• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • HOME
  • NEWS+OPINIONS
    • NEWS TO US
    • COLUMNS
      • APPARENT HORIZON
      • DEAR READER
      • Close
    • LONGFORM FEATURES
    • OPINIONS
    • EDITORIAL
    • Close
  • ARTS+ENTERTAINMENT
    • FILM
    • MUSIC
    • COMEDY
    • PERFORMING ARTS
    • VISUAL ARTS
    • Close
  • DINING+DRINKING
    • EATS
    • SIPS
    • Close
  • LIFESTYLE
    • CANNABIS
      • TALKING JOINTS MEMO
      • Close
    • WELLNESS
    • GTFO
    • Close
  • STUFF TO DO
  • TICKETS
  • ABOUT US
    • ABOUT
    • MASTHEAD
    • ADVERTISE
    • PRIVACY POLICY
    • Close
  • BECOME A MEMBER

Dig Bos

The Dig - Boston's Only Newspaper

CURRENT STREET EDITION

DIG 23.05 – 4/8/21

RUN FOR COVER: DIANE CLUCK VS. DM STITH: “EASY TO BE AROUND”

Written by NINA CORCORAN Posted February 27, 2015 Filed Under: MUSIC, Run For Cover

Diane Cluck DM Stith

 

Run For Cover is a weekly music column comparing cover songs to the original version. Prepare for a major bending of rules as we hear musicians throw around genres, tempos, style, and intent. Whether they’re picking up another’s song out of respect or boredom, the results have impressed us.

 

Folk is simultaneously for the fickle and the freakish. A musician and their guitar is as welcoming as it gets. The most casual, out-of-touch listener can find comfort in the soft tones and easy strumming that make folk the most accessible backdrop music. That’s why coffeeshops always pick quiet singer-songwriters to ease their freelancers while they scribble away. The other half of folk, however, challenges the instrument. It calls upon the singer to stretch their voice, pulling and reshaping it until it forces the guitar to do more with its sound. There’s something off about it. After a few seconds with it, though, it becomes oddly satisfying. Singer-songwriter Diane Cluck is a natural at this.

 

Cluck’s music stands right against the edge of freak-folk. Her scratchy, wondering vocals recall that unsettling variant, but she, instead, is quite taken with the term “intuitive folk.” And so singer-songwriter folk goes from a girl and her guitar to warped tones and half step slides.

 

Raised in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Diane Cluck grew up playing piano and went on to become classically trained thanks to a scholarship to the Pennsylvania Academy of Music. After uprooting herself over to New York City in 2000, she found her new home. Cluck was a regular at the Sidewalk Cafe in the Lower East Side, the same spot that birthed the city’s bright, quirky, niche scene of Regina Spektor, Kimya Dawson, and Jeffrey Lewis.

 

Until her resurface in 2014–Boneset, her first full-length in eight years–Diane Cluck’s genius was best encapsulated on Oh Vanille. On it, she embraces neo-folkdom with witty lyrics and a distinctive style of playing that sounds more like a harp than a campfire strum. The album’s peak comes in “Easy to Be Around”. Cluck doubles up on harmonies and bobs around with an undercurrent rhythm, getting up in your face while simultaneously letting you drag behind her.  Although she’s singing about pocketing abandoned coal mine diamonds, her lyrics touch on possession, love, and ownership over one another. It hits hard, especially for a quiet tune from a girl and her guitar.

 

 

Six years ago, another musician was taking his turn trying on the singer-songwriter folk trope. New York native David Michael Stith, aka DM Stith, released his debut album Heavy Ghost in 2009. The multi-instrumentalist clung to his guitar but reached beyond its strings for a hollow, eerie sound. It recalls the haunting vocals of Grizzly Bear and the solemn piano of Sufjan Stevens. His songs are lush and densely layered, showing a strong sense of control over his sound and the interplay between notes.

 

For DM Stith, that comes naturally. He grew up in a musical family. His father was a college wind ensemble director and church choir director, his mother a pianist, his sisters opera singers, and his grandfather a professor in Cornell University’s music department.

 

The collage-like work of his sound mimics his other profession: graphic design. Stith got his MFA in graphic design at Indiana University one year before releasing his debut LP. After the program, he produced the artwork for his own record as well as other musicians, including labelmate My Brightest Diamond. His attention to color, blending techniques, and focal points clearly transfer over into his work as a musician. Heavy Ghost gives as much as you are willing to take. It’s a painting of sound, and he makes sure an endless number of interpretations are possible.

