by SHANE SINNOTT

In keeping with this time of year, I’ve recently started to suffer from heat-induced madness of the brain, which has led to moments of quiet contemplation and aimless Web surfing. Here are two tracks—one old, one new, and both of them “borrowed,” if you will. At tinyurl.com/3djyhl, you’ll find a remix by Final Fantasy of “Your Ex-Lover Is Dead” by Stars, which should prick up the ears of those who keep track of the Canadian indie-rock pecking order.

As might be expected, Final Fantasy strips the song down, leaving it to be carried mainly by piano and strings. Personally, I think it saps the energy out of a song that originally had a lot, but I’m starting to realize that some of us like our points driven home a little more subtly.

Bob Dylan, by the time you read this, will have just played at Place des Arts for the Jazz Festival. Nowadays, his live performances have a distinct country twang, far quieter than in his heyday, and it’s easy for some to dismiss the man. But I implore you, listen to this live version of “Like a Rolling Stone” from a concert in Manchester in 1966, up for grabs at tinyurl.com/2cb935.

The beginning of the track contains the famed moment where a fan yells “Judas!” (his turn to electric music, and the subsequent betrayal felt by folk fans at the time, is the stuff of legend) and in response you can distinctly hear Dylan telling his band, just before they start, “Play it fucking loud.”

What follows is a crushing, not-at-all-subtle rendition of one of the best songs going. It’s loud in every sense—drums crashing, organ blasting—but what chills is the volume at which the young Dylan sings, bellowing out his lyrics with increasing intensity. The effect is devastating—an intoxicating track sung with a tone that’s essentially telling you to fuck off.