Steve
Posts by Steve
“Dress Up” Covers EP and Release Show!
We’re in the studio this week, finishing mixes on Dress Up, our new EP of covers. It’s been good fun, though also intimidating as hell at times, to step up to this collection of songs that we’ve long loved and give them an honest barebones LS treatment. With the exception of the song for the Crewdson film, which we did with the band, each track (from The Cure, Sun Kil Moon, Chris Whitley and even dear Hem) was recorded live: two guitars, two vocals, no overdubs and no tomfoolery. And no frilly things to drape over the rough spots. We really, really love the way this record has come together and can’t wait to share it. Come hear us at Sycamore in Brooklyn on 4/27 for a record release show!
New Song for Gregory Crewdson Documentary
We were got the chance to record this cover of the Speedies’ “Let Me Take Your Photo” for a new film from our friend Ben Shapiro called Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The track, which was written by Crewdson’s band growing up, closes the movie out, and it was lotsa fun. Want to hear the original? Believe us, you do. Here.
The film premiered at SXSW, has since shown all over, and is gorgeous. Here’s some info. Get yourself to a screening, and stay settled in your seats to hear Little Silver croon as the end credits roll.
Little Silver is in LOOOOVE
Paste Magazine has us pegged as “Musical Sweethearts” and included us in their Valentine’s Day Special here. Very cute. We can’t help but notice that all the other couples look totally smitten, while we look like we’re stewing something. We can’t recall if we were….
Chris Whitley cover | Sneak-peek listen from “Dress-Up”!
We’ve got a new EP coming out early in the New Year, a covers record called Dress-Up! We’re wracking ourselves a little to do the songs that we love some decent justice — to cast them in a new and personal light, as one would hope anyone tries to do when stepping up to a cover. And so the set list has changed a little over the months, as we cry “uncle” to some songs, and others that we didn’t even expect to do so fall together easily. “Dirt Floor” is one song we’ve had our sites on for years (and one our good friends Ollabelle took for a great ride this year too). Cover Me just ran a nice piece about the track, and is offering it as a free download as well. Check out the story (and hear the song!) here.
Magnet review & “Stolen Souvenir” download
Magnet announced their auspicious return to PRINT today (go music press, go!) and let a great review of Little Silver fly, all in one fell swoop. They feature the song as a free download here.
The Lost Letters Post
Erika put up a new post last night — head to our blog page to check it out, and to put in your request for someone’s very own, singular, lost letter! She’s not kiddin’….
“Sleep til Morning” download from Paste
We’re thrilled to announce that “Sleep til Morning”, the lead song on The Stolen Souvenir, is a featured download on Paste.com! Go get yourselves a copy here if you don’t got one already, and spread the word. We’ve got longstanding affection for Paste (their editors were keen and early Hem-adopters, plus they just plain put out one of the BEST DAMN music mags there is), and we’re really happy to have them now bringing Little Silver your way!
Another not-rainy Sunday
6th grade was more or less a top-of-the-world time for me, and 7th grade sucked. Everything was as it should be and felt under control one year, but then we moved from suburban Virginia to somewhat near Pittsburgh, PA the next. The elementary school hijinx that carried the day (and I, as a hinjinxster) carried squat in PA, and things really began to unravel. Little League was a good barometer. I was always a crummy baseball player, but it didn’t matter in VA because we were all goofy kids. By the time the spring of 7th grade rolled around, half the kids were in moustaches, more than half of them chewed tobacco, and fastballs were completely unhittable. Holeee crap. I remember feeling very very far away from my sixth grade baseball team, and I basically just started to dread the game. I would seriously beg the skies for game-cancelling rain, but the rainy Sundays rarely came, so I counted the days and limped my way through til June.
Moving ahead: this past weekend we stood up a good friend’s wedding a few hours’ drive away. Not a decision taken lightly, but we just had too much on our plates as the new week approached (a week that includes three days of Little Silver in the studio, recording music that is presently only partly writ). On Friday past, the weather report showed a very productive work-weekend ahead – rainy weather the whole time – but Saturday turned out okay and we spent a bunch of it in the park. I woke up Sunday praying for rain. Keep me inside, at the computer, on a guitar, making good on our failure to attend our buddy’s wedding, but no luck. Patchy clouds in Brooklyn, a couple of trips to go get coffee, one last look at the roses in the Botanic Garden, and here I am a complete loser on Monday morning, so completely unable to hit fastballs.
A song for the day:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
And another:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Irene, Goodnight
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Skies getting dark over Brooklyn, Irene. Goodnight (I’ll see you in my dreams).
“That’s not me”, by Steve
Criminy, people… Do you really think I’m such a self-flattering bastard as to put photos of myself all over our CD? When all Erika gets is a couple of impressionistic nose-n-chin shots? What gives?? That’s me on cover. Edwin Forsythe Wildlife Refuge, NJ, taken with a crap cell phone a few years back. People been asking, and that’s Erika’s dad, Atkin Simonian, in the serial shots inside. Heliopolis, Egypt, sometime around 1948. That’s not me. Say what you will about the fact that Atkin and I are ostensibly mistakable for one another.
As long as we’re on the topic: other photos inside are of our fire escape and the F train on a sunny day, from Erika’s Lomo; from the Five Points House of Industry (see the very first blog post, below); and of a former tabla teacher of mine, a Benaresi gentleman who lived begrudgingly in Kathmandu, named Shambhu Prasad Misra.
And for the completist or the curious, here’s a link to the full photo from which this collage was cropped.