If you’ve been keeping up, you know I’ve already released 4 tracks as Death Bus For Blondie, my Death Cab For Cutie alter ego.

“The same Death Cab For Cutie that call Seattle home?”

The very same!

This is track 5.

I don’t really have a methodology for choosing these covers as they come up, it’s really a bit of a knew jerk reaction that’ll come as I’m listening through the original recordings and something catches my ear in a new way that makes me want to try something out with it; That’s exactly what happened with 60 And Punk a couple weeks back.

Since I know it tends to be a bit of an impulse decision, I do make myself sit with the idea for a couple days or weeks before I actually dive into the track for an adaption.

With this one, I really wanted to rip into a full-band cover right off the top and even started to put the framework in for that, but I really liked the way it sounded just straight acoustic rhythm guitar and vocal, so that’s what I went with first. I also thought it would be a sort of fun ironic choice to not play any sort of lead guitar lines in it – plus it sounds more punk rock this way.

Listen to the original “60 And Punk” by Death Cab For Cutie first:

Now, check out mine:

If you’re wondering what it was about this track that made me want to cover it this past weekend, it was mostly driven by the lyrics.

If you’ve ever been fortunate to meet your musical heroes (or non-musical ones), it’s easy to place yourselves in these shoes. Because of my work in professional recording studios, I’ve had a wide range of experiences in this area ranging from “wow that was way cool,” to “wow they are total bastards,” and if you want my advice, it’s best no have zero expectations in this department and remember that they, too, are human.

The chorus reminds me of the time my dad I went to see Morrissey play. It was one of the most bizarre concert experiences for me because Morrissey as it turns out doesn’t interact with the audience even a little bit, and stranger still, as the last song plays – he just walks off stage. Literally just leaves. Doesn’t say anything, just goes. The band plays on and the audience is left wondering if he’ll ever return. Spoiler: he doesn’t. You should leave at this point of the concert, too. And then you should never go see Morrissey ever again because what the fuck?

The other lyric that popped out to me is the one about the girl in the record store. Fun fact about me, when I was finishing up my last semester of audio engineering & music production clown college, I landed a job at HMV in my local mall. I’d tried to get a job at HMV a few different times through my teens but it was a tough gig to land, but I finally did it. I’d be racing back to Vaughan from Mississauga in awful traffic after my classes ended for the day to work my shift for the night. Honestly it was one of the better jobs I had through my teens because of how much of your time you get to just talk about music and movies with people. I was working there for the Christmas rush so it was busy constantly, but I really didn’t mind that. It’s funny how when you’re busy doing a job, you don’t hate it as long as you enjoy the actual product you’re pushing. I’d held other similar jobs but in now way are they as interesting. Sad to say all the HMV’s in Canada have since closed down and we barely have any record stores anymore – sign of the times.

At the time I was working there, I also still had my band in tact and was still very much trying to push it forward. We’d disband officially not long after this, unable to keep a full-band together with everyones priorities shifting to university or full-time careers.

Of course it didn’t occur to me then that I could just play solo acoustic.

If you haven’t heard it yet, I recently released an acoustic cut of my new song “Happy” – streaming everywhere July 21st, 2020.

Pre-save “Happy” on Spotify now!

A little more…

My 60 & Punk cover is actually more inspired by Ben Gibbard’s acoustic version of it from this live performance, check it out:

When’s the next release?

I’ve got something up my sleeves for August, and then I’ll likely take a short break from this project while I focus on the full-length Neither Could Dylan album.

Be sure to subscribe to my blog here on crookedforest.ca to get the latest bogs and releases delivered straight to your inbox when they go live and check out my other social media channels for even more tunes.

Hope you’ve been enjoying the covers so far & thanks very much for listening & sharing.