“I don’t know why I’m contacting you about this,” Nathan writes Stereogum. “It’s my group (one man group) we do Bobby McFerrin styled covers of indie rock songs.”
Um … awesome!
Let’s have a listen: indieblockedappella.com.
Wolf Parade, Arcade Fire, Decemberists, White Stripes, Wilco, two Sufjan tunes … Nathan’s repetoire reads like a Stereogum playlist. They’re not all great, but A+ for effort and song selection.
One criticism, Nathan. Indieblockedappella? Let us pick a new name for you.
It seems like everyone’s got a friend who did a cappella in college. Or maybe you’re that friend. What’s the coolest performance you ever saw. Assuming cool a cappella isn’t an oxymoron.
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I have a friend (we’re both in college) that does a cappella. She’s always passing out flyers and crap. They do Modest Mouse, The Killers, etc. Probably not the new Killers single and probably nothing before Good News.
haha, this stuff is pretty funny. The wolf parade cover is strangely enjoyable. They are beat boxing like the fat boys…a fat boys/wolf parade mash up.
what about that compilation secretly canadian released a few years back; The Unaccompanied voice.. lots of stereogum faves on there http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004U8RY/103-9334188-7010206?v=glance&n=5174
Indie Apocapella?
this is turd
It’s kind of silly. But entertaining. A friend of mine once tried to get three of his friends to whistle “The Boys Are Back in Town” in unison, but I don’t think it worked.
This reminds me of a group I refer to as the Beatles of a cappella.
http://www.rockapella.com/GroupBio.htm
Check out their bio. a tad overdone?
< Often imitated; never duplicated, this certifiably unique pop musical group has taken the previously stodgy music genre of a cappella and brought it full-force into the 21st century. Their story is like no other, and they create a sound and impression like no one else!>>
ever see the nintendo acappella?? classic internet video.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wMZ7rMCb2-o&search=mario%20a%20cappella
from the website..
“This is one of my favorites from Yankee Foxtrot Hotel”
oh wow.
quite entertaining.
the dude does a good spencer krug!
My buddy’s a cappella group at Wash U in St. Louis does a pretty sweet rendition of Radiohead’s “2+2=5.” I dug up the mp3 from my ipod and posted it on my blog.
http://www.sweetavenue.org/sounds/
Holy Schnikies, 2+2=5!!
Who knew this stuff was simmering in the underground…its a revolution!!!!!!!!!!!!
The best performance I ever heard was an all girls group called Something Extra. During the show, they did a rendition of Tracy Chapman’s “Give Me One Reason.” Not really indie at all, but damned impressive.
The college group I joined performed your typical collegiate pop music (Ben Folds, Guster, Dave Matthews) so I decided to arrange a Zero 7 song that no one had ever heard of. And then Garden State came out.
Petra Hayden has done a bunch of solo a cappella songs (Thriller, God Only Knows, the entire Who Sells Out album) and I’ve heard that she recently did a version of Don’t Stop Believing for a compilation coming out in the future.
I just listened to most of the stuff on the site. Would it be mean to say I think this is the kind of stuff that gives a cappella a bad name? I don’t mean that in a nasty way. It’s just that most a cappella falls into two categories:
1) “amateur, just-for-amusement” songs like the above material (which is endearing but not overly impressive) and
2) “overproduced, inhuman, masturbatory” songs like the stuff put out by MIT and UPenn’s groups (and frequently found on the “Best of College A Cappella” albums). Those albums are impressive, but so heavily produced (I’ve heard plenty of groups “singing” notes that are lower than the human vocal range) that it cannot be recreated live.
A cappella can be a legitimate art form as far as I’m concerned and I’m admittedly a fan, but I like material that falls in between those two extremes. Creatively arranged material that showcases the flexibility and utility of the human voice without relying on an insane amount of electronics or editing.
love ryan star on rockstar! http://www.myspace.com/rstar
I have some disease where I come up with band names all the time for pretend bands of all sorts of genres and I had a great one for an all vocal band the other day. Maybe this guy could borrow it?
The A Cappelicans?
Oh, I forgot to mention that most of them were based off of really cheesy puns…my bad!
Kind of funny, but the pitches are off on basically ever song, and it can get kind of excrutiating.
How about Brown University’s a capella group The Brown Derbies doing “Karma Police”?
http://www.thepopview.com/mptres/Brown%20Derbies%20-%20Karma%20Police.mp3
I want to hear the “2+2=5″ one, but that page doesn’t seem to be loading. Is it my computer, or the page?
The Tone Rangers?
Or am I the only one that actually saw that movie? oops…
No its ok stephen that movie had the old 97s so its automattically cool now matter how much it sucked.
I’ve got that Secretly Canadian CD mentioned near the top, and it does have some great tracks, but there’s not a ton of a capella in the same style as these covers. I have to say that I don’t like these that much either, only decent one that I listened to was the Arcade Fire track.
There’s a great cover of ‘Easy lover’ by The Virginia Hullabahoos that Copy, Right posted a couple of months back.
There must be something in the air:
http://thefaceoftoday.blogspot.com/2006/07/uh-huh-yeah.html
Phish doing an acapella version of Freebird at MSG – 12.30.98
coolest acappella show i’ve seen: columbus, oh…. listener’s tour of homes w/ indieblockedappella
In regards to “some guys” post. Any chance you have that Tracy Chapman song around somewhere.
Karlikurod4