Historically, our bar for bringing in sensitive singer/songwriter types has been a pretty high one to jump over. We tend to favor bands who bring more noise to the table so when we bring in one guy with a <strike>guitar</strike> baritone ukelele you might want to pay attention.

Eef writes songs about being an adult - marriage, kids the hard parts of love and the rocky missteps of careers. Holy crap I could go on . . . 

Listen to some <a href="http://www.fuelfriendsblog.com/2012/02/27/fuelfriends-chapel-session-12-eef-barzelay-of-clem-snide/">recent recordings from my pal Heather's concert series in Colorado Springs.</a> and a quote from a commenter on her blog . . . " this is somebody saying things in ways that I haven’t been able to completely express– giving previously ungiven due weight to small moments and deflating the overblown ones, showing humanity and understanding in just the right string of words."

<img src="http://www.billsvillehouseconcerts.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/tinydesk.jpg" alt="tinydesk" width="960" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1189" />

<strong>Via NPR</strong>

Too many observers confuse Eef's sincerity for irony. Maybe it's the pop-culture references he employs, or the dry sarcasm he exudes in interviews, or even the name of his band, . But he's as misunderstood and underrated as just about any working songwriter. He's capable of utterly breathtaking love songs — like "Find Love," which has just been resuscitated in the movie Janie Jones — and he still writes music that finds a way to soothe and tickle at the same time.


So of course he's just recorded an EP of covers — inspired by in the A.V. Club Undercover series — and of course it's freaking gorgeous. Who better to take an overblown '80s punchline, find the stark beauty and good-heartedness therein, reinvent it as something wonderful, and inevitably be misinterpreted as a smug irony merchant in the process of doing so? You can't cover "Don't Stop Believin'" without inviting a strong reaction, but damned if it isn't an achingly pretty song when slowed down, rendered softly, and sung sympathetically. Imagine Kermit the Frog drying the tears of the brokenhearted, and you're just about there.

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