For someone with an extremely well-documented love of Loud Guitars and with his amp turned all the way up, James Alex of the band Beach Slang’ has revealled a soft spot for the quieter side of rock and roll. On his new stripped down EP as Quiet Slang, We Were Babies & We Were Dirtbags, he lays down gentler versions of two of his songs, “Future Mixtape for the Art Kids” and “Bad Art & Weirdo Ideas,” before switching over to two covers, “Androgynous” by The Replacements and “Thirteen” by Big Star. Both songs have gotten some pretty stellar cover treatment recently, with “Androgynous” getting a Miley Cyrus backyard session with Laura Jane Grace , Joan Jett, and The Menzingers tackling “Thirteen” on a covers EP earier this year.
The Slang version is a fitting homage to Alex Chilton’s original version, swapping out the acoustic guitar for piano and cello to create a swirling, lullaby-style take on it. “Thirteen” was the second Big Star song Alex says he ever heard (the first being “September Gurls”). “I couldn’t define it or categorize it or even come close to figuring it out,” he says. “It was just this haunting, weirdo, alien pop. And it walloped me. Some stuff is like that, you know?”
Hear one BS covering another BS below. We Were Babies & We Were Dirtbags is out on October 13th from Polyvinyl and you can pre-order it here. Beach Slang is hitting the road soon and you can hear them, loudly,
The Fat Angel Sings 