Song-a-Day 017: Gayngs

So, Gayngs has kind of been on my radar a little while. Somewhere below Courtney McClean and the Dirty Curls (that is until yesterday when she mugged for my camera during the May Day parade (hooray puppets!) and went up quite a few notches) and, say, M.anifest (i.e. local artists who I should probably pay more attention to).

Holy Shit, I should have paid attention sooner. There are approximately nine jillion members, many of whom I already know and love, including the Eau Claire contingent: Joe Westerlund, Phil and Brad Cook, Nate and Justin Vernon (every one of them stellar musicians and much missed by me) and Maggie Wander, aka Dessa.

Also, incidentally, I read the Vernons are organizing a concert and music resource space in Eau Claire at the old women's college, which I had heard NOTHING about. That would be so awesome! That town needs it; it has one of the best university jazz programs in the country and so much musical talent just sort of bubbling away below the surface in so many of the sketchy, sketchy venues I went to in my squandered youth there. Good for them.

Music now.
Gayngs - The Gaudy Side of Town (2010) forthcoming on Relayted in May.

Remake Arena 003: Flume

I spoke ever-so-briefly of Bon Iver yesterday. Perhaps you are aware of Peter Gabriel's new cover album - I'm ambivalent about it so far.

Bon Iver - Flume (2008)


Peter Gabriel - Flume (2010)


The problem with Peter Gabriel's voice is that everything he does sounds like something I've heard before a million times. I also feel like he took everything that made the original weird and a little uncomfortable and raw out of it and smoothed down the edges and made it safe. It's pre-chewed.

So I'm going to have to FAIL this one, even though I'm glad it exists, and I understand what he's trying to do with the cover album. But he's no Johnny Cash; he can't steal the soul of Bon Iver and make it his own. He doesn't know where to find it.

Shameless Plug: Dwarfcraft Devices

Man, speaking of pedals, a good friend from back home makes some bitchin' pedals.

Like these:


This is fellow Eau Clairean Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver) testing the Shiva prototype:


You might have noticed that a link to Dwarfcraft went up a couple of days ago (points for attentiveness). I was excited to link to Ben, and didn't want to wait to tidy up this post before showing the love.