I Don't Speak French BUT I Can Speak Music

La Blogotheque - http://www.blogotheque.net - talk about another way to share music and view intimate versions of some of your top indie artists, new versions of great songs often with other well-known collaborators in unique settings throughout Paris (think Andrew Bird adding his violin and whistling for St. Vincent in a top level apartment with 30 people at sunset). Another really cool thing about these mini concerts is that they are filmed in one take, anything can happen, it is guerrilla film making where musicians are the protagonists. Calling them 'Takeaway Shows" (in French it is Les Concerts A Emporter); is very fitting.

It only make sense that Phoenix, the French band from Versailles that finally got their big U.S. break with their last album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, recently performed for the web site. They picked one of the most visit sites in Paris, the Trocadero Square in front of the Eiffel Tower, then they hopped on top of a double decker tour bus, performed a song and continued singing as they hopped off at the base of the Parisian landmark.

Phoenix - Lizstomania / One time too many - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

My other favorite posting featured Bon Iver, the band created by Justin Vernon, the falsetto indie singer that made one of the great albums of 2008 (actually came out independently in 2007) - For Emma, Forever Ago, in his father's northern Wisconsin cabin in three months during winter. Peter Gabriel recently covered Bon Iver's song Flume in his recent album of covers (scroll down the blog to hear it).

Bon Iver - Wolves (act I & II) - Une Soiree de Poche from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Get on the web site, they have such a catalogue of musicians they have filmed - Wilco, The Antlers, Yo La Tango, and even Tom Jones.

If you want to check out the English's version of rogue performances, visit Black Cab Sessions - http://www.blackcabsessions.com - the name is very appropriate.

Bon Iver vs. Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel is back! Well, sort of. Rather than come out with a CD of new and original material he thought he would wail a variety of songs from other people in his own way, call it a new CD, get a ridiculous amount of praise and call it a day. A bit scathing I know but is this really going to be the trend now - borrow the sounds of the youngsters and sing your same old, same old?

One of the first singles off Gabriel's new CD, Scratch My Back, is Bon Iver's song Flume from the album For Emma, Forever Ago. This album launched Bon Iver into the high court of the indie world - Pitchfork ranked it 29th in the Top 200 Albums of the 200s and NPR named it among the 50 Most Important Recordings of the Decade.

A little background helps a lot: Bon Iver is a band founded by singer-songwriter Justin Vernon. In 2007, after the end of a relationship, the breakup of a band, and a bout with mono, Justin spent three months alone in his father's cabin in Northwestern Wisconsin. He ended up writing and recording the entire album, which is a collection of beautiful, melancholy songs sung in a distinct falsetto enriched by layers of voices, which is now duplicated wonderfully live by a full band. The single Skinny Love is best known and I think explains the mood of the album very well. It is a good story and one that follows Bon Iver everywhere they go, which most recently was the soundtrack for the second Twilight movie (the song is Roslyn, Bon Iver with St. Vincent). Yeah, even the vampires are hip to the know about Bon Iver.

The great Peter Gabriel covering his song, this has to be a topping cherry for Mr. Vernon and

a nice wave of publicity for the band - the song is up on the Bon Iver web site

and Gabriel made it available on his own web site. I am excited for Bon Iver, that

Peter Gabriel loved his song enough to cover it and that Bon Iver will become known

to the masses. I won't even do my typical, petty 'I have liked them for so much longer and

of course you like them now that they are everywhere' as I hear from the new wave of fans.

I'll try at least, I can't make promises if it is a bourbon drinking night though.

I just have to say though, I like Bon Iver's original version better, WAY better.

Let's try an experiment - listen to Gabriel's version of Bon Iver's Flume first.

Comment on this post and tell me which one you prefer.

The original Flume by Bon Iver:

http://lala.com/zznI or on

Pitchfork or BEST YET on

La Blogotheque (more to come on this fucking amazing web site on the next post)

I will leave the album review of Gabriel's Scratch My Back to the LA Times:

Album review: Peter Gabriel's 'Scratch My Back' Source: latimesblogs.latimes.com