Spend a wam spring evening on the backporch...with Sierra And Chase

It's springtime...almost summer. actually here today you'd say it's the dog days of August with a frankly too damn hot 35+ degrees. If we were futher south, we ould hear the crickets sing. Or, you know, we ca bring the crickets to you, together with some sweet, failiar melodies in some sweet vocal harmony. Springtime could also men hanging out on the front  or back porch, having someone pull out an acoustic guitar and just jam on some ol' songs you like. And if the person who picks up the guitar is an Eagleson, all the better. The imagined debut album of Sierra Eagleson did surprisingly strong numbers in January - and deservedly so - and the eagle-sonned eagle-eyed among you might have seen the name Chase Eagleson already in my re-imagined Kurt Cobain musical extravaganza, when I needed an Elvis impersonator (don't ask...or read about it in the write-up) and Chase's fantastic version of "Can't Help Falling In Love" fit like a glove. Yes, in the Eagleson family, talent runs deep as both siblings have their own career doing moody acoustic cover verions of popular songs, both old and new. Chase is also a bit of a handsome devil, so that's almost unfair.

 Anyway, the answer to the old question of 'What's better than an Eagleson?' is of course 'Two Eaglesons', especially if they are singing in harmony together. Beautiful stuff, as you will hear on the album of the day. The two have duetted dozens of time, but for this album I only chose songs that I really liked - covering "Hey Ya!" as a slow, downbeat, acoustic number inches a bit too close to novelty for my taste - and I also included one solo number each, Chase covering Radiohead's "Falke Plastic Trees" and Sierra Peter Gabriel's classic "Solsbury Hill" (also recorded with some birds and other beasts contributing...). Chase is indeed a bit of a Radiohead-head, also covering "High and Dry" with Sierra. On that song, as on others, Chase sings on top and Sierra takes the low harmony, to often stunning effect. 

Chase and Sierra are alternating lead vocals here in a deliberate sequencing decision. Their cover of "Landslide" has some beautiful Banjo picking, It's part of the opening trio of classic 70s hits that the Eaglesons have probably heard in the music collection of their parents, the others are Gary Wriht's "Dream Weaver" and James Taylor's "Carolina In My Mind", which opens the album. Not with an acoustic strum, but some bird chirping, as they recorded that one in a nature park of some sort, so you have the natural choir of bird voices in the background of the song. And then, to show that they (and me) are not only classic rock-retro-minded, I programmed Gorillaz' "On Memory Hill" and the aforementioned "Fake Plastic Trees" afterwards. Later a cover of indie-folkster Gregory Alan Isakov also shows up, flanked by some other 70s gold like "Your Song". And the album ends on a familiar note - at least if you have listened to Brush Fire - as Sierra goes back to her moody cover of Springsteen's "Dancing In The Dark", here as a duet medley with Chase singing "I'm On Fire". 

If you were mean-spirited - which I'm sure most of my readers aren't - you could call this high quality karaoke. But I think that would do these covers a grave injustice. Chase and Sierra find notes and nuances in these songs that maybe wasn't there in the first place. When even an old, mildly hoary warhorse like "Your Song" cn be turned into a winner, we're onto something here. So, sit down on the back porch with Chae and Sierra and their guitars, let the bird and beasts around you add their ten cents and and spend a lovely evening listening to these siblings picking and harmonising... 

The Slo-Mo Lonesome Sound Of Sierra

If the name Sierra Eagleson doesn't ring a bell, I won't blame you. She's not a household name, until you really know your cover artists on Youtube, and there's hundreds of them. So what's different about Mrs. Eagleson? 

Clearly, she's a really good singer, but those are a dime a dozen on the Tube. She is writng her own songs, which is not nothing, even if they aren't unmitigated masterpieces. And the production values for her songs - both self-written nnd cover versions for a virtual busking hat turning - are impeccable. But I don't know. There's just something about that voice and her phrasing, an aura of something hidden, maybe. A definite aura of sadness that permeates even the happier songs. I can't really explain it, but Mrs. Eagleson sticks out from the crowd. 

In many ways, she is a young music maker of her generation. Besides playing songs she likes on the Tube for likes and money, she is also completely aware that the music industry isn't what it was, so anything she is officially releasing is digital. And of course she isn't releasing any albums, though allegedly she's working on one now. 

Albums are for old folks, or nostalgic ones. But with the kind of numbers that an album sells these days, most young artists bypass albums in the beginning of their careers, instead opting for singles or - at the most - EPs. Larkin Poe were notorious for the number of EPs they racked up. So Sierra Eagleson has a couple of digital singles and a four-track EP to her name. Brush Fire is the One Buck Guy's attempt to see what a Sierra Eagleson album could look like, splitting its twelve tracks straight down the middle between originals and the slow, moody cover versions she made her name with on the net. The covers range from old school ("Take Me Home Country Roads") across some 80s classics ("In The Air Tonight", "Dancing In The Dark") to newer songs from the likes of Kings Of Leon ("Pyro") and Arctic Monkeys ("Do I Wanna Know?"). "Brush Fire" and "Midnight Hour", the bookends of the album, were the two main singles she has issued, together with "Darby's Song", the other three tracks are from her EP Solace. 

This is perfect music for very late evenings or very early mornings. 12 slices of moody melancholia for the season, a cocktail for when the days are still short and the nights long and dark.