 

The year after his debut, he released Heavy Ghost Appendices, a series of hidden covers and new landscapes. As someone clearly interested in alternate twists on folk, DM Stith took his best swing at Diane Cluck’s “Easy to Be Around” and uncovered phenomenal depth. Stith replaces Cluck as a different type of mystic. His dark arrangements begin with foreboding piano and deep bass and horns. As his dry voice comes in, it hangs itself like a warning, mysterious and ominous. The raw, scratchy lilt of Cluck’s original is replaced with a rich turn that challenges the obvious way this cover could be done.

 

 

Diane Cluck’s brilliant minor harmonies are absent, but what DM Stith adds in their place makes for an entirely different mood. Stith is both soft spoken and wistfully elusive. His chamber cabaret sound slides hypnotic strumming and dissonant interludes back and forth, cleaning off the edges of Cluck’s voice to replace them with something less vicious, something innocent and brave. While the magic of her original lays in her one-of-a-kind voice, DM Stith focuses on the music cushioning her words, giving the song an ever-growing set of jaws that are as beautiful as they are terrifying, an image Cluck herself would approve of in a heartbeat.

 

NINA CORCORAN
More from author
  • NINA CORCORAN
    https://digboston.com/author/nina-corcoran/
    WHEEL OF TUNES: JULIA HOLTER
  • NINA CORCORAN
    https://digboston.com/author/nina-corcoran/
    WHEEL OF TUNES: PANDA BEAR
  • NINA CORCORAN
    https://digboston.com/author/nina-corcoran/
    WHEEL OF TUNES: HOP ALONG
  • NINA CORCORAN
    https://digboston.com/author/nina-corcoran/
    THE BEST LOCAL EPS OF 2018

Filed Under: MUSIC, Run For Cover Tagged With: 2000, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2015, Boneset, Boston, Chamber, chamber pop, Column, Columnist, Cover song, Dark, Diane Cluck, Dig, DigBoston, DM Stith, Easy to Be Around, Folk, Freak-Folk, Grizzly Bear, Heavy Ghost, Heavy Ghost Appendices, Jeffrey Lewis, Kimya Dawson, Music, My Brightest Diamond, New York City, Nina Corcoran, Oh Vanille, Regina Spektor, Run for Cover, singer songwriter, Sufjan Stevens

WHAT’S NEW

Massachusetts National Guard by The National Guard is licensed under CC BY 2.0

CORONAVIRUS UPDATE: DON’T LET YOUR GUARD DOWN

BRIDGES AND BUDGETS: PUTTING THE COUNTRY BACK TOGETHER, FROM BOSTON TO BIDEN

BRIDGES AND BUDGETS: PUTTING THE COUNTRY BACK TOGETHER, FROM BOSTON TO BIDEN

SPECIAL FEATURE: UNCHARTED WATERS

SPECIAL FEATURE: UNCHARTED WATERS

THE OPPONENT: NEWCOMER MCBRIDE TAKES ON BAKER IN D3

THE OPPONENT: NEWCOMER MCBRIDE TAKES ON BAKER IN D3

THE IMPORTANT ART STOLEN FROM BOSTON THAT NOBODY SEEMS TO CARE ABOUT

THE IMPORTANT ART STOLEN FROM BOSTON THAT NOBODY SEEMS TO CARE ABOUT

PICS & RECAP: JUSTICE 4 DUANTE WRIGHT JUSTICE 4 ALL EMERGENCY RALLY 

PICS & RECAP: JUSTICE 4 DUANTE WRIGHT JUSTICE 4 ALL EMERGENCY RALLY 

Primary Sidebar

HEMPIRE FREEDOM PACK 25% OFF

FEATURED EVENT

Most Popular

  • VACCINE EQUITY NOW! COALITION ASKS BAKER TO ALLOCATE 20% OF NEW DOSES TO HARD HIT COMMUNITIES by ZIQI WANG
  • IF YOU’RE SURPRISED THE BPD CODDLED AN ACCUSED MOLESTER COP, YOU’RE NOT PAYING ATTENTION by CHRIS FARAONE
  • THE MYSTERY OF CHEZ TORTONI by CHRISTOPHER EHLERS
  • A FAREWELL TRIBUTE (OF SORTS) TO MARTY WALSH by DIG STAFF
  • THE IMPORTANT ART STOLEN FROM BOSTON THAT NOBODY SEEMS TO CARE ABOUT by CHRIS FARAONE

