Under the Covers....

Its no secret that I love a cover version but I'm not too sure why, maybe its hearing something familiar in a knew way. But My love of covers , I think, stems from one of three events :

Seeing Moby cover Radiohead's 'Creep' at Glastonbury (on TV) , at the time I video taped it - that's right a VHS in a VHS recorder - and wound it back over and over again.

The White Stripes' cover of Dolly Parton's 'Joleane' on their Blackpool Lights DVD, as well as their release of Dusty Springfeild's 'I just don't know What to do with myself'.

Buying The Manic Street Preacher's B-Sides & Rarities CD 'Lipstick Traces' , with a whole CD of cover versions.


More on these in a bit. The stem of interest that had grown from these three seeds grew steadily for a good few years until late 2008/early 2009 when I went to see Electric Six. I'd never heard of the support act, but I didn't expect to in a tiny uni owned club. As we walked past the T-Shirt stand my eye snagged on a poster "Tragedy - The World's Greatest Heavy Metal Bee Gees Tribute"...well they weren't


They were a Glam Rock tribute. And amazing! They had the silver jumpsuits and the glitter and they belted out all the familiar Bee Gees tracks in a way you'd never heard before. Let's make no mistakes, the Gibb brothers were fantastic song writers. Why aren't bands like Tragedy everywhere? they're a million miles better than some fat burd failing to sing 'angels' on Saturday prime time TV. They've disbanded now anyway, I'll have to make sure if I ever plan to marry the engagement is long enough to allow them to reform.




All this occurred to me whilst I was making a Play list on itunes of all my cover versions, and thus inspired me to make the following list. Don't get me wrong there are some awful cover versions but these are some of the best in no particular order:


Afghan Whigs - Come See About Me
Originally by Diana Ross and the Supremes
Greg Dulli and his band never made any secret of their love of R&B, also recording a version of Barry White's 'I Can't Get Enough of Your Love Babe' before successfully merging R&B and indie-rock with the album '1965'.

Faith No More - Easy
Originally by Lionel Richie
The Classic of the 'Heavy band covers slow song' genre.

Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Ramblin' Man
Originally by Hank Williams
A completely revamped version of the original song about wandering by two of the best voices around. Class.
"I love you baby
But you must understand
When the Lord made me
He made a ramblin' man"


Johnny Cash - If You Could Read My Mind
Originally by Gordon Lightfoot
Trigger Happy TV will be where my generation know the original from, but Cash's version is my favorite of all the great songs Rick Rubin coaxed out of him in his final years. His versions of NIN's 'Hurt', Bruce Springsteen's 'Further On Up The Road' and Nick Cave's 'Mercy Seat' should be here too.

Manic Street Preachers - Can't Take My Eyes Off You
Originally by Andy Williams
One of the songs, alongside their version of 'Last Christmas', that taught the adolescent me that old songs shouldn't be disregarded. Before listening to this version, I'd have jumped up to change the station if the original came on the radio.

Mark Lanegan - I'll Take Care Of You
Originally by Brooke Benton
If I had to pick a favorite love song this would be it.
What can be better than an old R&B song sung by a battered gravelly-voiced relic of the Grunge era?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq3DxRRxtDk

Muse - Feeling Good
Originally by Nina Simone
I don't like Muse but I love this. Another genre-buster, great songs don't have a genre. Most Muse fans probably don't know this is by the same woman that sings the 'got my heart, got my head, got my etc etc' song from the yogurt adverts.

Placebo - Running Up That Hill
Originally by Kate Bush
Seeing a trend here?

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Higher Ground
Originally by Stevie Wonder
Its 1989 and RHCP are still pretty much an underground LA band when Mother's Milk comes out, Stevie Wonder is on the opposite end of both the public awareness and coolness scales - but what do they care?
And what a bass line.

Seal - People Get Ready
Originally by The Impressions
This song has had more covers than Time magazine, but Seal's is my favorite.
If I was forced at gunpoint to audition for a Simon Cowell show I would sing this.

