Guster covers entire Violent Femmes debut

[Davey]

Anyone heard about this? Apparently MTV2 is launching a new series called "Album Cover Night" which features one artist paying homage to another by covering an album which has been influential to them. The second show in the series is Guster performing the Violent Femmes' debut album in its entirety, which was shot on November 25th at New York's Arlene's Grocery. Looks like it is supposed to air May 5. That last Guster album was pretty good, although I wouldn't have thought the Femmes to be one of their main influences. Hmmm, need to pull that out more often. One of Snowbunny's finds, although I guess they are actually pretty popular if you pay attention to that kind of thing (edit: wow, guess they are popular as I just checked at amazon.com and there's 98 reviews for the CD). Been listening to it today and it does have some very good songs - maybe I should send in a track for the next CRS. Almost got to see them up in Vancouver but we were derailed by a technical glitch - you have to get to the show before it's over if you wanna see them

The first show will be Dashboard Confessional doing REM's Automatic for the People on May 4. It was performed at the same Manhatten venue and Michael Stipe was on hand for the taping of the show, pitching in on one song. Sounds like it might be an interesting series if it isn't all cut up by segments of inane behind the scenes chatter with the host and/or their usual penchant for switching camera angles every second. But that might be too much to hope for from MTV.......

[Finch Platte]

Err, hear. Sorry- one track mind.

As you say, as long as EmptyVee doesn't wack it up too much, it might be good. They'd probably release the whole thing on disc at some point.

fp

[MindGoneHaywire]

I live around the corner from Arlene's. Used to play there, years ago, before they started charging a cover. I was in there recently for the first time in a very long time & the bartender was the guy who was the drummer in the Devil Dogs. They've been doing 'album cover night' for years. Interesting that MTV's picking up on it.

I missed one I would've very badly wanted to see a few months back, some local band was doing the first NY Dolls album & David Johansen was there & sang w/'em. Oh, well. Thanks for the tip, I don't get MTV2 but I'll have to take a closer look one of these days. Here's a link to the club's site if anybody's interested. And if anyone's going tonight, come around the corner to Motor City Bar, I'm DJing.

http://www.arlene-grocery.com/

[mad rhetorik]

This "band covering whole album from key influence" idea is admittedly pretty interesting. It's cool to see some of today's bands pay tribute to their obvious influences.

On the other hand, this is MTV, and they'll probably feature Nickelback/Blink182/Limp Bizkit/Slipknot/ (insert name of no-talent assclown outfit) covering their favorite albums. Imagine Staind covering Alice In Chains' Dirt. Argh....that would be too f-cking painful. I can already hear Layne Staley rolling in his grave.