Cover Lay Down

A few years back, I took a stand on YouTube-as-songsource, providing you, the reader, with a purely subjective, typically high-horse audiophile’s argument that music was meant to be heard, not seen:

Some of this is merely about visual distraction. I like concerts - being there is its own form of communion, and seeing an artist’s fingering and facial expression can lend a permanent layer of nuance to songs previously heard. But when unavoidable fascination with the technical nuances of sound production, and the way the light bounces off a varnished guitar to become a splotch of tabletop light, come into play, it takes up a part of me I was using to listen.

Mostly, though, the issue here is distance. Headphone sound is always enveloping; live music is, too, in its own way. But when it comes to screen-based sound, the tiny rectangle of light and motion reduces that all-encompassing feeling of communion to something tinny and contained. Scale and proximity matter: to squint at music is to be apart from it. It’s like smelling flowers while looking at them through the wrong end of the telescope.

Since then, of course, even as MTV has finished the long process of banishing video programming to the wee hours of the morning, a complex of change has shifted our experience with culture: bandwidth has caught up to us, webculture has gotten more visual, and artists continue to look to YouTube and other video companions as both an entryplace into the market and a vital component of word-spreading and fan-base building. As a consequence, YouTube has become more and more viable for me as a listener: not the most important place to find new recordings, by far, and still limited as a frame for experience, but still a valuable primary source for native content produced as audiovisual first and foremost.

And since I have only 17 subscribers to my YouTube channel, and since my hosting company is starting to send me notices about bandwidth overuse on a monthly basis, the time seems ripe for a return to our look at the role of videography in the spreading of the folkways.


As a subjective listener, I still prefer the headphone and darkness approach to music - the better to let the sound envelop me, in its purest form. And just as I eschew the audiobook as something along the spectrum towards the movie adaptation - which is to say, a medium whose tonal addenda makes it an unwelcome thief of at least some of the imaginative potency of the text - as an ideal, I still maintain that recorded music is meant for the ears first and foremost.

But my respect for artists leveraging new media, and my desire to respect their chosen vehicles for that leverage, continues to weigh heavily on my mind, even as I rip the occasional mp3 for us to share, flattening its intended effect in order to isolate the sound of music. And increasingly, I find that the artists I discover come from YouTube performance - via other blogs, artist homepages, emailed links, and those same vibrant video-centric sources which prompted our original look at the world of YouTube artistry and promotion.

We’ve featured many of these artists this past year, in fact. Tom Meny, Matt Ryd, HelenaMaria, Kina Grannis: each uses the videoweb as a primary space for first release, with site-based downloads most often taken directly from performances that came to us via video first. And the strategy works: Pomplamoose, who we’ve mentioned several times on these pages, even managed to leverage their fun cut-up approach to video performance into a series of car commercials over the holidays.

And the strategy is not limited to newcomers. Jill Andrews, pregnant and newly solo after the breakup of the everybodyfields, worked hard to sustain her fanbase via a monthly video series this year. Beck, too, has joined the fray in the last two years, gathering in cadres of friends and fellow performers for one-shot full-album coverage sessions called Record Club, with tasty and often oddly reconstructed takes on everyone from the Velvet Underground to Leonard Cohen to Yanni released song-by-song in full technicolor.

A number of newer sources and sponsors have produced or continue to produce video series worth mention, too. Cases in point include The Black Cab Sessions and NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts, both of which, in presenting artists in small spaces, prompted both acoustic and stripped-down electric performances whose intimacy translates fairly well to the small screen.

More relevant to our ongoing focus on coverage, The Voice Project, an ongoing series of chain-connected coverage videos which bring us slowly into artist homes and recording spaces in stark black and white, showcase the artist at play, paying tribute to his influences. Both the AV Club’s Undercover and Levi’s Pioneer Sessions presented video cover series this past year, producing several strong entries for our folk archive. Even ASCAP got into the act over the holidays, presenting a page of christmas card covers in tiny video boxes from a strong set of artists - including Dawn Landes, Robbie Fulks, Jill Sobule, and more - in intimate settings. And like the projects we mentioned in our first look at the world of music videos, all of the above are worth the visit, though each also yaws wide enough to caveat the emptor.

So here’s some folks using YouTube and Vimeo well: both as a medium for layered presentation of song as something sensually encompassing, and as a platform for performance, its recaptured relevance distinct from the studio recording I prefer to imagine in my minds eye.

