Up in the sky! It's a band! No, it's a supergroup!

Carl Newman on guitar. Neko Case on vocals and tambourine. Dan Bejar on vocals and some weird gourd-like rhumba shaker. Yep, that's the makings of the Canadian supergroup The New Pornographers. They've produced some of the finest pop albums of the last decade and I can't imagine a modern musical landscape without them. But who in the world would have ever predicted that this precise collection of folks (including Blaine Thurier, Todd Fancey, Kurt Dahle, and Kathryn Calder) would get together and make such sweet noise?

Our earlier post on countermusicals attempted to open the door of our fictional musings to explorations of fiction and counterfiction in music. A question posed there, and a question that is posed daily amongst fervent music geeks, was, and is: If you could construct your own supergroup of existing musicians, alive or dead, who would you choose and how would you arrange them? Much like crossover comics where fans finally get to see Spiderman team up with Green Lantern (I honestly don't know if that ever actually happened) for a token adventure, imaginary supergroups are your chance to bring your favorite musical worlds (pop or otherwise) together to play in tandem and fulfill your fantasies. Take your favorite guitar player and place him/her in front of your favorite drummer, behind your favorite piano player, your favorite harpsichordist, next to your favorite avant-garde vocalist. There are no rules. Just be sure to specify Beatles or Wings-era McCartney if you choose to go down that path.

To start things off, let's see what kind of band I can piece together. On guitar I'm tempted to go left with Johnny Greenwood or right with Doug Martsch, but I think my best bet is with J Mascis. I want there to be some cohesion in my group (sonic cohesion, not play-well-with-others cohesion), so I'll forgo obvious vocalist choices like Björk or Mark Kozelek and just stick with Robert Pollard (circa 1992). (Hamilton Leithauser a close second there for vocals.) Drums are easy with Glenn Kotche. We'll place Kathy Foster on bass guitar for sheer hotness, but also for excessive radness. To round out the sound, I'll also put Spencer Krug on the keyboard, but we'll restrict him to his more straight-ahead playing of Wolf Parade as opposed to his explorative Sunset Rubdown work.

How's that? Now you try.

Countermusicals

Back in May of this year, Scarlett Johansson released an album titled Anywhere I Lay My Head featuring the actress's interpretation of ten Tom Waits songs. When the album began generating headlines, I remember Tim suggesting that he would be much more enthusiastic about an album of a slightly different sort. (The discussion actually dates back to the November 2006 release of the Joanna Newsom album Ys.) Tim's observation was that a great many songs by Joanna Newsom were actually ready-made for cover treatment by Waits -- the song we kept coming back to was "Sawdust and Diamonds." On the flip-side, it also seemed fitting for Newsom to try her hand with some of Waits' song catalog.

The Waits vs. Newsom discussion was refueled this week by NPR's "All Songs Considered" concert series release of a recording of an epic Tom Waits performance at the Fox Theater in Atlanta. The concert recording and Waits' performance was so remarkable that Tim and I couldn't help but fantasize further about the notion of a collaboration of covers between Waits and Newsom. With the recent birth of this very blog, there was an immediate connection to be drawn between Counterfictionals and what we might now dub as "Countermusicals." In the spirit of what Counterfictionals has set out to do, I see a lot of fertile territory out there for documenting those discussions we have all had so many times before:

If you could create your dream supergroup, who would be in the lineup? Who is on drums? Vocals? Lead guitar? Bass?

What band or artist do you wish was still around making music today or what artist vanished before their potential creative zenith? Nick Drake? Kurt Cobain? What music would they be making now?

The Beatles? Dream up any sort of scenario with these guys and then just ask the magic question of "What if?"

To demonstrate -- not that I need to -- let's go back to the example Waits and Newsom. In plotting our dream album of cover songs, we managed to plot Waits interpreting "Sawdust and Diamonds" and then Newsom putting some harp over her singing "Sixteen Shells From A Thirty-Ought Six." Beautiful. My favorite Waits song, though, is most certainly "Downtown Train." I suggested to Tim that this would be a track that I'd love to see covered by Newsom. Tim responded in saying perhaps a female vocalist might actually get the gender (assuming heterosexual relationships) right on "Downtown Train." The lyrics as sung by Waits:

Outside another yellow moon
punched a hole in the nighttime, yes
I climb through the window and down the street
shining like a new dime
the downtown trains are full with all those Brooklyn girls
they try so hard to break out of their little worlds

You wave your hand and they scatter like crows
they have nothing that will ever capture your heart
theyr'e just thorns without the rose
be careful of them in the dark
oh if I was the one
you chose to be your only one
oh baby can't you hear me now

Chorus

Will I see you tonight
on a downtown train
every night is just the same
you leave me lonely now

I know your window and I know it's late
I know your stairs and your doorway
I walk down your street and past your gate
I stand by the light at the four way
you watch them as they fall
they all have heart attacks
they stay at the carnival
but they'll never win you back

Chorus

Will I see you tonight on a downtown train
where every night is just the same you leave me lonely
will I see you tonight on a downtown train
all of my dreams just fall like rain
all upon a downtown train

Considering that "Downtown Train" hit #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1989 only after being covered by Rod Stewart, I think this is a poetic jumping-off point for the discussion on Countermusicals. Rod Stewart wasn't afraid to ask "What if?" and it garnered him a #3 hit. That's probably not a big deal for Rod, but as far as opening the floodgates of this blog, it might be a big deal for me.