Keep It Fresh

I decided to put this up after The Torture Garden posted an Arcade Fire cover of Yeah Yeah Yeah’s ‘Maps’ (and it carries on nicely from Sarah’s recent YYY’s post). They had been slipping their version of the song into live performances but this studio version was recorded for the Coachella 2007 sampler.

The original song has always ranked high in my play counts and it’s a song that will be appearing on the soundtrack to my life should Sony ever get around to putting that out. So I always take interest when a new cover version appears despite the original never being bettered in my opinion.

The Duke Special version was recorded live at the Empire Music Hall, Belfast. As far as I know this performance is going to be released on a special edition version of his album ‘Songs From The Deep Forest‘ which will be re-released as a two disc set just in time for Christmas. Apparently someone got a copy of the cover to Miss O and she loved it. So there ya go!

MP3 Yeah Yeah Yeah’s - Maps

MP3 Duke Special - Maps (via zShare)

MP3 Arcade Fire - Maps (via Savefile)

-phil

With the official (read:not so official) “Week of The Murphy” upon us (DJ set at Antics Wednesday 29th followed by LCD Soundsystem at The Picnic) I’ve been listening to a lot of James Murphy related material lately. First up is LCD Soundsystems cover of Joy Division’s ‘No Love Lost’, also fitting in light of the recent death of the great Tony Wilson. Opening with a crunchy bass line it builds and builds in true LCD fashion, then around the half way mark turns a little Iggy Pop as Murphy lays down the vocals. This is being released as one half of a split 7″ with Arcade Fire, which is being pressed for the upcoming LCD/Arcade US tour. That kicks off in Colorado on September 17th and finishes in New York October 6th. I see an October plane ride to New York in my future. This 7″ will also be available on the band’s websites so we’ll be sure to let you know when there available.

MP3 LCD Soundsystem - No Love Lost (Joy Division Cover)

Next up is a taste of things to come next Wednesday. Back in 2005 Murphy recorded a DFA radio mix for the BBC. You can download that and other mixes, from the slightly hidden DFA Radio Mixes mini-site.

MP3 James Murphy - DFA Radio Mix 2005 CD1 (51:44mins)
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MP3 James Murphy - DFA Radio Mix 2005 CD2 (1:13:33mins)
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And don’t forget we have a pair of passes to giveaway for Wednesday night DJ set. All three rooms at Crawdaddy are being opened for the event which will now hold a 900 capacity. Check out the Antics myspace for details on pre-sale tickets. LCD Soundsystem play the Friday night of Electric Picnic.

-phil

Is anyone surprised that ticketmaster.ie nearly crashed as the 10,000 tickets were sold while it’s imaginable that 100,000 people probably tried to get tickets. There’s no evidence to suggest the site crashed but there’s plenty of disappointed people out there with super-fast broadband who still had no luck. Looking at Ebay will only highlight that the touts (and plenty of opportunists) have no doubt got more than a handful of the tickets.

This gig, as Keep It Fresh reported, was always going to be a sell-out. Arcade Fire live is an amazing experience and fans are rewarded by a band who give so much more than other bands but there’s something not very satisfying about the distribution of tickets these days. There’s still a few tickets for the last night of Arcade Fire’s European Tour at Alexandra Palace which is a much better setting for the band than a tent in Phoenix Park and even with Ryanair flights to Standstead and a ticket could be done for under 90 euro. Free accommodation should be easy for Dubliners because we all know at least one person we could ask to put us up for a night in London!

- Kieran