The Grateful Dead were known to bust out a cover song at most of their live shows. Many of them wrapped The Dead’s signature sound around an already popular composition. Today, I thought I would pull some favorites and new discoveries from the Live Music Archive. While there is a plethora of covers, dates, and versions to choose from, we’ll start you out with the ones below. Due to the large number and variety, it’s likely we’ll do several rounds of posts like these.

MP3: Grateful Dead - “Johnny B. Goode”
MP3: Grateful Dead - “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”
MP3: Grateful Dead - “Day Tripper”
MP3: Grateful Dead - “The Mighty Quinn (Quinn The Eskimo)”
MP3: Grateful Dead - “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road”
MP3: Grateful Dead - “Gloria”
MP3: Grateful Dead - “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”
MP3: Grateful Dead - “All Along The Watchtower”
MP3: Grateful Dead - “Hey Jude”
MP3: Grateful Dead - “Bobby McGee”
MP3: Grateful Dead - “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”
MP3: Grateful Dead - “Big River”
MP3: Grateful Dead - “Mama Tried”
MP3: Grateful Dead - “Wake Up Little Susie”
MP3: Grateful Dead - “Werewolves of London”

A benefit for urban agriculture charity Just Foods – dedicated to sustainable community agriculture in NYC – turned out to be one of the best triple bills of the year so far. Maybe the energy of the election is still bouncing around. Whatever the case, it was a night for serious dancing. Thy Burden were recently mischaracterized here earlier as an Irish band (while they’d no doubt do a great job with it, our spies gave us bad information: sorry). What they are is the missing link between Bill Monroe and Gogol Bordello. With acoustic guitars and rhythm section, banjo, fiddle,mandolin and sometimes harmonica, they delivered a deliriously fun, frequently psychedelic show. They like minor keys and get the fires burning most brightly playing in them. They also like their tempos lickety-split, giving all the players a chance to show off some sizzling chops. The mandolin took most of the solos. Frequently they’d jam out on a tune for a few minutes before launching into the verse, which worked especially well on Friend of the Devil – done oldschool rather than the Grateful Dead way – and the Hank Williams classic Ramblin Man. At times, they’d add just a little Balkan tinge to the mix, which really hit the spot. There hasn’t been a bluegrass band this fun here in town since the Dixie Bee-Liners vamoosed for the hills of Virginia, or maybe even since Brooklyn Browngrass split up.

Female-fronted ska rockers Across the Aisle were next, blending ska with a brassy, chipper, cheery, occasionally sarcastic pop feel - imagine No Doubt without the weight of the corporation beating down on them, and with a horn section so tight you couldn’t fit a piece of paper between the sax and the trumpet. Everything they did was infectious: the sly Born Dirty, their signature song Across the Aisle which they began at hardcore speed, the impossibly catchy Out of Sight, Out of Mind, the sexy urban tale 59th and Lexington, a straight-up reggae number and the sardonic Everybody Lies: “Don’t be fooled by assholes,” Megg their frontwoman grinned. Thy Burden were a hard act to follow, but the party didn’t let up til Across the Aisle left the stage. All they need is some college radio exposure and this band will be huge.

One of those choadmonkey corporate bands was next, “choadmonkey” being the marvelous term coined by System Noise’s bass player to describe pretty much any loud Nickelback wannabe (a choad being something small and disgusting from the nether regions, either a dingleberry or some other short stubby thing). This crew had a lot of stuff on tape, might have been lipsynching and didn’t seem to have any fans either. Finally, System Noise took the stage and delivered a set that was as ecstatic as it was eerily intense. They started with the party set and eventually segued into the dark, disturbing set, which somehow still felt perfectly natural. Their frontwoman Sarah Mucho is a bonafide star on the cabaret circuit (she won a MAC award if that means anything) and a wiseass onstage, and she was on top of her game tonight, playfully berating her band when they insisted on playing a new one she clearly didn’t feel up to. But she nailed it and then some. When she suddenly stopped wailing, leaving a pregnant pause and then unexpectedly picking up right where she left off, the effect was spine-tingling. The guitar alternated between sly, catchy funk and scorching, chromatically-fueled noise, the rhythm section in particularly ferocious, pummeling mode tonight, even on the catchy, funky stuff like Shitkickers and Everyday Hustler, the two songs that opened the set.

