Ben Folds

If I could hang out with one musician for a day I would have to admit it would be a toss up between Ben Folds, Ben Gibbard, or John Samson from The Weakerthans. They all have such interesting musical styles and they can flat out write lyrics. For me that's essential to liking a bit of music. It must have great lyrics. Well that is unless you're Sigur Ros or some other ambient/sings in a different language band.

Anyway, lately I've been thinking about doing a week long tribute to Mr. Ben Folds, similar to the Seven Days of Sufjan series I ran last December, just to show how much I love the guy. He's brilliant in concert, he's quite affable in person, and he genuinely seems to like being a brilliant musician. Which, I might point out, is quite rare in the scene today.

So, instead of starting up a week long tribute to the new, and less drunk, piano man I thought I would throw this little gem up and see how much traffic Mr. Folds attracts. I'll probably do the week tribute regardless as to whether or not it gets friends and family to see this site, but it's always fun to know if something you love is loved, in turn, by others.

mp3 : Ben Folds - Such Great Heights (Postal Service Cover)

Ben preformed this track live at JTV in Australia. The story goes that he forgot he was supposed to play a cover tune and picked this song as it was, at the time, the most played song on his iPod. So he figured out a piano arrangement, grabbed three random percussionists from the studio, found some boxes and a glass lying around, and threw together a brilliant cover of a great song.

If you don't believe me, just watch the video below.


Or you can watch this version of the song which he preformed live on his myspace gig webcast.


The man is quite literally a piano playing robot. And seriously, what other musician can ever claim to have invented the "guitarchestra." [think guitar + orchestra]

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