The Witzard

London -based music producer Mark Ronson simply has NO BOUNDS; we're talking about the fearless genre-blending visionary who single-handedly spearheaded Amy Winehouse & The Dap-Kings' 21st century Doo-Wop revival, or revamped "New-Wop" sound, produced Lily Allen 's early Reggae/Dancehall -indebted hits, and has since worked with everyone from Duran Duran to Billy Joel -sampling Rap -singer Action Bronson . Ronson's own New-Wop -indebted Uptown Special is quite easily one of the year's greatest mainstream success stories and arguably, an "underground sleeper," due in part to the assistance of Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker and Miike Snow multi-instrumentalist Andrew Wyatt . Mark Ronson recently decided to re-team with buddies Parker and Wyatt for the first time since recording Uptown Special , along with guitarist Kirin J. Callinan and Jay Bratten on Moog synthesizer, to record a live in-studio cover of Queens of The Stone Age ...

"It's one of our favourite songs ever, I think," Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker lamented before launching into a pretty spot-on cover of OutKast 's "Prototype" from André 3000 's 1/2 of Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (2003). Guitar/keyboardist Nick "Paisley Adams" Allbrook effectively handles André 3000 's echoing double-tracked vocals, crooning: "Today must be my lucky day... Do something outta the ordinary, like catch a matinee, baby." Tame Impala's 5-piece touring band -- which also includes Jay "Gumby" Watson, Dominic Simper , and Julien Barbagallo -- really do one Hell of a job @ channeling OutKast 's psuedo-70's Soul-Funk vibe that's smoothly spread across the original. The band's spirited cover was essentially recorded, tracked, and broadcast on-the-fly during a recent stop by hometown [Australian] radio station, Triple J for their infamous Like a Version segment. Tame Impala EP ...

I first discovered Brooklyn 's premier Indie Rock experimentalists , Dirty Projectors , quite a few years ago; Right around the same time that frontman Dave Longstreth decided to re-record an entire Black Flag record from memory (2007). The band's line-up seems to morph/permeate a little bit with each album and has previously included cats like Angel Deradoorian , Ezra Koenig, Rostam Batmanglij (Vampire Weekend), Adam Forkner, and former-drummer Brian McOmber . Dirty Projectors-13 's latest line-up consists of Longstreth, Nat Baldwin, Michael Johnson , and the sultry 3-part harmonies of Amber Coffman/Haley Dekle/ Jenn Wasner Olga Bell . I guess I'd almost describe their overall sound as some sort of post- Destiny's Child R&B crooning. Case in point: "Stillness Is The Move," which Beyoncé 's little sister Solange just so happened to cover, too. I just ordered used copies of Rise Above, Bitte Orca , and Swing Lo Magellan from Amazon and s...