After receiving my "Live at Other Music" Dirty Projectors LP in the mail yesterday, I felt that it was finally time to post a DP song. They are without a doubt one of my favorite bands right now, and I've been lucky enough to see them in concert at four very different venues in the past two years.
My first exposure to the band was the Rise Above LP. I knew it was an album of "covers" of Black Flag's Damaged, but that didn't really mean much to me - at the time, I had only a cursory experience with Black Flag's music, and I had never heard Damaged. As it turns out, these really aren't covers, as much as they are re-imaginings, on par with the transformation Hendrix made of Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower."
Rise Above took a few listens to absorb - for starters, Dave Longstreth's voice may be an acquired taste (I now love it, but upon first listen...). Not an acquired taste, however, is the backing vocals, which are unbelievably beautiful throughout the album. Even if you don't appreciate Longstreth's voice, you have to admire his arranging skills with not only the voices, but also the instruments. Not only that, but his guitar playing is amazingly...distinct, for lack of a better word - I can hear a DP guitar part and immediately know who it is.
"Gimme Gimme Gimme" is the song that always comes to mind when I think of Rise Above, and after seeing the Dirty Projectors in concert, I'm even more in awe of this song. The way that the two ladies, Amber and Angel, bounce the "oh ah"s back and forth is something that must be witnessed in person. And now that they've enlisted an extra female voice, the vocal theatrics really take on a new level.
If you don't have the opportunity to see them live, give Rise Above or Bitte Orca a try - at least once with headphones for full effect.
I think you'll agree these two versions couldn't be more different. Here's Black Flag:
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