A new one in 6/8 (the one Mucho didn’t want to sing but nailed anyway) began especially ominous, with a watery 80s feel before building to a pyrotechnic, noisy crescendo. They roared through the snarky, darkly pounding, Iron Maiden-inflected cannibalism anthem Good Enough to Eat and followed that soon after with an other chromatically-fueled, even noisier one called Cosmic Monsters. This being a cold night, when they finally wrapped up the set well after midnight, a lot of the crowd had cleared out. Those who remained were rewarded. When the bass, guitar and drums launched into the slow, ominous intro to Daydreaming (our pick for best song of the year for 2006), a murmur ran through the crowd: this slowly crescendoing, titanic anthem is a big hit, and the band hadn’t played it out in a long time. This time out they brought out every bloodcurdling ounce of menace in the melody, Mucho toying with her phrasing on the quieter sections like a cat with a helpless rodent.

The only drawback of the evening was a late arrival meant missing Farm Aid regular Jesse Lenat’s opening set: if what he played was anything like what’s on his myspace, he kicked ass. Check and see for yourself.

Thy Burden’s next show is on Dec 6 at Europa; Sarah Mucho stars in her highly acclaimed revue Subterranean Circus at Don’t Tell Mama on Dec 3 at 8 PM and Dec 9 at 7.

Here’s the big list:

SPENCER DAVIS GROUP: VERY BEST OF (MONO)
KRAFTWERK: AUTOBAHN (US VERTIGO PRESSING)
OMD: ARCHITECTURE & MORALITY
WINGS: WILD LIFE
BOB SEGER: SMOKIN’ O.P.’S
THE HOLLIES: GREATEST (MONO)
FREDDIE AND THE DREAMERS: BEST OF

GRATEFUL DEAD: AMERICAN BEAUTY (RHINO RECORDS PRESSING)

DANIEL JOHNSTON: HI, HOW ARE YOU (ETERNAL YIP REISSUE)

REDD KROSS: BORN INNOCENT (PURPLE VINYL REISSUE)

THE FREE DESIGN: ONE BY ONE (LIGHT IN THE ATTIC REISSUE)

THE FREE DESIGN: SING FOR VERY IMPORTANT PEOPLE (LIGHT IN THE ATTIC REISSUE)

BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE: THIER SATANIC MAJESTIES SECOND REQUEST (WHITE VINYL)
SOFT MACHINE/MARK LEEMAN 5/DEEP FEELING/T-BONES: ROCK GENERATION VOL. 8
VARIOUS ARTISTS: HARD CELL (CELLULOID COMP. FEATURING MASSACRE, GOLDEN PALOMINOS, DEADLINE, JIMI HENDRIX…)
BEACH BOYS: PET SOUNDS (MONO, VG-)
MOTT THE HOOPLE: SELF-TITLED (1970)
THE FUGS: GOLDEN FILTH (LIVE @ THE FILLMORE EAST)
C,S,N,Y: SELF-TITLED
DUSTY SPRINGFIELD: GOLDEN HITS
HARRY NILSSON: PUSSY CATS (PRODUCED BY JOHN LENNON, WITH RINGO STARR AND KEITH MOON)
IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY…TODAY
NRBQ: SELF-TITLED (COLUMBIA 2 EYE 360 STEREO, SUN RA COVER)
NRBQ: SCRAPS (KAMA SUTRA RECORDS)
OSMONDS: CRAZY HORSES (HEAVY ROCK ALBUM FROM THE FAMOUS FAMILY, MUST HEAR!)
OSMONDS: THE PLAN (FOLLOW UP TO CRAZY HORSES, RELIGOUS PSYCH ALBUM!!)
JANIS JOPLIN: SOUNDTRACK FROM JANIS MOVIE (2LP COLLECTION WITH SONGS, LIVE TRACKS, INTERVIEWS)
EDDIE AND THE HOT RODS: LIFE ON THE LINE
THE EXPLOITED: DEATH BEFORE DISHONOUR (ROUGH JUSTICE/COMBAT RECORDS)
VELVET UNDERGROUND: VU (A COLLECTION OF PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED RECORDINGS)
TOM WAITS: RAIN DOGS
TOM WAITS: FOREIGN AFFAIRS
TOM WAITS: NIGHTHAWKS AT THE DINER
TOM WAITS: BLUE VALENTINE
LAST KISS: WEDNESDAY
GULLIVER: SELF-TITLED (FEATURES A PRE-OATES DARYL HALL)
THE GOOD EARTH: HOW DEEP IS THE OCEAN

