Bruce Spingteen "DREAM BABY DREAM" (Suicide Cover)
2008
limited vinyl 10" ep (4000)
It's no secret that the Boss has been a Suicide admirer for some time now, just have a listen to State Trooper (Frankie Teardrop) off Nebraska (which he recorded in his fucking bedroom). And on his 2005 Dust and Devils tour he took to showing that admiration live with his beautiful cover of the classic "Dream Baby Dream". The version here is from that very tour. The cover itself is a stripped down dream of a song with harmonium and Springsteen's cracklin', raspy vocals. You can just hear the love for the song dripping off each word of his Jersey countrified phrasing. Its a drone, a repetive trance that builds to Springsteen's out of breath cresendo. In other words - how fucking cool is this ?
Shout out to Paul Smith at Blast First for securing the rights and releasing this. Check out Blast First's website for forthcoming releases of Suicide covers by established and emerging musicians like Grinderman, Spiritualized, Primal Scream and more. I should mention that the B side features a live version of "Dream Baby Dream" that Suicide performed for an NBC television show called "Midnight Special" in 1979 and another Suicide cover of "Mr Ray" by Brooklyn based band Beat The Devil.
Well not everyone seems to think this is as cool as do. I ordered this from Amazon UK because i wasn't sure if this limited UK manufactured gem would make it over here, but on a recent trip to a crowded Other Music no one even touched it on the shelf. "Sign of the times" one of my pals said ... probably true.
After all its music week in NYC - CMJ. And what a lackluster line-up CMJ has served up for us this year. People were more interested in copping the latest Vivian Girls bore... I've lived in NYC since '93 and with the exception of very few NY based bands have i ever felt more disinterested with the current crop of "cutting edge music" ... blah ...
smilerwithaknife cmj recommended:
Crystal Stilts
Beach House
Psychic Ills
.... dream baby dream .....
Just as cranky as you are in real life.
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