“According to Bowie’s longtime producer Tony Visconti, Sun Kil Moon was one of David’s favorite new artists to listen to before he passed away. Known for his haunting, baritone style of vocals, Sun Kil Moon is the primary recording moniker of vocalist and guitarist Mark Kozelek.”
That’s the website where this cover was originally aired but I don’t know what Tony or David himself does means by “new” because Kozelek has been around since the 90’s with his band Red House Painters before Sun Kil Moon plus all solo albums and projects under his own name too. Maybe “new” to Bowie at the time just before he passed away, I guess?
If you wanna listen to Sun Kil Moon ft. Petra Haden – John, I’m Only Dancing follow this link to soundcloud here, it’s setting are on private so I can’t embedded it here and every-time it pops up on youtube it’s taken down plus it does saying it’s Sufjan Stevens but it’s NOT! It’s taken a while to find and it’s only got 300+ listens but maybe it’s suppose to be a big secret or something? I don’t know!
Kozelek sung about discovering Bowie’s Young American album on a trip to California as a kid on the song called Micheline from his Benji album, actually the dog movie which the album is named after is sung about in almost the same line in that very same song too. This Benji album was his some what hit record which looking at the date of release is just before David himself passed away so maybe that’s where he heard Mark.
After David died Mark enlisted Mike Patton to sing backing vocals on his cover of the song called Win, original on that Young American album. That cover ended up on the album called Mark Kozelek Sing Favorites but I did knew sooner or later Mark would do more and here’s the next one now. John, I’m Only Dancing song was a Bowie 1972-3 single and has two versions, entirely different recordings. The first was released in September 1972 as the original version and then in April 1973, an saxophone version. Plus then re-recorded as John, I’m Only Dancing Again in 1974 but that one was recorded around the time of Young American album, surprise!
Sun Kil Moon recorded this new cover for some guy who’s called Howard Stern, being an Aussie means nothing to me but I understand he’s some well known shock radio DJ from America and this track is exclusive to his radio show. Anyway he’s got 25 artists to recording new covers of Bowie’s songs and one is Sun Kil Moon featuring Petra Haden on backing vox. Some others are very big names, some up and coming names and somewhere in-between acts are on his list of Bowie covers but I’m only posting and interested in this one and so much so I am writing about it on my blog now.
Also in the last two or three years if you want more covers by him, I’ve got a few on my blog so here’s that Bowie’s Win with Patton is linked here, a couple of live Lou Reed cover songs linked here, Elliott Smith studio recording cover linked here and Leonard Cohen song more than one version of the very same song here. Sun Kil Moon with Magik*Magik Orchestra do Tom Petty cover live here. Plus if you check out that full cover album of Sings Favorites that’s also linked here too.
BTW In the last couple of days Mark has posted a very, very new song about the latest American gun shooting on Valentine’s Day just on his website linked here too, it’s called Day In America by Mark Kozelek with Donny McCaslin and Jim White featuring Kevin Corriganor. Mark also before these couple of new tracks did also announced yet another new album for this year, coming on 11th of May is his self-titled solo album which was mainly recorded in hotel rooms on electric guitar by himself with Steve Shelley, ex-Sonic Youth drummer plays on only one song of the eleven tracks. If you don’t keep up with Sun Kil Moon/Mark Kozelek new albums, I’ll remind you now he only had four new albums released last year! Yes, four! That’s not a typo but my own fave of that insane pile of work was his last one in late 2017 which I’ll now link here too. He’s saying he’s worked on another album for November released this year, so down to only a couple of albums for 2018, he’s already working on one for 2019 release! No pre-order for that self-titled new album yet but please go to his own website if you wanna hear two of those brand new songs or just click on song titles which are: This Is My Town and My Love For You Is Undying.
I guess, that’s my little Mark Kozelek/Sun Kil Moon news update blog post too!
Cheers 🙂
a1000mistakes 