CLAIRE HAMILL: STAGE DOOR JOHNNIES

STRING DRIVEN THING: KEEP YER ‘AND…

MARMALADE: SELF-TITLED
PAUL HAIG: HEAVEN HELP YOU NOW (DISQUES DU CREPUSCULE)
GOOD NEWS: SELF-TITLED (RURAL COUNTRY ROCK, COLUMBIA 360)
ALLMAN BROTHERS: EAT A PEACH
THE BAND: THE LAST WALTZ
JAMES AND THE GOOD BROTHERS: SELF-TITLED (CANADIAN RURAL ROCK)
THE VENTURES: THEME FROM SHAFT (SEALED ORIGINAL)

THE BACHELORS: PRESENTING

RICHARD WRIGHT: WET DREAM (PINK FLOYD)

FUNK/SOUL/DISCO:
ISAAC HAYES: MOVEMENT
ISLEY BROTHERS: BROTHERS: ISLEY
THE ORIGINALS: DEF I NI TIONS
AL GREEN: IS LOVE
MICHAEL JACKSON: THRILLER
FREDA PAYNE: BAND OF GOLD (VG)
LABELLE: MOON SHADOW
JEAN KNIGHT: MR. BIG STUFF (VG)
JOE TEX: LIVE AND LIVELY
THE SHIRELLES: VERY BEST OF
AL GREEN: SELF-TITLED (BELL RECORDS)
JIMMY CASTOR BUNCH: MAXIMUM STIMULATION
BILL SUMMERS & SUMMER HEAT: STRAIGHT TO THE BANK 12″
SUPER DISCO BAND: SELF-TITLED
MAN PARRISH: SELF-TITLED LP (ELECTRO-RAP-DISCO, WITH KLAUS NOMI)
VARIOUS ARTISTS: SUPER HITS OF R&B (2 LP COMP ON COLUMBIA RECORDS, GREAT COLLECTION!)
WILLIE HUTCH: ODE TO MY LADY
JOHNNIE TAYLOR: TAYLORED IN SILK
JAMES & BOBBY PURIFY: PURE SOUND OF THE PURIFYS (BELL RECORDS, STEREO)
THE DELLS: SELF-TITLED (BUDDAH RECORDS)

FAZE-O: GOOD THANG

VARIOUS ARTISTS: SAVE THE CHILDREN

VARIOUS ARTISTS: ROSES & REVOLUTIONS

JAZZ:
MONK: BIG BAND AND QUARTET IN CONCERT (COLUMBIA 2-EYE G.H.F.)
BARNEY BIGARD/ART HODES: BUCKET’S GOT A HOLE (DELMARK RECORDS)
PERCY HUMPHREY: AT MANNY’S TAVERN (BIOGRAPH RECORDS)
JAZUM-5
DOC SEVERINSEN: NIGHT JOURNEY
SONNY STITT: DUMPY MAMA (FLYING DUTCHMAN RECORDS)
JAYSON LINDH: RAMADAN (FUNKY SWEDISH FLUTE RECORD, CTI)
BOB JUNG AND HIS ORCHESTRA: JUNG! THE BIG BAND SYNDROME (COMMAND RECORDS, FUNKY MOMENTS)
JOHN KLEMMER: CONSTANT THROB (IMPULSE RECORDS)
RAMSEY LEWIS: UP POPS
MIKE GIBBS & GARY BURTON: IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST
ZBIGNIEW SEIFERT: PASSION (W. JACK DEJOHNETTE & JOHN SCOFIELD)
IDRIS MUHAMMAD: HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN (KUDU RECORDS)
ELEVENTH HOUR: GREATEST HITS (SEALED)

