I'm really, really blown away by the fact that Joe just covered Peter Gabriel. It's a video for The Voice Project which you should read all about on their homepage, and it also includes an impromptu painting as well as a Nigel Tufnel moment when Joe demonstrates one of his guitars.

And no, no backscratching involved. I really think PG should have covered In The Sun again (or any other song) for his covers record (which I find excellent by the way) with Joe sending him something like this back. Well, PG already has his hopes up for a second covers record, so who knows...

Don't know if you saw it: he also played the song at the Tin Angel last weekend. You can watch it here.

Nice write-up from Anna Gabriel for Joseph's video too!

There are a whole bunch more covers up on The Voice Project's site now and recently Peter Gabriel picked up Joseph's 'invitation' and recorded a cover of Tom Waits "In the Neighborhood"

The Voice Project: Peter Gabriel » Tom Waits "In The Neighborhood"

Here's an extract from the accompanying press release :-
'The Voice Project employs the same idea of using music to pass the message as each artist covers another artist's song creating a chain of melodies, awareness and support. In this particular chain UK based artist Gary Go passed the torch to his friend Joseph Arthur by covering "Chicago," Joseph passed it to his friend and mentor Peter Gabriel with his version of "Shock the Monkey" and now Gabriel has passed it to Tom Waits with this cover of "In the Neighborhood." '

By the way, Gabriel has mentioned that because some of the artists he covered on his last record don't want to participate in the "song exchange", he's considering inviting other artists to complete a 12-track album out of the cover material. 6 songs have already been released, "2 or 3" are probably still coming out, which leaves 3 empty slots. I've got a nagging feeling that if this really ends this way, Joe might do Shock The Monkey for that collection.

Lou Reed's Solsbury Hill sounds a bit like Joe's approach to Shock The Monkey, by the way.