Yea-Ming Covers The Velvet Underground
If you were fortunate enough to attend the Oakland Weekender in 2024, you might have picked up the tape that featured Yea-Ming Chen‘s cover of “Pale Blue Eyes.” But, while working on the next album (‘rumors’ have it slated for a 2026 release0, Yea-Ming wanted to make sure she got this Velvet Underground cover out into the world. I love how her vocal resonance sounds similar to Lou Reed’s, slightly smoky in its presentation, though clearly grasping to pop sentimentality. Chen recorded the majority of the song herself, so a lot of the VU excess is gone, leaving you a bare-bones version that’s equally as stunning in its own right, with Yea-Ming admitting she embraced some of the imperfections in the recording as a way of connecting with Reed’s spirit. Stream it now below!
Okay, so I’m back in school and coaching women’s volleyball, which of course meant we couldn’t dare draw near the 40 or so tracks we covered the week prior. But, that being said, there were some really special tunes, and some of my favorites popping up in here. Blue Ocean and Seablite announced new LPs, while the Smashing Times dropped another stellar single to whet our appetites. Local favorites Single Lash and Sun June both announced new releases too, so it was a pretty solid week. Oh, and that Optic Sink jam was so good, we might have accidentally overlapped and posted it twice! Stream below!
It was the last week of my school year, so I perhaps didn’t run as many tracks up the old flagpole as I otherwise might have liked, but we’ve still got a solid hour worth of hits below for those looking to peruse the jams. A new Life Strike tune kicks it off, dropping in some power-pop to your ears. We had some new stuff from both Sea Lemon and the Mary Onettes, all of which got me excited for the rest of the year to come. That new XDS is just out there enough for the weirdoes to come on home to roost with us. Happy Tuesday ya’ll!
I’ve been covering Edmonton’s 