Modest Mouse covers Chandler’s BofA song

Brilliantly, David Cross and Johnny Marr opened the Modest Mouse show at Bowery Ballroom in New York this weekend with the Bank of America version of U2’s “One.” See the video above. This story certainly has some legs. (The video comes from AngryCitizen.) In related news, The New York Times has found a few people who aren’t laughing at the BofA video: the copyright lawyers at Universal Music Publishing Group. The party poopers evidently posted a cease-and-desist letter in the comments section under the video on Stereogum.com. (There’s no such letter—at least not yet—in the comments of the YouTube video we’ve linked to.) The Times also scored a brief interview with Ethan Chandler, the video’s inordinately talented singer, who says he was asked to write and perform the song for an August meeting at MBNA headquarters in Delaware. Chandler says he’s surprised there’s a copyright issue. “There was an approved list of songs to use,” he says, “and as far I knew, that was an approved song.” The musician/bank manager also uses the interview to get a plug in for himself. “A lot of people thought [the video] was fake, but I really do sing,” he says. “I’ve been doing this a long time.”  

—Posted by Tim Nudd

November 20, 2006 | Permalink