Thursday, 5 August 2010
Hughesy's initial exposure to Melbourne singer/songwriter Lisa Miller came through covers of Are You The One That I’ve Been Waiting For and It’s A Long Way To The Top on a live CD called RRRewind In The Chapel, and while both were fairly straight readings of a couple of Oz Rock classics, they suggested Ms Miller has a way with cover versions. That impression was reinforced by a classy reading of Hickory Wind on 2004's Pushover EP, much of which is made up of live recordings from Lisa's opening spot on Neil Young's 2003 Australian tour.
Along the way, mixed in with a couple of albums of original material, there have been two collections of covers in the Car Tapes series. The first, released in 2002 turned up on a couple of play lists, including the DIG On The Radio broadcasts on ABC Local Radio over summer, and was, if I recall correctly, rather impressive with an interesting range of rather obscure covers. Had I run across a copy I could well have shelled out the shekels, but that eventuality failed to eventuate.
Faced with an expiring subscription to Rhythms magazine in June 2010, however. I found myself logging on to the website to re-subscribe and discovered the freebie they were giving away to subscribers was Car Tape 2. Fine, I thought, the first one wasn't too bad at all and there's that old thing about gift horses and their mouths. Now, after a couple of listens I've strolled over to check the availability of Car Tape, and at $16.99 I'll be pressing the Buy button in the very near future.
While the Pushover EP was an impressive affair, I've really been really and severely impressed by Car Tape 2.
If you're familiar with the opening Hidden Charms from the Elvis Costello cover (a fairly straight reading on 1995's Kojak Variety) you won't recognize it here. Miller reworks it drastically, slows it down and when the recognition factor kicks in around the chorus I was convinced that we were on a winner.