There’s cover songs, and then there’s the many ways Leah Wellbaum and Will Gorin have flipped their favorite tracks over the past 15 years. Not just with their longtime band Slothrust either. The Sarah Lawrence grads first bonded over the blues, a way to apply the progressive lesson plans of teachers like Mike Longo — a pianist who played with such jazz pioneers as Dizzy Gillespie and Lee Konitz — to fearless riffs and rhythms that feel like total rewrites. Gorin is quick to credit Longo’s “Three I’s” lesson — imitation, incubation, and innovation — in particular. The main takeaway? That the best music comes from building upon other people’s ideas, rather than simply replicating or revisiting them. The clearest example of this would be the Slothrust record Show Me How You Want It to Be, a cover song compilation that dropped sand-blasted renditions of The Turtles (“Happy Together”) and Marcy’s Playground (“Sex and Candy”) alongside spare takes on Al Green (“Let’s Stay Together”) and Sam Cooke (“Cupid”). Heading even further out into left field is the new EP I Promise, a wild ride that includes a raw performance of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and not one but four different recordings of the slo-mo smash “Pony.”
Event Venue
4114 Vernor Hwy, Detroit, MI 48209, USA, United States
Tickets