The Witzard

The Internet really is a never-ending Twilight Zone -esque worm hole of a place sometimes; case in point, just last night, after returning home from rollicking Sweat N Soul -filled a Har Mar Superstar concert in the depths of Philly around 1-1:30am, I wasted nearly an hour aimlessly Googling covers from Sean Tillmann 's one-time touring mate and fellow Tillman(n) , Father John Misty ... starting with two unabashedly ironic Taylor Swift in the vein of Ryan Adam 's 1989 covers and ultimately, ending up at a sparse SiriusXM cover of Nirvana 's "Heart-Shaped Box." Somewhere down the seemingly endless sonic worm hole I created, I stumbled upon @fatherjohnmisty 's sprawling, wonderfully executed renditions of widely-known Leonard Cohen , The Arcade Fire, John Lennon , Rihanna, and most recently, Nine Inch Nails classics. Former Fleet Foxes drummer and ironic "rockstar" Josh Tillman unexpectedly covered NIN 's breakout anti-pop hit, "Cl...

"My interpretation [of "Blank Space" ] from the classic Ryan Adams album "1989,"' former Fleet Foxes drummer and semi-ironic, self-loathing Indie-Pop superstar Josh Tillman aka @fatherjohnmisty Tweeted Monday evening on the heels of Ryan Adams' just-released Taylor Swift 1989 covers album. Tillman was seemingly riffing on Adams' 1989 re-imagined in the style of Bruce Springsteen 's Darkness On The Edge of Town meets The Smiths' Meat Is Murder , sloppily crooning Swift's chart-topping "Blank Space" and "Welcome to New York" in the style of Velvet Underground frontman Lou Reed . "In the studio working on a [song-for-song] reinterpretation of Ryan Adams "1989," gonna be great! Ryan's amazing," Father John Misty sarcastically wrote in a since-deleted "so psyched"-hashtagged Tweet. While Tillman's rendition of "Blank Space" is, to say the very least, a litt...

Jacksonville 's very own genre-blending Alt. Country superstar Ryan Adams is in fact, no stranger to recording full-length cover albums; Adams reportedly recorded, and ultimately scrapped, a stripped down 4-track revision of The Strokes' critically-acclaimed debut Is This It? (2001). But for whatever reasons, Adams' " Blues cover version" has rather discouragingly still only been heard by members of his former backing band, The Cardinals . Ryan Adams' second attempt (or third, if you count his unheard Vampire Weekend album), at a full-length cover album: a self-described Smiths -indebted version of Taylor Swift 's recent career-redefining 1989 has been very well-documented through his own personal social media accounts. "Ryan's music helped shape my song-writing. This is surreal and dream-like. Countdown to [Ryan Adams' 1989] @TheRyanAdams ," @taylorswift13 frantically Tweeted Thursday afternoon, upon the sudden announcement ...