.
Yes, it’s a word.
Fuck off Bart.
So I got hold of the originals of the Vetiver album thanks to this, which although the links aren’t working anymore does give you a handy list of all the tracks:
http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2008/09/10/vetiver-thing-of-the-past-the-originals/
And I am still very much enjoying the Vetiver album. It’s really very nicely done and I would highly recommend it. Like you say, affection + just enough interpretation = good. It’s a truism, but there are always going to be good, bad and average covers, and there’s probably no point trying to make generalisations about the whole genre. If a song’s good it’s worth doing again well.
It’s definitely not an argument. And it’s not fucking nonsense to prefer to hear original songs from a band than covers.
How do you know if a song is a cover? How do you know if a song is an original?
In the main it is the quality of the song coupled with the performance….
and i quote Andy Cabic (guy from Vetiver)
“I think this is the best album I’ve yet to make, in no small part because the songs are so good, but also because I didn’t write them, which offered me a useful combination of restraint and freedom in performing them, bringing out the best in myself and the other musicians. It was an experiment in a lot of ways, and it was one of the best experiences I’ve yet to have recording anything.”
Which is exactly my point about that album – i’d never heard the songs before so came with fresh ears. So in many ways I agree with you Tom. Generally though, the songs people cover tend to be less obscure, possibly more accessible and well known than the ones chosen by Vetiver and often pretty poorly performed too. However, I take your point. But in my opinion, and it’s only an opinion, To Find Me Gone blows the covers album out of the water and I’d rather listen to a whole album of Vetiver songs than Vetiver’s interpretations of others songs. I find the creative process i.e. starting from scratch with nothing, more interesting than taking somebody elses song and trying to make it your own. But that’s just me. Also, I don’t think there are many people who can take a well known song, cover it and do it better than the original or make it their own. Wonderwall by Ryan Adams would be one I can think of. But that’s my opinion too – I’m sure there are plenty of Oasis fans out there who’d cut my tongue out for such poison!
Still, you might not agree, but it’s not fucking nonsense.
Well it’s not a sum, it’s more of a multiplication, and I just find that often that extra little spark factor is not really there for me when I hear someone performing other people’s songs.
I know that’s unreasonable because pretty much all of folk is based around covers and tweaks, but it’s personal. It always seems a bit… lazy, perhaps? Almost like an interlude inbetween the real business of creating music. Again, I know that’s daft, but it just feels that way most of the time when I’m listening to cover songs.
I’m sure there are plenty of Oasis fans out there
Really? Still?
I’d prefer that you still played Shadows and Miss Wonderland………only my opinion mind ha ha.
……a song is a song is a song….sometimes i might wish that an artist hadn’t bothered their arse in recording it…..but i don’t really care who wrote the song, as long as someone is not pretending thay they wrote a song when they didn’t.
probably why we don’t play them ;o)
“I’m sure there are plenty of Oasis fans out there
Really? Still?”
bad journalism Matthew…..
and before you flame me…..the point i’m making is that you took that quote totally out of the context in which it was made…..
Bad journalism? I think it’s a fair question. Anyone who has not been put off Oasis after their extraordinary string of mediocre pap over the last ten years clearly needs their ears cleaning out with wire wool.
Unless you are implying that I should be doing empirical research rather than making glib remarks, in which case you can sod off. Journalistic rigour? On this site? You must be joking.
Out of context? Erm, yes, that was the point, well done.
i’m counting to 10 and thinking of this story…
i once saw Oasis (back in ‘94) and someone got up onstage and twatted Noel right in the face…..it was great…..then they all left the stage, then Liam walks back on all gallus going ‘no one does that to this band!!’ then he got bottled right back off the stage….rock n roll!!
In 1994 being an Oasis fan was a slightly different proposition to being an Oasis fan in 2009.
i agree…..i wasn’t making that point tho
Toad, you’re going to hate the 2nd show of the year, then, as it’s #9 in our Drunk Covers series.
This time around, as well as the usual smatter of obscure covers, we will be airing & reviewing the cover project Guilt By Association Vol. 2 in its entirety (Vol. 1 was reviewed by Hope Eternal & I way back in ‘07).
As you know I like covers, always have, but I don’t classify the dogshit that ends up in the charts as ‘covers’. Those are the vinegar stroke dry spunk puffs resulting from Satan taking one tug too many whilst watching re runs of The Clothes Show. Horrible, horrible, cynical (& fucking lazy) marketing ploys the lot of them. It’s not music, it’s the sound of English Actors dubbing sex noises onto 1970’s German Hardcore. Pays the bills & keeps them out of waitressing school.
You can say the same of projects like Guilt…, but I don’t think that the artists involved ever think their blog attention grabbing cover is going to yield the same sort of pap & mag focus that the likes of A. Burke manage by fist fucking the life out of what should be untouchable classics.
Frankly, she deserves to be repeatedly struck about the brain with the floor.
Speaking of Hallelujah & that whole Christmas #1 bullshit – shouldn’t people have been buying/downloading the ORIGINAL & not the Buckley cover (as opposed to the A. Burke ear rape)? Hasn’t Buckley’s estate milked enough juice out of those cold, dead veins of his? I mean, Cohen is brassic following his ex-manager royally fleeing his arse, which is why the poor old fucker is touring again – he has no nest egg left! Sod Buckely, no matter how good it is.
I was a little surprised that everyone rallied round a different cover instead of standing up for the original, but then apart from vague outrage at the cynicism and mendacity of the song choice I am not sure what the point was anyway. That the X-Factor is a fucking joke, really, I suppose, but I guess it would be nicer if they stuck to stroking off to other people’s songs instead of ones we genuinely give a shit about.
thats cos the original of Hallelujah is shite matthew
Actually, Cohen himself cites the Buckley version as the definitive one.
I liked how the Burke cover of Hallelujah and Lewis cover of Snow Patrol were almost identically arranged. If you saw Xmas top of the pops, at approximately the last part/chorus of each song a choir appeared on stage.
You can almost hear the exec demanding that the producer ‘add some ‘uplifting’ right about here’.
I used to make a joke when this conversation came up down the pub that all this pap is made on the same computer program.
Then I watched a TV documentary and watched my humourous, imaginary computer program at fucking work in a studio somewhere.
The ’singer’ sings in one end, the ‘producer’ selects a few tick boxes on a screen in the middle, and the finished sausage-machine output comes out the other end, ready for packaging and selling by the truckload to deaf eight-year-olds.
You could easily substitute the word ‘cunts’ for all the protagonists in that little story, Dylan. A cunt singing for cunts, produced by a cunt. And the dollar-go-round carries merrily on…
This EP is like getting a mixed tape from Vetiver. They’re basically saying, “Hey dudes, I made you this tape of all these old songs,” but they’re going to ask for it back soon because they have nothing else to listen to in the car on their way to work.
The new album is really, really good. I’m very chuffed to be working on it at the moment, Bella Union are putting it out in March over here, but Sub Pop will have it out in the US in mid Feb.
They’re also playing Stereo in Glasgow on 26th Feb if you want to check them out live.