Stereophonics - Nothing Compares To You
Originally by Sinead O'Conner
Mid-nineties weepy covered by Welsh pub-anthem phenomenon, one of the reasons I'm writing this list.

White Stripes - Joleane
Originally by Dolly Parton
See above
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePnoUv7qSCA&feature=fvst

Bruce Springsteen - Because The Night
Originally released by Patti Smith
This was written by The Boss who then gave it to Smith who was recording next door, she changed the lyrics a little and released the version we all know. But I can never get enough of Springsteen singing it live.
"What I got I have earned
What I'm not I have learned
Desire and hunger is the fire I breathe
Just stay in my bed till the morning comes"

Queens of The Stone Age - Never Say Never
Originally by Romeo Void
"I might like you better if we slept together", a 'turn it up, put your foot down' kind of song.

Tom Waits - Lord I've Been Changed
Originally a Gospel song
Tom Waits isn't an artist, he's a channel for some sort of spirit from another world and is possessed by the music, it doesn't come from his mouth or his instruments but out of his pores. The video of him singing this song, sat in his garage using his foot to play the tambourine whilst his kids watch through the window is well worth a watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIhyQPixAsc

Twilight Singers - Live With Me
Originally by Massive Attack
A third appearance for Mark Lanegan on this list and a second for Greg Dulli. This track deserves to be played loud and sung to, another classic genre-bender.

Wheatus - A Little Respect
Originally by Erasure
I saw Wheatus on a student night just before Time & Envy closed, it was £5 to get in..so minus the usual £3 that's £2 to see the band. They make this song.

Awesome Stories #2

Not sure where I'm going with this 'awesome stories' series but I suppose at least it will make me get them out of my system and bore people less. As I mentioned them both in the same breath in my last blog I'll do the Bowie and Pop one.



So David Bowie and Iggy Pop had met sometime earlier, Bowie was pretty famous but James Newell Osterberg Jr and the band he'd recently left , The Stooges (one of my favorites), were only really known to other musicians and fans of what hadn't even really been labelled punk yet. The year was 1976 and they both packed off to Berlin together to get clean, and wound up writing an album. 'The Idiot' would become Iggy Pop's debut solo album just dipping into the charts in both the UK and US. It also happened to contain the awesome song 'China Girl'

"I'd feel tragic
Like I was Marlon Brando
When I'd look at my China Girl
I could pretend that nothing
Really meant too much
When I'd look at my China Girl"


So flash forward to 1983 and global superstar Bowie is releasing his 15th album 'Let's Dance' whilst his best mate is broke again. So what does he do? nobody likes a handout, so he chucks a new version of China Girl on and releases it as a single knowing it will sell and that his mate will be paid half the royalties. Top bloke.

Number One

The other night I saw a documentary, part of BBC Three's or Four's or Five's or Seven's - one of the cultural BBC channels anyway- series on New York music. It was called 'Blondie : One Way or Another' and confirmed a beleif thats been growing inside me for a while, Debbie Harry was THE BEST looking woman ever.



Now Blondie are just one of those bands that have been in the back of our minds since birth with their songs being on so many radio playlists, so its easy not to see that they were actually really good. Songs like Call Me, Atomic, Heart of Glass are brilliant, they'd stand up on their own without a beautiful lead singer. Of course they used sex to sell records but Harry was much sexier fully dressed than Lady Ga Ga will ever be.

Oh and 10 years older than Ga Ga, Harry was 31 when Blondie's first album was released and 34 when the band were on the cover of Rolling Stone. Proof that form is tempory whilst class is permanent. I remember reading Anthony Keidis's (of Red Hot Chili Peppers) autobiography and he tells of trying to chat her up at a party when he was in his early twenties, only to get shot down. Iggy Pop also tells of himself and David Bowie failing when Blondie were supporting on his Idiot tour. In fact, thoughout their career Harry and Blondie Guitarist Chris Stein were 'life partners'.

So in summary: Beautiful, Sexy, Talented and Unattainable even if I was born forty years earlier. Definatly the perfect woman...