STANLEY TURRENTINE: SOUL OF

GIANTS OF JAZZ: THE GUITARISTS (TIME LIFE BOX SET)

QUINCY JONES: BODY HEAT

QUINCY JONES: NDEDA

QUINCY JONES: MODE

FOLK/BLUES/GOSPEL:
ETTA JAMES: COME A LITTLE CLOSER
B.B. KING: INDIANOLA MISSISSIPPI SEEDS
INCREDIBLE STRING BAND: EARTHSPAN
INCREDIBLE STRING BAND: LIQUID ACROBAT AS REGARDS THE AIR
VARIOUS ARTISTS: THE GOSPEL SOUND (2LP COLUMBIA RECORDS COMP. FROM THE 1920s-1960s)

REV. CLAUDE JETER: GREATEST HITS

JULIE DRISCOLL: THIS IS… (GERMAN PRESSING)

DAVE VAN RONK: VAN RONK (1971)

RICHARD THOMPSON: DARING ADVENTURES

PEARLS BEFORE SWINE: THESE THINGS TOO

RAP:

EPMD: UNFINISHED BUSINESS (ORIGINAL)

DR. DRE: THE CRONIC (ORIGINAL)
METHOD MAN: TICAL (ORIGINAL)

MARLEY MARL: HOUSE OF HITS (RARE 2 LP ORIGINAL)

SOUNDTRACKS:

MUSIC FROM DR. WHO (SYNTH STUFF)
DEATH WISH II (MUSIC BY JIMMY PAGE)
DEATH WISH II (MUSIC BY JIMMY PAGE, SEALED COPY)
POLTERGEIST II (MUSIC BY JERRY GOLDSMITH, SEALED COPY)
OUR MAN FLINT (MUSIC BY JERRY GOLDSMITH, MONO PRESSING)
OUR MAN FLINT (MUSIC BY JERRY GOLDSMITH, STEREO PRESSING)
LIQUID SKY
THE WARRIORS
MARJOE (STRANGE FILM ABOUT A YOUNG PREACHER, MUSIC WITH SPOKEN WORD)
THE BLACK HOLE (MUSIC BY JOHN BARRY)
HARD JOB BEING GOD (RELIGOUS ROCK ORIGINAL CAST ALBUM)
MUSIC FROM THE GREAT MOVIE THRILLERS (BERNARD HERMANN/HITCHCOCK)
CIRCLE OF LOVE
LAST OF THE SKI BUMS
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (SEALED ORIGINAL, 80′S VERSION)
THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER (MUSIC BY DAVE GRUSIN)
SOUNDTRACK! (COLLECTION FEATURING MUSIC FROM CLEOPATRA JONES, BULLITT, CLOCKWORK ORANGE, KUNG FU…)
SUDDEN IMPACT AND OTHER THEMES (MUSIC BY LALO SCHIFRIN)
LA PELLE (ITALIAN ORIGINAL, MUSIC BY LALO SCHIFRIN)
OSTERMAN WEEKEND (MUSIC BY LALO SCHIFRIN)
ENTER THE DRAGON (MUSIC BY LALO SCHIFRIN)
BROTHERHOOD
THE FOURTH PROTOCOL
GHOST STORY
EMMANUELLE 2
EMMANUELLE 4
ICE STATION ZEBRA
MOTOWN PRESENTS PRIME TIME (TV THEME SONGS)
NORTH BY NORTHWEST

THE MOSQUITO COAST

Point Juncture, WA is the Illuminati of Portland’s indie-rock scene. Its name doesn’t pop up often in national publications, nor are its members evangelical about promoting their band. But for the past five years, the group’s influence has been felt throughout Portland’s thriving underground, in dank basement shows and via the band members’ countless side projects and the outside groups that multi-instrumentalist Skyler Norwood has produced (Blind Pilot, Horse Feathers, etc.). PJWA is a band’s band.

That clichéd title grows out of a rare intersection of musical prowess and personal humility. In concert, PJWA is a disciplined squad that slips effortlessly from vibraphone-fueled jazz-pop in odd time signatures to screaming guitar-fuzz assaults in 4/4 time. But it’s the joy they take in playing that endears them to audiences, evidenced as equally by guitarist Wilson Vediner’s unabashed rock guitar moves as by Amanda Spring’s laser-beam stare from behind the drums. The stage seems a sacred place for PJWA, and they disappear into themselves upon taking it, becoming vessels for the music.

