The Opening Acts

Yesterday, we received a DMCA notice from Blogger for a post I wrote back in June (it’s this one, so far unbothered in its current Wordpress form).  This was a little weird for 3 reasons:

1) we don’t use Blogger anymore, having switched hosts three months ago.
2)  people who go to the old Blogger page are automatically redirected to this one, so no one can actually view the post for more than a couple seconds. 
3) the songs featured on that post haven’t been available to download in over 4 months, per this site’s mp3 policy, which can be found on the sidebar (it’s there for a reason).

Slightly confused by this nonsense, I did the obvious thing:  deleted the email from Blogger and got on with my life.

This happened on one other occasion during our Blogger days.  It was about 8 months ago [/rubs chin, begins flashback sequence], after I wrote a piece comparing different versions of ELO’s “Mr Blue Sky”.  Along with the original (which was not posted), I had versions of the song from The Divine Comedy and The Delgados in my collection. Both are live recordings, both utilize string sections, and both are pretty darn great, so I was happy to share them in a post. 

Prior to posting it, I took a brief foray into the internets to see if anybody else had covered the song.  I ended up finding a version from Lily Allen.  Her version was totally different from the ones by The Divine Comedy and The Delgados – it was also pretty darn good.   Since it provided such a nice contrast to the other two, I added a quick blurb about her to the post, tacked on the song, and pressed the ‘publish’ button.

In less than 24 hours, the post had been taken down by Blogger.  It was gone completely, too – no existence of the post remained.

Since I never had issues with posting songs from The Divine Comedy or The Delgados before (or since), I blamed it on the Lily Allen song and the fact that she’s on a major (piece of shit) label.   I hope I’m right in casting blame her way, because . . .

I’m posting this shit again. Fuck it – let’s see what happens.

No Lily Allen this time, though. Taking her place today will be The Spinto Band, who have come up with a version of “Mr Blue Sky” that will be included in an upcoming Buffetlibre compilation benifiting Amnesty International (The Spinto Band are also responsible for this site’s most popular post). Their song is one of 4 that are being released in advance, available for free downloading by going here.

Or you can just download it here right now.  I still encourage you to go to the compilation’s site, though – you know, charity and whatnot.

The Spinto Band – Mr Blue Sky

Here are the versions from The Divine Comedy and The Delgados. As I mentioned above, the original post has disappeared completely, so I can’t even check on what I wrote back then about these two songs. I’m sure it was nothing but nice things. Since there’s still a chance that this post can meet the same fate, I’m not gonna exhaust my typing fingers describing things. Have a listen, and come up with your own descriptions:

The Divine Comedy – Mr Blue Sky (Live)

The Delgados – Mr Blue Sky (BBC Session)

And, hell, why not? – here’s a special bonus live version from The Decemberists:

The Decemberists – Mr Blue Sky (Live)

And because I can’t be held liable for YouTube clips, here’s Lily Allen:

Here’s that white soul singer dude from Michigan:

And here’s the original:

After this post, you will never want to listen to this song ever again.

It’s nice to wake up in the morning early afternoon, stumble over to the computer, breeze over some uninteresting news, then find a music article that perks me up so much that I almost forget that it’s impossible for me to function this early without coffee.

But it happened today! Pitchfork mentioned this only briefly because they don’t know any better (IT SHOULD BE THE BIGGEST NEWS OF THE DAY, ASSWIPES!!): My favorite former Delgado, Alun Woodward (sorry Emma), has finally released a new album. For reasons I’ve yet to research because – once again – I’ve just woken up, it has been released under the name Lord Cut Glass. The Chemikal Underground website provides this video:

I’ve missed that voice.

Buy the record here. I’ll be making my purchase as soon as I get back from the coffeeshop. Because I lied: there really isn’t anything that can make me forget about how much I need coffee in the morning. Maybe news of a Delgados reunion, but that’s about it.

The copyright patrol have taken down my prior post. I’m guessing it’s due to the Lily Allen track that I posted. The fact that the mp3 has also been deleted from my Boxstr account kinda confirms this.

(/shakes fist at major lables)

‘Tis a shame, too, as it was – by far – the most popular post I’ve ever done (it received twice as many viewings as all my other postings combined).

For those late to the game, the posting was one of the “Compare and Contrast” features that I generally do once a week. In it, I presented 3 different versions of the ELO classic “Mr Blue Sky”, as performed by The Delgados, The Divine Comedy and L*ly All*n (I’m trying to be extra cautious here). Based on the volume of downloads, it heartens me to see that there are still folks out there who are fans of the much-missed Delgados and the fantastically-awesome Divine Comedy (my favorite band ever, by the way). Or there are just a bunch of Lillee Alin (still being cautious) fans out there.

Or I pissed off ELO. Forgive me, Jeff Lynne (and R.I.P., Kelly Groucutt).

If you missed out and are still curious about the various versions of the song, seaching around here might still yield results (hint hint). If that proves fruitless, then . . . you know, it’s not too hard to find my e-mail address on this site. I’m just sayin’.