READ CURRENT MEMBER EDITION

DIG Member 2.1 – March 2021

READ CURRENT STREET ISSUE

DIG 23.05 – 4/8/21

Footer

digbos

digbos
Putting the country back together, from Boston to Putting the country back together, from Boston to Biden. https://digboston.com/bridges-and-budgets-putting-the-country-back-together-from-boston-to-biden/ #news #analysis #infrastructure #Boston #Massachusetts
CORONAVIRUS UPDATE: DON’T LET YOUR GUARD DOWN. K CORONAVIRUS UPDATE: DON’T LET YOUR GUARD DOWN. Keep wearing masks and social distancing until public health officials say it’s safe to stop. The latest from DigBoston's @jasonpramas. https://digboston.com/coronavirus-update-dont-let-your-guard-down/ #health #publichealth #mask #vaccine #politics #Boston #Massachusetts #coronavirus #COVID19
“My administration is doubling down on our work “My administration is doubling down on our work to stand up the #Boston Office of #Police Accountability and Transparency.” https://digboston.com/politicians-get-in-line-to-call-for-boston-police-accountability/ #politics #Massachusetts
This week is your last chance to hit up Mooby’s This week is your last chance to hit up Mooby’s in #Boston … https://digboston.com/moobys-boston-how-kevin-smith-has-brought-his-pick-up-experience-to-10-cities-during-the-pandemic/ #fan #popup #fun #restaurant #movie #Massachusetts #snoochieboochies
The group is asking that polices address the dispa The group is asking that polices address the disparities the #data has revealed. https://digboston.com/parents-release-an-analysis-of-boston-public-school-fundraising-inequities/ #education #school #public #study #fundraising #racism #Boston #Massachusetts
“We’re not going to survive for 20 more years “We’re not going to survive for 20 more years if we don’t do this [move to a bigger space].” https://digboston.com/how-juliet-hit-a-100k-kickstarter-goal-in-4-days/ #restaurant #business #food #crowdfund #SomervilleMA #coronavirus #COVID19
EDITORIAL: DIGBOSTON SEEKS CLIMATE IDEAS FOR MAYOR EDITORIAL: DIGBOSTON SEEKS CLIMATE IDEAS FOR MAYOR KIM JANEY. Environmental organizations and individual activists invited to submit opinion articles for publication. https://digboston.com/editorial-digboston-seeks-climate-ideas-for-mayor-kim-janey/ #politics @boston_mayor #environment #globalwarming #climate #activist #callforsubmissions #policy #Boston #Massachusetts
“Most are some of my favorite bars or local clas “Most are some of my favorite bars or local classics that I’ve learned to love in my time living in the city. Others just have a great facade that I know would make a great drawing.” https://digboston.com/drawn-but-not-forgotten-local-artist-sketches-beloved-boston-restaurants/ #art #artist #sketch #drawing #Boston #Massachusetts #bar #restaurant
Despite #pandemic hurdles, Mass #music instructors Despite #pandemic hurdles, Mass #music instructors hit new high notes. “My #teaching has gone to another level.” https://digboston.com/the-medium-is-the-maestro/ #education #Massachusetts #coronavirus #COVID19
From the podcast to the book, Wayne Federman chron From the podcast to the book, Wayne Federman chronicles the business of joke-telling. https://digboston.com/the-history-of-stand-up-from-mark-twain-to-dave-chappelle/ #comedy #history #book #interview #Boston #Massachusetts
Load More... Follow on Instagram
Social Buttons

DigBoston facebook DigBoston Twitter DigBoston Instagram

Masthead

About

Submissions

Advertise

Privacy Policy

Customer Service

Distribution

About Us

DigBoston is a one-stop nexus for everything worth doing or knowing in the Boston area. It's an alt-weekly, it's a website, it's an e-mail blast, it's a twitter account, it's that cool party that you were at last night ... hey, you're reading it, so it's gotta be good. For advertising inquiries: [email protected] To reach Editorial: [email protected] For internship opportunities: [email protected]