Offstage is another story. Bonded together by Simpsons one-liners and inside jokes, one would be hard-pressed to find a goofier or more tightly knit group. Which makes keeping them on topic during an interview—as I attempted to do last Friday at Northwest Portland’s Stepping Stone Cafe—somewhat of a challenge. So is recording an album.

“Ask them to do anything more complicated than eat french fries and things get complicated,” a smiling, stubble-faced Victor Nash says of the particularly tempestuous studio relationship between Vediner and Norwood. “We’ve been playing these songs now for over three years,” Vediner adds, explaining that the band has four or five variations of many songs from its brand-new second full-length, Heart to Elk. Democracy is slow and sometimes bitter, and PJWA is a pretty democratic band—so while all of its members engage in politicking to keep their favorite parts in any given song (“So you have a series of signals for different people in the band?” Spring asks Norwood with befuddlement), PJWA has developed a group ethos (somewhere between Sonic Youth and Tortoise, though more accessible than either) after spending countless hours crammed in a van together on tours of the western U.S.

That group aesthetic is visible in every aspect of Heart to Elk, right down to the artwork (cute animals drawn by Spring). Musically, the band turned to producer friends for advice. “We didn’t know you weren’t supposed to record the whole thing in one room,” Nash admits.

Heart to Elk came out crazy victorious. Where past releases (2004’s Juxtapony EP and 2005’s Mama Auto Boss) had an identifiable blueprint—pretty, subdued harmonies lead into math beats lead into a wall of guitar fuzz—Heart to Elk is remarkably unpredictable and tricky. It offers the hypnotic tranquility of the best shoegaze albums, but seldom loses the listener’s attention in its lush production and orchestration, spinning on a dime with a blast of brass or a drum fill the moment a song starts to drag. Spring and Nash, who’ve played in bands together since high school, split vocal and songwriting duties, and both sound more natural than ever before.

For a breathless five-song stretch between the mechanical assault of “New Machine” and the slow-building majesty of “The Kings Were Good,” the album reaches an absolute perfection—culminating in an exhausting swirl of guitar feedback, in-the-red drum fills and soaring trumpet lines. And even at its weakest moments, Heart to Elk demands the listener’s attention. If this release doesn’t garner the national attention it deserves, it’s probably because PJWA’s allegiance is to making great music, not marketing itself.

“I’m always just thankful for where we end up,” Spring says of the band’s low-key persona. “Me too,” Norwood adds, munching on a french fry. “When we were opening for Dirty Three a couple years ago, I was backstage thinking, ‘This may be as good as it ever gets.’ And after that I made sure to enjoy every bit. We just want to do this as long as it doesn’t suck.” Hearing them now, at the height of their powers, it’s pretty hard to imagine PJWA ever sucking.

See IT: Point Juncture, WA plays its CD release show at Holocene on Thursday, Nov. 20, with A Weather and Deer or the Doe. $7. 21+.

Here are some recent moving-pictures of our lil girl in action, showing off some of her new moves, beginning with this little spin trick she’s been doing (b-girl in the making!) –

& believe it or not, nico can already play (and quite enjoys) catch!

&& this “mischievous boo” likes to play coy and run&hide (before bravely/laughingly facing) the attack of the daddy monster –

&&& finally, our jury’s stlll out on this, but it seems that Nico may already be uttering her first word, and, in a little bit of meta-self-awareness, it appears not to be “mama” or “dada” but “baby” (or more accurately, “ba-bay” / “bebé” — no doubt influenced by her Spanish-speaking caretaker, who, sadly, just moved to California [we started 3 days/week of family-care back in September]): as you’ll see below, Nico likes to point to pictures of herself, and then to herself, and then she says that word, or something more like “ba bay … bay bay … ba ba … ba bing,” so, yeah, it’s not so clear, but it sure is suggestive. U be the judge!

2 months to go before we hit one year!? Amazing. Better get cracking on a birthday remix.