Happy Birthday Little Blog;

Today, February 4, 2010 is Pick Apart The Past: Wolves Among The Sheep’s one month birthday! It may seem like a month is not monumental enough to be celebrating but for us, it is a pretty big deal. We entered this vast and intimidating world of blogging with, I can truly say, no expectations what-so-ever.

We are beyond grateful for the minds that have been curious enough to pay us a visit, the eyes that have been interested enough to read our words, the ears that have trusted our opinions enough to listen, the fingers that have been generous enough to share us with others that are way out of our reach and to the blogs that have been nice enough to befriend us in our fetus-like days. We thank you from the bottom of our wild and slightly animalistic hearts and we appreciate you all immensely and please always feel free to leave your thoughts and opinions – they matter to us!

To all of the bands that have created music that is too beautiful to not be hunted, chewed, digested and praised – we thank you as well because none of this would have been inspired without your music. Especially to those musicians who have been wonderful enough to contact us, let us know that they have stopped by and offered words of encouragement – it means more to us than you will ever know! Thank you.

I would also like to thank my blogging half; it has been a long, slightly bitter but entirely enjoyable experience, which without you and your do-er and push-er ways, I would never have had the pleasure of becoming a part of. You are so annoying the best!

In exactly a month, we have had the privilege of featuring music from 21 bands which include:

The Antlers
The Balconies
David Bazan
Beach House
Bon Iver
Brand New
Built to Spill
Camera Obscura
Cedarwell
Destroyer
Kevin Devine
Metric
The National
Other Lives
Phoenix
The Republic of Wolves
Serena Ryder
Thrice
Tigers on Trains
Justin Vernon
Rachael Yamagata

and the days only look brighter from this point forward! We have a few new ideas in store for the future along with tons of music to discuss and we can not wait to let it all unfold – we only hope that you continue to stick around! Yes, you! You! You! You gorgeous creatures!

Forever blogging and feeling,
The Wolf & The Sheep

Serena Ryder and The Beauties – The Funeral (cover);

One aspect about music that always seems to amaze me is cover songs. It’s usually always either hit or miss with me, as far as cover songs are concerned. They either turn out excellent and have potential to surpass the originals or just plain disastrous. In the case of Serena Ryder and The Beauties, their cover of The Funeral by Band of Horses, hit me right in the face (in a good way, of course). While the fetching vocals of Ben Bridwell (lead singer of the Band of Horses) are impossible to replace, Serena Ryder and The Beauties land pretty close to perfection on the giant scale of cover song critique. Listening to this version of the song, almost causes me to forget that it exists in another form, it’s just that good. The lyrics may not belong to Ms. Ryder, but she has taken a song that was beautiful to begin with, and made it her own. I’m not sure if in the long run, this version will top the original completely, but what I do know is that right now it’s the only version I’ve been listening to. Serena Ryder, of course, hails from the great plains of Canada. Where have all of these Canadian musicians been all of my life?

You can download Serena Ryder’s version of ‘The Funeral’ here.

Ryder and the Beauties are set to release a music video for their rendition of The Funeral in the near future. Preview it here! Ryder is currently on tour with Howie Day in support of her album ‘Is It Ok.’

I’m coming up only to show you down for
I’m coming up only to show you wrong
To the outside, the dead leaves, they all blow
Before they died, had trees to hang their hope

Serena Ryder’s Myspace
Band Of Horses’ Myspace
Preview Serena Ryder and The Beauties music video for The Funeral

On a more personal note, must it REALLY be snowing today?

– the wolf & the snoring sheep