Real Estate Cover Television’s “Days”

Real Estate Cover Television's "Days"
Real Estate photo by Jake Michaels

Real Estate celebrate the 10th Anniversary of their breakout album, Days, with a special tribute to the Television song that helped inspire its sound, style and title. Listen to their first-ever cover of “Days” here: https://smarturl.it/DaysTelevision

Originally released on October 18th, 2011, Days was Real Estate’s second album; a suburban-bred coming-of-age story that changed their trajectory, and cemented songs like “It’s Real,” “Green Aisles” and “Easy” into the canon of indie rock music. Now, overlooked Television track that even devout fans might be surprised to learn held the most influence on the band.

Real Estate bassist and founding member Alex Bleeker explains, “The shrewd, completist bootlegger will always remember 6/30/2011 as the day that we debuted the album Days live in its entirety at 285 Kent in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Back then Domino Park, across the street, was still a dilapidated sugar warehouse, and our unreleased sophomore album didn’t yet have a name. Real heads (or as we like to call them, ‘agents’) might also recall that this show was a release party for the new 33 1/3 book recounting the history of Television’s Marquee Moon. Somewhere in the introduction to that volume author Bryan Waterman declared that even though the song ‘Days’ was on Television’s often overlooked second record, it provided a blueprint for all of the melodic guitar-based indie rock that would soon follow in its wake.

We were of course huge fans of that tune, this was in fact our second record, and we saw ourselves humbly as the torchbearers of that tradition. So the story goes like this – we were on tour, sitting in our fire engine red Dodge Ram 2500 somewhere along the I-95 when someone in the band read that sentence aloud, and said, ‘why don’t we call the album Days?’ As I recall, nobody loved it, but more importantly, nobody hated it and it stuck. It’s true, this now decade-old album is named after this fantastic, underappreciated Television tune, which was a joy for us to cover and record for you after all these years.”

This fall, Real Estate will continue to honor the milestone on their first tour in more than two years. The run of dates begins Nov 3rd, and will culminate in a series of 10th Anniversary Shows at their native New Jersey’s Anchor Rock Club on Nov 20th, Brooklyn Made on Nov 22nd-23rd, and San Francisco’s August Hall on Dec 15th, all featuring a performance of Days from front to back, backed by new drummer Sammi Niss. Additional stops include Levon Helm Studios and more listed below, with support from Kate Bollinger, Liquor Store and Juan Wauters.

In the absence of touring, Real Estate released Half a Human EP this past spring, which has brought the band into its next era following 2020 album The Main Thing. Both records were produced by longtime collaborator Kevin McMahon, whose work with Real Estate dates back to the five patient months they spent together in a New Paltz barn, recording what would become Days.

Real Estate
Tour Dates

11/3 – Buffalo, NY – Asbury Hall at Babeville*
11/4 – Cleveland, OH – Beachland Ballroom*
11/5 – Ferndale, MI – Loving Touch*
11/6 – Grand Rapids, MI – Pyramid Scheme*
11/7 – Madison, WI – High Noon*
11/9 – Bloomington, IL – Castle Theatre*
11/10 – Indianapolis, IN – The Vogue*
11/11 – Louisville, KY – Zanzabar*
11/12 – Lexington, KY – The Burl (Outdoor Show)*
11/13 – Columbus, OH – Skully’s Music Diner*
11/14 – Pittsburgh, PA – Thunderbird Music Hall*
11/16 – Hamden, CT – Space Ballroom*
11/17 – Portsmouth, NH – 3S Artspace*
11/18 – Holyoke, MA – Gateway City Arts*
11/19 – Woodstock, NY – Levon Helm Studios*
11/20 – Atlantic City, NJ – Anchor Rock Club^+
11/22-23 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Made^#
12/15 – San Francisco, CA – August Hall^%

*w/ Kate Bollinger
^Days 10th Anniversary Show
+w/ Liquor Store
#w/ Juan Wauters
%An Evening with Real Estate (2 Sets)

order tickets for Real estate HERE

Advertisement

Looking for something new to listen to?

Sign up to our all-new newsletter for top-notch reviews, news, videos and playlists.