(no subject)

[miko2]

Today's Song: Delia by Cordelia's Dad

Cordelia's Dad is an American folk-rock band that hail from Northampton, Massachusetts. Their first two cds can be described as folk-punk. The first cd especially was wild garage punk covers of folk tunes; their second cd was about half punk folk and half accoustic folk. They are more of an American folk-rock band than Celtic, but they are definitely folk-rock and not country or bluegrass influenced.

It was their song Idumea which first grabbed my attention -- a haunting punk arrangement of an old New England hymn about death and what comes after. But that's an odd song that probably doesn't appeal to everybody, and I'm as equally hooked on their cover of Delia, a murder ballad probably better associated with the likes of Johnny Cash. Their take is a straight-ahead punk rendition, and is lots of fun.

After a long silence in which I thought the band had probably split up, they released two new cds in the latter 1990's that were all-acoustic, and included a lot of shaped-note singing. It was a very different sound for them, but in fact they had always been both a punk band and an acoustic folk band. Finally they returned in 2002 with a new electrified folk-rock cd, proving that they hadn't abandoned that part of their past.

These days they not only have the web page listed above, but have a Myspace page as well. Their music is available on iTunes and you can order their cds from CD Baby. I'm surprised I can reccommend as iTune downloads these songs, because at one point these cds were very much out of print and obscure, and the band had seemingly vanished for good.

They even have some videos up on YouTube. Not great quality, and I can't link you to any place where you can hear songs as old as Delia or Idumea, but still, here they are:

Live in UK 1996 part 1
Live in UK 1996 part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKhW-PZ9pcg