Luna: "I Can Hypnotize A Pancake"

Longtime Everybody Taste favorites Luna have digitally remastered and released the LPs Romantica, Rendezvous and the 2002 EP Close Cover Before Striking over on Bandcamp. Word on the street is the band may even try and repress a few of these classic records onto vinyl (we've got our fingers crossed over here). If you're a fan of the band's dreamy and mesmerizing pop music, former bandmates Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips have also been keeping busy as the duo Dean & Britta with the acclaimed and spectacular 13 Most Beautiful: Songs For Andy Warhol's Screen Tests, which includes gorgeously captivating covers of The Velvet Underground's "Not A Young Man Anymore" and Bob Dylan's "I'll Keep It With Mine." You can peep the Britta-sung cut of "I'll Keep It With Mine" below along with a remastered version of Close Cover Before Striking's "Teenage Lightning"—one of my all-time favorite Luna tracks, thanks to the gorgeously restrained guitar work and Wareham's wonderfully smart-ass deadpan lyrics (see below). (via Magnet)

"I got pills that make me cranky, I got pills that make me cry. / I have crooked information, tiny nightmares in the sky. / Rest your head upon my pillow, put my hand inside your pant. / You can have it if you want it, if you'd like to take a chance. / I can hypnotize a pancake, I can levitate the pope. / I can make your teacher crazy, 'cause it's all within my scope. 

Rest your head upon my pillow, put my hand inside your pant. / You can have it if you want it, if you'd like to take a chance. / Teenage lightning in the basement, teenage lightning in the night. / Teenage lightning on my window, teenage lightning is alright"

Luna albums are available digitally from Bandcamp. 13 Most Beautiful: Songs For Andy Warhol's Screen Tests is available digitally directly from Dean & Britta.

Luna - "Teenage Lightning"
Dean & Britta - "I'll Keep It With Mine" (Scott Hardkiss Electric Remix)

Digging For Covers: Ziggy Stardust covers Lou Reed

A David Bowie/Lou Reed collaboration is a pretty damn special occurrence—whether it's Reed's solo breakthrough and classic Transformer, or in this case, Bowie's 1973 live version of "White Light/White Heat." Easily one of the best Velvet Underground covers of all time, Bowie and his Spiders From Mars band kicked out this rollicking performance during the final Ziggy Stardust show.

David Bowie - "White Light/White Heat" (from Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars)

Digging For Covers: "Pale Blue Eyes"

Recorded for the Velvet Underground's 1969 eponymous third record, "Pale Blue Eyes" is a near six-minute drifting classic Lou Reed penned after his college sweetheart, Shelly Albin. The song's been covered numerous times by everyone from Patti Smith to the Counting Crows, but the best versions add something new. In M. Ward's live cover, he adds a surprising high note to the chorus. In R.E.M.'s 1984 "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)" b-side, Michael Stipe polishes off a country twang for his delivery. Alejandro Escovedo keeps his cover basic with just an acoustic guitar, but it nicely emphasizes Reed's potent vocals.

M. Ward - "Pale Blue Eyes"
R.E.M. - "Pale Blue Eyes"
Alejandro Escovedo - "Pale Blue Eyes"

Soundtrack: Adventureland

Adventureland had me at hello. Or rather, at the introductory riff to the classic Replacements track "Bastards of Young."

Set in the summer of 1987, the film's landscape is colored by the trickle down effect of Reaganomics and plenty of cheesy rock (see Foreigner, Falco). But the focus is never on the era's silly chart-topping bands or ridiculous clothing; they are simply elements that help place the film's characters—poor, nerdy, and rebellious—in the margins.

Musically, Adventureland does what Dazed and Confused did for 70s rock acts like the Runaways and Alice Cooper. Adventureland gives the unruly greats of the 80s, specifically Hüsker Dü and the Replacements, a contemporary platform to be celebrated and heard. The two Minneapolis bands are not only featured on the soundtrack, they are also written into the screenplay: Kristen Stewart's character Em wears a Hüsker Dü t-shirt and love interest James, played by Jesse Eisenberg, finds a Replacements LP in her record collection. The song "Bastards of Young" almost serves as a sketch for James, who finds himself abandoned and lost after college:

God, what a mess, on the ladder of success,
/ Where you take one step and miss the whole first rung. /
Dreams unfulfilled, graduate unskilled, /
It beats pickin' cotton and waitin' to be forgotten.



We are the sons of no one, bastards of young.
/ We are the sons of no one, bastards of young. /
The daughters and the sons.



Clean your baby womb, trash that baby boom. /
Elvis in the ground, we're waiting on beer tonight. /
Income tax deduction, what a hell of a function. /
It beats pickin' cotton and waitin' to be forgotten.



(chorus)



Unwillingness to claim us, you got no word to name us.



The ones who love us best are the ones we'll lay to rest,
/ And visit their graves on holidays at best.
/ The ones who love us least are the ones we'll die to please.
/ If it's any consolation, I don't begin to understand them.



(chorus)

The soundtrack also features a dose of Lou Reed favorites, including "Satellite of Love" and the simultaneously haunting and soothing Velvet Underground treasure, "Pale Blue Eyes," which appears twice to emphasize James's devotion to Em.

It's not often a director so heavily invests, both thematically and contextually, in his soundtrack. And it's even more unusual for a director's taste to be this great. 

The Replacements - "Bastards of Young" (highly recommended)

Hüsker Dü - "Don't Want to Know if You Are Lonely"

The Velvet Underground - "Pale Blue Eyes" (closet mix) (highly recommended)