A rose is a rose is a rose The Covers Project has catalogued 11,000 song covers. They are looking for the longest cover chain. A cover chain is something like artist A has covered a song of artist B who has covered a song of artist C etc. The longest chain up to now includes 66 songs. From the Smashing Pumpkins cover of "A Night Like This" by The Cure to The Funkmeister G song "Who got the Fonk?" covered by Cavort With Whores. Never heard of that band so this sounds like a dead-end. But there are surely more covers of Smashing Pumpkins songs (to extend the chain) than the two mentioned here though none comes to my mind immediately. The most covered band are obviously The Beatles (453 covers) and the most covered song is of course "Yesterday" (58 versions). You can add a cover song if you wish.

See you soon Catherine and me are going to be on the Greek island of Chios for the next three weeks. Therefore posts will be sparse. In the meantime I recommend the following daily music blogs:

• Stevie Nixed from Belgium who likes Deus and has a wide eclectic taste.
• Eyes that can see in the dark by Phil who is into more or less progressive music off the beaten track and into chess too.
• Badgerminor from Louisiana who mostly likes the music I like, i.e. music with roots.
• Monkey puzzle my favourite weblogger from Melbourne.
• Blackyellowblack from Oakland where I'd rather like to live. Something to listen to: Ryan Adams live at Manchester covering Wonderwall (free registration required)

Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine

• 100,000 CD covers to download including front, back and inlays.
• Adorno and rock music. Kid Adorno by Curtis White (via sofa blogger) who defends Radiohead's Kid A against Nick Hornby's criticism and tries to use Adorno as King's evidence. Samuel Jeffries in Theodor Adorno Meets "Low-Fi" Rock on how among others the Dead C (noise band from New Zealand) escape the "variation-within-a-structure" that rock usually is and which Adorno sees as "directly interpellating the listener into the 'false consciousness' of capitalist ideology". I don't know the Dead C and hardly know Kid A and have always been intellectually too lazy to dig into Adorno's music theory and those articles didn't rise my interest neither. I hear music with my ears and feel it in my guts if it makes an impression on me. Amnesiac did exactly that. What I heard of Kid A didn't.
• I only publish the results of this quiz as I happened to be the beatnik I wanted to be (without cheating):

You are Jack Kerouac
The "Which Beatnik Are You?" test was created by livejournal user aglaea. Take the test here!

P.S. There are errors on the page. Probably the comment system YACCS doesn't work anymore. I am fed up and will definitely move soon to antville now. After the holiday that is. First week-end of May.

Excuses I really wanted to write something on Patti Smith's On Land tonight but it is too late now and I have to postpone to tomorrow. In the meantime some other link worthy net programmes:

• Jess Harvell has never been a fan of the Modern Lovers but he has seen the main man behind live and was converted on the spot. ILM discussion: Jonathan Richman: is this guy a class fucking act or what?
• Dr. C asks at ILM about That Melodic Thing in Scottish Pop: "There's often a reluctance to telegraph a big chorus, a sort of shy restraint which can often mean that a gorgeous melody takes time to uncover and fix in your memory."
• Marcello Carlin with a long piece on Gillian Welch's album Time (The Revelator) at ILM. I guess I have to relisten to this. The first time it sounded too plain, too barren, too basic for my ears. Her voice reminds me of Michelle Shocked a little which is a very good reference for me.
• Monkey Puzzle, an excellent indie music blog from Melbourne I mentioned before (thanks for the backlink cos) on one of my favourite Lloyd Cole records Easy Pieces. One of those perfect pop albums I listened to a lot back in the summer of 1993.
• P.S. Califone: They sound like a more focussed and less emotionally intense Sparklehorse. The singer's voices are quite similar especially when distorted. Somehow I cannot believe that Califone come from Chicago. Their music has got this laid-back desert feel a little bit like Giant Sand. I would have situated them either in South California, Arizona or New Mexico. Further reading: 10 questions for Tim Rutili from Glorious Noise.
• Dandelion Wings (pseudonym) of Living Code on Sombrero Fallout by Richard Brautigan. A good short introduction into Brautigan's twisted but realistic mind. Summary: "A whole town gets involved in a massacre (with humorous elements to it) without really knowing why they are fighting. I would say this is fiction if reality was not so much like it. Now I am not sure."
• The nicest webcam views in a world map.
• Active discussion (189 comments this morning) at kuro5hin: Burning a book before it's printed. The book in question is on the "right" of children to have a sex life. Here political correctness shows its ugly face: totalitarian censorship. What frightens me even more is that almost all commentators want the book banished. I think this subject should be discussed and the more it becomes a taboo theme the more child abuse we will have. Positive thinking in the last contribution: "Nice to know that efforts by religious and governmental groups to squelch this before it could be published just brought more attention to it"

The best sound in the world is your laughter, the best view your smile (stolen from hydragenic) I am getting deeper and deeper into the Califone record and I start to love it but I am not yet there. Hopefully tomorrow some words on the music. I really have to hold back from reading your reviews at Pitchfork, Mark. In the meantime another link post.

