speed of dark

Happy August! It's birthday month for Indie Mom and me. That's right: MONTH. There's nothing else going on in August, so why shouldn't we claim the entire month? And at the end of the month, Speed of Dark will be one year old. Yay!

To celebrate, let's have another little batch of Beatles covers. The Kaiser Chiefs and Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs play it safe and faithful, while Fiery Furnaces provide some unforeseen twists. The vocals kind of channel Bob Dylan's odd inflections. Belle and Sebastian just make it beautiful.

Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs: And Your Bird Can Sing from Under the Covers Vol. 1 (2006)
Kaiser Chiefs: Getting Better All the Time
from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (40th Anniversary Re-interpretation) (2007)
Belle and Sebastian: Here Comes the Sun (live, 2001)
The Fiery Furnaces: Norwegian Wood from This Bird Has Flown: A 40th Anniversary Tribute to The Beatles (2005)

From the blogroll:

I've been neglecting my reading, and I'm behind on a lot of good stuff.

Check out this week on Blogs Are For Dogs for opinion about the song "Plus Ones" from the new Okkervil River CD Stage Names and MP3s of all the songs mentioned by OR on that album that explain that title. What a cool idea! Also Emily Haines (lead singer of Metric), and new Sunset Rubdown! Yum--we like all of those.

Can You See the Sunset From the Southside leaks two early songs from the new Maritime CD. Scroll down for two delicious tracks from Paramore as well.

Gorilla vs Bear listens to Mia on our favorite radio show, KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic.

Don't miss out on the Thursday covers at I Guess I'm Floating--there's another Beatles tune there. And Haha Music had Ray Charles doing the covers on Tuesday.

I wish I could keep up with live events in the big El Lay as well as L.A. Underground does, but I guess I'd have to live there to do that. No thanks, I'll just visit.

More shades of the west: Lonesome Music goes for cowboys and Riders in the Sky.

On July 31, Dave at Rawking Refuses to Stop wrote a very thoughtful essay regarding the music industry's problem of music leaks--required reading for everyone who gets their music from the Internet.

Our pal Marcy at Lost In Your Inbox comments sadly on the Minneapolis bridge collapse tragedy and posts two beautiful songs. It's just one of those reminders the Universe sends us that life is fragile and precious. All we can do is live it well.