Indie-pop band’s free album of homemade covers

As much as I value the creativity and artistry of original material, there are few things I like more than hearing favorite bands interpret some of my favorite songs through their own sound. Such is the case for the Berkeley indie-pop band The Morning Benders and their free album The Bedroom Covers. The song list could easily have been a shuffle of songs on my iPod:

Crying (Roy Orbison)
Mother and Child Reunion (Paul Simon)
Why Don’t They Let Us Fall in Love (Ronettes)
Lovefool (Cardigans)
I Won’t Share You (Smiths)
He’s a Rebel (Crystals)
Marie (Randy Newman)
Fools Rush In (Johnny Mercer)
Temptation Inside Your Heart (Velvet Underground)
Dreams (Fleetwood Mac)
Pull Up the Roots (Talking Heads)
Caroline, No (Beach Boys)

Okay, maybe you wouldn’t find the Cardigans, Smiths or Talking Heads on my iPod, but you can see how they fit the theme. From the band’s description:

These songs sound the way they do, because we recorded them with a laptop and one mic. We used mainly acoustic guitars and shakers because that’s what we had lying around, and we couldn’t make much noise in our apartment anyway. We didn’t spend time arranging any of these either. We learned the chords and the lyrics (which was pretty easy because we’ve heard all these songs hundreds of times), and we played ’em. What you hear at the basis of the recording is generally a first take. Sometimes we added some background vocals or another guitar part here or there, because the songs we were covering had a lot more going on than us, and we were feeling a bit inadequate.

Not sure how long they’ll leave this posted — check here now.

The Morning Benders’ Home Page
The Morning Benders’ MySpace Page