Okkervil and Friends

The summer of '06 I started using Emusic.com, a great paysite that provides access and often introduces people to new indie music. It isn't ALL indie music, of course, but you won't find any major label albums on there. Anyway, I discovered a bunch of great bands there (The Hold Steady, Bon Iver, The National, etc.) and most of them have since gotten pretty big.
One of these bands, Okkervil River, played Lollapalooza this year and promptly killed it on stage. And they're getting a following as a result. These guys consistently put out stellar albums and EPs, as many and as often as two a year, so its about time they've got some recognition.
Their latest album, THE STAND INS, came out a couple weeks ago, and it might be their best (or at least their most accessible) yet. Still, these guys are largely unknown, so when I told K-FED to check them out and he couldn't find them on YouTube (his preferred platform for new music listening), I wasn't surprised. Then a funny thing happened - he found a whole slew of Okkervil related videos, including this cover of the song ("Pop Lies") I told him to listen to:



The cover is performed by a band called Bird of Youth, who I'm not familiar with. It's pretty standard, as far as singer/guitar covers go. The cool thing, to me, is that the song is even covered in the first place. Then I saw a link to this:



A cover of ANOTHER Okkervil song, this one by Bon Iver himself. And it's pretty good. Even the simplistic video is conceived well.

But what's really cool to me about this is the sense of community that comes along with it. Indie artists covering other indie artists, raising awareness about themselves and each other by posting it online, and sharing it with friends and fans in a very relaxed, appreciative way. It's exactly the opposite of almost everything I experience in Hollyhood, and exactly the thing that makes artistic community so appealing to me.

By the way, K-FED didn't dig the song, but that's his loss. The more important thing is, he knows who they are now.