A New Orleans brass band reinterpret Love Will Tear Us Apart

October 28, 2018 3:17 AM

From New Orleans, Hot 8 Brass Band rework the 1980 song Love Will Tear Us Apart with a video filmed around the city. Hot 8 Brass Band, active since 1995 through much adversity and Grammy-nominated in 2013, have also covered Sexual Healing and Ghost Town. Performing on Clapham Common, England, Get Up, Can't Nobody Get Down, St. James Infirmary and Bingo Bango.
posted by Wordshore (18 comments total)

yes. RIP Messrs. Johnson, Williams, and Shavers
posted by eustatic at 3:36 AM on October 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

The part-wise broken down decomposition in the beginning is the ne plus ultra of... something. Factory Records and Marvin Gaye would both approve.
posted by axiom at 3:37 AM on October 28, 2018 [6 favorites]

Factory Records and Marvin Gaye would both approve.

Look, everyone — it’s the first sighting in the wild of a wholly new English sentence!

(I happen to agree with it, too.)
posted by wenestvedt at 4:12 AM on October 28, 2018 [8 favorites]

As someone who likes Hot 8 Brass band and has listened to Love Will Tear Us Apart a dozen times in the past week, thanks very much for this.

Maybe this is a version I can put on without making all my friends sad :) I like it.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 5:17 AM on October 28, 2018 [6 favorites]

The Ghost Town cover is quite something else. As a twelve year old in England, watching the country literally burn through TV news, the original did and still has a lot of meaning.
posted by Wordshore at 5:23 AM on October 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

As so many other in this vein, I first discovered this on The Craig Charles Funk and Soul Show and yes, that's the same Craig Charles from off Red Dwarf.
posted by MartinWisse at 6:17 AM on October 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

I don’t know if I saw these guys play live at a small club in New Orleans years ago - if it wasn’t them, it was another local group clearly inspired by them - but the brass cover of Sexual Healing has been stuck in my head ever since.

Thanks for posting.
posted by caution live frogs at 6:33 AM on October 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

Oh god yes the sexual healing cover is so good. Now to check the rest. Thank you!
posted by ominous_paws at 6:39 AM on October 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

I never realized this until now, but the original Love Will Tear Us Apart is in a major key. Like Happy Birthday, or All Star. I’m not sure what mode this (awesome) version is in, but it isn’t major, and that contrast gives the original version a whole new layer of pathos in my mind.
posted by STFUDonnie at 7:13 AM on October 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

That was really good, and so was the video.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:28 AM on October 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

Thanks for this. That interpretation was awesome and that video was perfect for it.
posted by Chrischris at 8:47 AM on October 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

That really was awesome all around. I'm inspired again... both the music and the video. All of it. Thanks!
posted by emmet at 10:36 AM on October 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm still waiting for the joy division cover album that's all steel drums and New Orleans brass bands.

I don't know why it works, but it's hot as hell.
posted by GuyZero at 2:33 PM on October 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

I never realized this until now, but the original Love Will Tear Us Apart is in a major key. Like Happy Birthday, or All Star. I’m not sure what mode this (awesome) version is in, but it isn’t major, and that contrast gives the original version a whole new layer of pathos in my mind.

This version and the original follow identical melodies. They’re not in different keys.
posted by Autumnheart at 4:30 PM on October 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

My wife and I visited New Orleans for a week leading up to Halloween in 2004. She was scoping potential psychology internships at Tulane and LSU so we decided to make a week of it.

I swear, we saw the Hot 8 play in Jackson Square on one of those afternoons. Like, just walking along like tourists, and just coming up on this band playing for a crowd of fellow tourists and they were tight as hell. And the fact that they called themselves the Hot 8s stood out to me because it's a callback to Louis Armstrong. I remember they were hawking CDs at the time and now I wish I would have snagged one.

So, this was a very welcome post for me. Love to have that memory jogged in my mind and confirmed that, yes, they were/are that good.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 8:38 PM on October 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

This version and the original follow identical melodies. They’re not in different keys.

My knowledge of music theory is fairly basic but I’m hearing the same melody with a different tonal center - in the Joy Division version it sounds like whatever note lands on the last note of the main melody (“-gain”). You can hum that note throughout and it won’t sound wrong. In the brass version I hear the center as the first note of the melody.
posted by STFUDonnie at 10:38 PM on October 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

I sorta got into an internet beef with MC Bat Commander over ditching the brass on the A&R's say so on an AMA.

His argument was economics, less people to pay per gig, and I kinda lost my cool there. Because this is a beautiful, glorious thing, and not even unique. Dirty Dozen Brass Band was my first boo, and Trombone Shorty played in my town.

Chicago? Chicago. 25 or 6 2 4.

Then I realized I was in an internet beef with MC Bat Commander, and chilled. A bit.

Can we all agree a syncopated tuba solo is a beautiful thing? I think we should.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:56 AM on October 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

So. Good.

Thank you.
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:31 PM on October 29, 2018 [2 favorites]