C’mon. Surely you know about The Crust Brothers, right? A band formed by Stephen Malkmus and members of Silkworm (Michael Dahlquist, Tim Midgett, and Andy Cohen)? They played a bunch of shows in the Pacific Northwest and someone recorded one and made it into an album called Marquee Mark? It was a benefit show for the Washington Wilderness Coalition. The band stuck exclusively to covers (Malkmus sang lead on Silkworm’s “Never met a man I didn’t like”), refusing to play any Pavement songs — notably the requested “Summer Babe.” Of the 12 covers on Marquee Mark, seven are from Bob Dylan & The Band’s The Basement Tapes! You know who else loved Bob Dylan & The Band? Gram Parsons. Coincidence? I think we all know the answer to that question.
Music critic Greil Marcus devoted a January 1999 Interview article to the show. Marcus wrote of “Heard It Through The Grapevine,” “while the Crust Brothers are inside it, [it] can sound like the best version of the song ever played.” Indeed, Marquee Mark is an exercise in chooglin’. The boys do it so well. Would I say their choogle is better than Creedence Clearwater Revival’s? Find out for yourself, Fogerty!
Additional shows took place on December 30, 1998, at The Breakroom in Seattle, and on January 1, 1999, at the Starfish Room in Vancouver, British Columbia. The band returned to the Crocodile Cafe on December 31, 2000. A song from that set, a cover of Dylan’s “Spanish Harlem Incident” sung by the late Michael Dahlquist, is the sixth track on Silkworm’s final EP, Chokes!
The Crust Brothers
Marquee Mark
MediaFire Download Link
Tracklist:
01. Going To Acapulco [Dylan]
02. Million Dollar Bash [Dylan]
03. Bessie Smith [Danko/Robertson]
04. Yazoo Street Scandal [Robertson]
05. Lo And Behold [Dylan]
06. You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere [Dylan]
07. Never Met A Man I Didn’t Like [Silkworm]
08. Heard It Through The Grapevine [Whitfield]
09. Feel A Whole Lot Better [Clark]
10. Bitch [Jagger/Richards]
11. Tuesday’s Gone [Rossington/Collins/Van Zandt]
12. Mrs. Henry [Dylan]
