Frank Turner - "The Outdoor Type"

There often come moments when one is tempted to lie, or at least exaggerate, about one's abilities. After all, even the hapless Napoleon Dynamite recognized that girls only like guys who have skills. Whether a result of bravado or stupidity, it seems that we all too often make this dubious mistake.

Like many such everyday occurrences, this phenomenon has found its way into song. Originally penned by Tom Morgan (of Smudge), the track "The Outdoor Type" appeared on the Lemonheads' 1996 release Car Button Cloth. It's the tale of a guy who lies about his abilities as an outdoorsman. Why? To match the ideal attributes of his love interest's perfect mate, of course.

Featured on C&T today is a cover of that song performed by Frank Turner (ex-Million Dead) that appears on his current split release with Jonah Matranga (ex-Gratitude, Onelinedrawing, New End Original). Each artist contributed a pair of covers to the project as an homage to their own favorites, and this song was one of the two by Turner. Give it a listen:

Frank Turner - The Outdoor Type [Lemonheads/Smudge cover]

The split 12" vinyl release on which this track appears, featuring both Turner and Matranga, was just released online July 25. However, it won't be in retail stores until September 5.

Along with the song above, Turner contributes a cover of the classic "You Are My Sunshine." Matranga's songs are a cover of Billy Bragg's "A New England" and Babybird's "All I Want." I have had a chance to hear it, and I like it a lot. Only 1,000 have been pressed, 100 of which are special dual-color vinyl issues (about 20 of which reportedly remain), and it can be ordered from Welcome Home Records for only $7.50 (postage paid). Not too shabby.

If you'd like to see The Lemonheads perform "The Outdoor Type," there's a pretty nice video of them doing so (in Germany, no less) on YouTube.

One more thing -- I noticed that of the 10 most popular tracks on Hype Machine, exactly zero are anything I would ever post here. So thanks for reading my blog anyway!

ELSEWHERE...

Kwaya Na Kisser has a live Neko Case show from May in Germany. Sooooo good.