• Did you know that the line "Here we are now, entertain us" from Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit was something Cobain used to say when he entered a party? More information snippets on pop songs at Songfacts (via netbib)
• The classical music weblog mostly music from Brazil comes up with an interesting physiological effect of a certain instrument: "According to recent studies by the acoustics department at the University of Seil, in Munchaus, Germany, the sound waves produced by a flute can naturally and inherently create an effect that ... can be described in simple language as an enhancement of the psycho-physiological capacity for long-term sexual intercourse, through the expansion of both feminine and masculine resilience... this extraordinary effect has been known since antiquity, and it is no mere coincidence that the mythological god Pan, a satyr, played the flute."
• I want this now: Uri Caine: The Goldberg Variations. Caine performs them in all sorts of different styles: Tango, Mambo, Waltz, Bebop, Gospel, Ragtime, New Orleans and Free Jazz. Article on the pianist-composer Is it classical or is it jazz? in the Economist (via wortmetz). Tips: In case some of the images don't load on my page try the Ctrl-key in conjunction with the reload button to load the page directly (and not an old cache). The Atomz search in the upper left hand corner only found pages from June to August 2001. I fixed it so that you can search the complete weblog now.

Music references

• Longish 4 pages article on My Bloody Valentine linking them to Deleuze/Guattari (via virulent memes).
• Fuzz, acid & flowers. Guide to US psych & garage 1964-72. By Vernon Johnson. Browse by artist: a comprehensive reference.
• Some Merzbow stuff to listen to at Euroranch: hissing and noise made in Japan.
• The Oligarchist Home Journal has a weblog now, leaned towards indie: "Music writers writing about music".
• Interesting three columns music blog from Amsterdam by a "Dutch-Indonesian Anglophile" my age : prolific (via bellmas)
• A folk musician's weblog: pet rock star.
• Peer-to-peer review project: I am too late for that one but it's a nice initiative to connect webloggers around the world and will hopefully go on. You are supposed to review another weblog. Reviews will be up shortly after April, 8th.
• Linked to by angry robot. Music reviews and commentary. Indie-oriented.
• Monkey puzzle. Interesting daily indie music blogger getting into Giant Sand (via angry robot).
• Mefi thread on Nick Drake. Rare Nick Drake mp3s here.
• Review of Geogaddi by mochi manifesto coming to the point: : "I really like Geogaddi but I can't help but be slightly suspicious of the power it's been granted. There's an element of self-parody when I put on the record in front of friends and enthuse over how 'nostalgic' it feels." I must admit that I am slightly disappointed by Boards of Canada's latest as it has no track coming close to the revelation that Everything You Do Is a Ballon was. Longish interview with the band here.

What the others have to say

• Josh suddenly sees colours when listening to the Flaming Lips Soft Bulletin. That makes me want to listen to it again as much as to read josh blog.
• There will be two new Tom Waits albums out May 7th: Alice and Blood Money: one song as mp3 from each album (thanks to badger and happy birthday if it is not too late yet)
• Hydragenic on the equilibrium between routine and spontaneity: "Too much routine can be mind-numbing, just as too much spontaneity can be disorientating."
• I am getting a little pissed off by blogspot (yes you are so bloody right Phil R.). No blog hosted by blogspot can be reached right now. Additionally Google is letting me down by going back to a stone age cache of my site dated February 3rd. The internet is not what it used to be.
• Sorry that I don't have the time to analyse your nice rook sacrifice Phil (from eyes that can see in the dark) in depth. But I guess it's correct. Nevertheless the notation of the moves seems erroneous. Shouldn't 26. ... Ke7 read 26. ... Be7 and 33. Rh3+ read 33. Rf3+? I'd like to play an online blitz game with you. On which site do you usually play?

Three unreleased Lambchop tracks Another good review of Lambchop's latest by Tangents

• David Raposa does not like the new Neil Young either and even started a new thread on ILM. The first six songs I listened to (see post further below) were embarrassing enough not to delve any further.
• Which rock chick are you? Catherine (me too BTW) is
  Which Rock Chick Are You?

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen. I am going to bed now.

• Giant Sand: Cover Magazine. Metacritic comprises seven reviews to a disappointing score of 59/100. Adding up album ratings by many reviewers always favours the mainstream, the average, the established. The top two albums last year according to Metacritic were the latest release by Bob Dylan and the Strokes album. That's ridiculous. Who cares about these scores?
• Nowadays it's all about new words for the same old shit: Electroclash is the synth-pop for the zero years (via stevie nixed).
• Rinôçérôse: "Imagine Joy Division set to a disco beat..." (NME). "People waiting for a new My Bloody Valentine album might want to check out Rinoceros" (Request). Hype or not? Just an average French electronic band I suppose.
• Great Bob Dylan resource and linklog by fans: Expecting Rain: Love and Theft review #234. Oh God who reads all these reviews? (long MeFi thread)
• Music is a virus. The English speaking Blogger CD Swap Burn, Baby Burn! is closed due to overwhelming participation (210 music swappers) but there is a German one now: CD-Tauschring. The theme is summer music again but you only have to burn three copies of your summer faves and you obviously only receive three different summer CDs burnt by other participants. I think it's worth it. Other burning communities: CD mix of the month club and Midsummernight's Burn.
• Inofficial Google weblog with interesting news and infos concerning our favourite search engine. Latest entry on the advanced Google search operators like "cache:", "link:", "related:", "spell:", "site:" and "inurl:". Google started with this research paper: The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine (Mefi thread)