I think I read about this single in the pages of Broken Arrow. It was certainly the prospect of a cover of Pardon My Heart, which I would say is Neil Young's best ever love song, that led me to buy it.
It's not much cop, to be honest. I have friends who were really keen on Devendra three or four years ago, before his profile started to take off. I haven't asked what they think now. I find him a bit self-consciously fey — no matter how surprised you may be to read me using that as a criticism given some of the other stuff I like — in the same way as Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Not that I'd cross the street to avoid him. I last saw him at Green Man two and a half months ago, and he was OK. He was better, though, a couple of years ago when playing with Vetiver (favourites of Lucy's) on the Twisted Folk tour. Arriving a few minutes early, and alone, I went straight to my seat rather than hang around in the bar. There were only four or five people in the stalls when Devendra Banhart jumped down off the stage, and criss-crossed the rows of seats carrying a smoking incense stick to fumigate the space. I liked the idea of this: it demonstrated an unusual attention to detail, a bit of an Alan Watts touch, and not many acts care about how their gigs smell. But just as he was disappearing back up on stage, a security guy appeared at the back of the stalls, with the exasperated air of someone who's spent the whole afternoon curtailing the eccentricities of a bunch of weirdy-beardies. You know the type: haircut like a worn bogbrush, and an abrasively nasal tone as he spoke into his walkie-talkie, "Gary, can you ask him to extinguish that?!"
 MusicBrainz entry for this album
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