When Clem Snide began recording albums more than a decade ago in New York, the band’s clever alt-country songs often came across as an ironic take on Americana. Everyone knows you can’t do country music in the big city, and where did Israeli-born singer/guitarist Eef Barzelay get that twang from, anyway? After years of slogging through the indie-rock touring circuit, a band breakup and a move to Nashville, the reunited Clem Snide has earned the all-American desperation and heartbreak that lies in the marrow of its latest album, The Meat Of Life, out this week on 429 Records. Barzelay is guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with him.
Barzelay: Jimmy Scott is one of my very favorite singers. Born with a rare hormonal condition that kept his voice from ever changing, he somehow sounds like a man, a woman and a child all at once. Also, he sings so far behind the beat, it just devastates; nobody sings slower. I saw him at Birdland on New Year’s Eve years ago, and it was one of the best nights I’ve had upon this earth. Video after the jump.
