Just last week, Shinichi Osawa put together a fantastic summer mixtape for one of the best music sites out there, Too Many Sebastians, and one of the greatest parts about the mix is that it covers so many different styles of music. The first track on the mix is Osawa’s take on one of our favoritest tracks of all time, the achingly beautiful “These Days” by Velvet Underground partner in crime Nico. Her unmistakable voice (memorably and admirably covered by St. Vincent on her last tour) makes this track what it is, but a few Osawa beats don’t hurt a thing. Make sure to head over to TMS and check out the whole mixtape here, because this track is even better in the context of the mix as a whole.
this weeks saturday throwback is “sunday morning”, the opening track of the classic sort of self titled album “the velvet underground & nico”, the album where the velvet underground collaborated with, you guessed it, nico! nico is basically one of those artsy women that every guy wants to date. singer, model, actress, artist. shes probably the femme fatale she sings about on this album. [aside: am i the only one that wishes the lyrics, "shes going to play you for a fool, yes its true," was something like "shes so cruel"? i guess its just me.] i need to find me one of those.
the number of velvet underground tracks up for posting today was literally in the single digits, so it was pretty tough to narrow down. but the velvet underground seems to be all around lately. at lollapalooza, bandleader lou reed performed, and wouldnt you know he played about a half hour over his allotted time. come on lou, i dont really care who you are, thats sort of a big festival no-no, and kind of a dick move when you know theres someone else scheduled to play right after you. i didnt witness said festival time slot desecration because i was seeing deerhunter, at which point lead singer bradford cox was simultaneously teasing and threatening to play several velvet underground tunes. he said he was going to play heroin, perhaps in reference to his emaciated appearance, but he did not.
the other place ive been hearing the velvet underground, or their tunes at least, is becks website. he started this new online project with a bunch of other peeps called “record club” where they all get together and without rehearsal or anything they record an entire album in one day. in this case, the album was “the velvet underground & nico”. then he posts a track a week on his website, complete with a cool black and white video of the recording session. pretty cool idea. and since he allows us to embed, im going to take advantage. so sort of two tracks today. becks version, followed by the original. i think i have my old roomate bobby to thank for introducing me to the velvet underground, but i cant thank him because hes been cooped up learning computer programming for the past month. true story. this ones for you bobby.
buy this track on itunes