Kina Grannis, who like many of today’s artists we first featured during New Artists, Old Songs Week way back in February, continues to treat YouTube as a primary medium, even after her first album Stairways emerged this year, charting Billboard sans label, sans management, and sans physical product. Here, she pairs with acoustic pop duo Boyce Avenue - equally adept YouTube natives, with some strong covers on their own YouTube page both solo and with fellow YouTuber Savannah Outen - for a gentle U2 cover and a delicious take on Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car, released just yesterday.



Kina Grannis & Boyce Avenue: Fast Car (orig. Tracy Chapman)

Kina Grannis & Boyce Avenue: With Or Without You (orig. U2)

Where other coverage-oriented YouTube artists such as Matt Ryd, Danielle Ate The Sandwich, and Jay Brannan have managed to retain their authenticity throughout their online evolution, earning my immense respect and fandom, I have mixed feelings about the most recent work from Alex Cornell, who started covering songs in typical amateur style on YouTube several years ago, but has turned to a slightly overpolished production in his last few videos. Still, the man deserves due recognition for the evolution of style, in keeping with our focus on native YouTube professionalism today. Here’s two covers from Alex - an oldie and a more recent take, for comparison’s sake - plus relatively new coverage from Brannan, Danielle, and Ryd, for comparison’s sake.

Alex Cornell: I’m On Fire (orig. Bruce Springsteen)

Alex Cornell: No One (orig. Alicia Keys)



Danielle Ate The Sandwich: Bad Romance (orig. Lady Gaga)



Jay Brannan: The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia (orig. Vicki Lawrence)



Matt Ryd: California Gurls (orig. Katy Perry)

As mentioned above, The Voice Project has become one of my favorite places to linger, most especially for the way their home-and-studio-based visits come into the environment slowly, braiding arrival, small-talk, rehearsal, and contextual intro to the song as part and parcel of the whole experience. Here’s two surprises: Andrew Bird covering Cass McCombs on his porch with some help from a friend, and Jesca Hoop taking on Bon Iver in the alleyway behind her studio.

Andrew Bird » Cass McCombs from The Voice Project on Vimeo.

Jesca Hoop » Bon Iver from The Voice Project on Vimeo.

Did we cover the HearYa Live Sessions last time we did this sort of feature? Can’t remember, but their recent all-covers set with Americana faves The Deep Dark Woods, which hasn’t even been fully released yet, includes this solid cover of the tradfolk-via-The Grateful Dead tune Peggy-O, reminding me to remind you to return to both site and artists often.

The Deep Dark Woods: Peggy O - Live Session 9/21/10 from HearYa.com.

Looking for more video coverage? In addition the abovementioned sources and sites, it’s worth remembering that we took on many more video pieces this year than last, most especially as a way to showcase new artists who had little else to offer us by way of coverage. Here’s a few favorites that still linger from 2010: Dan Mills‘ delightful living room playlet, Frank Fairfield’s back porch banjo-fied countryfolk live on KEXP, and Chuck E Costa playing at our very own house concert series.



Dan Mills: You Can Call Me Al (orig. Paul Simon)

Frank Fairfield: Cumberland Gap (trad.)

Chuck E Costa: No Love Today (orig. Chris Smither)

Cover Lay Down posts new coverfolk features and songsets each Wednesday, Sunday, and the occasional otherday. Y’all come back now, y’hear?

I’m working on an 80’s feature for Sunday. This one just couldn’t wait.

• Huff This!: The Right Stuff (orig. New Kids On The Block)

Ah, the tongue-in-cheekiness of a New Kids On The Block cover.

It’s tempting to dismiss this sort of project as less than serious: a cheesy boyband pop song; a band named after a peer pressure command; yet another arty, lo-fi video. But there’s something oddly earnest and genuine about the way Huff This! approaches a song I thought I never wanted to hear again.

The music hovers between performance art and studio craft: sweetly casual, slightly anti-punk indiefolk, a raw and tender cover well worth sharing. And Director Ben Berlin’s video is a satirical tour de force, slowing down the cheesiness until it takes on a kind of slo-mo grace, reflecting our hungry gaze back on ourselves through the use of underage and real-bodied dancers and oddly-framed beauties, framing it all in an indie director’s angsty rooftop lens.

Dancer-slash-band frontwoman Alison Clancy, who sent the track along, is clearly both serious about her art, and playful enough to take the risk. You should be, too.


Cover Lay Down posts new features and coverfolk sets each Wednesday, Sunday, and the occasional otherday. Coming later this weekend: new and emerging artists cover U2, Toto, Chris Isaak, New Order, Tom Waits, John Mellencamp and more favorite hits from the 80’s!