Cover Freak

Two years of Cover Freak. It just blows my tiny little mind to think of it. It’s been way more fun than I could have hoped for. Somebody even asked me to contribute to their book after reading the blog. Thanks to all of the folks who have sent me so much cool music over the last two years, especially Uncle Flakey, Mister Squid, and George Blowfish.

It’s a tall order to look back over the 260 songs I’ve posted over the past year and pick the ten best. Fortunately several readers let me know what they’ve enjoyed most. Thanks to those folks for their input and thanks to all of you for taking the time to read my little blog and to listen to the songs.

And if you’re digging the music and/or the blog in general feel free to click on the Make A Donation button at the top right corner of the page. The blog will keep going whether you contribute or not, but you’ll build up good karma if you help defray the cost of the blog. And I promise I won’t mention this again for another year.

Something For Kate “Genie In A Bottle” (Christina Aguilera)
I try very hard to ignore the tabloid train wreck skeezy pop tarts that are foisted on an innocent public by the entertainment industry. The thing is, they often have talented songwriters working for them. It usually takes a cover like this one to really put one of those artists on my radar.

Palomar “I’ll Come Running” (Brian Eno)
Brian Eno has written so much insanely dull “ambient” music that his skills as a pop songwriter are all too often overlooked. This joyous power-pop rendition helps even the score.

Anna Fermin’s Trigger Gospel “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps” (Doris Day)
This song was Doris Day’s attempt to craft a hipper image after all those white-bread movies with Rock Hudson. But she never rocked like Anna Fermin.

The Zig Zag People “Little Bit Of Soul” (Music Explosion)
I was just blown away when I discovered this album. The Zig Zag People took a collection of bubblegum hits and remade them as acid rock freakouts. All the songs are so good that it was hard to pick just one to post.

Tricky “Love Cats” (The Cure)
If only the Cure could manage to sound this slinky and sensuous I might be able to stand to listen to them.

Brødrene Lövenstjerne “Nothing Compares 2 U” (Prince)
This is from a Norwegian Prince tribute album. After it came out the record label sent a copy to Prince and he responded by suing them for not paying him royalties on it. So of course I just had to buy me a copy while it was still available. And let me tell you, Google Translate is your friend when you’re attempting to do e-commerce in Norwegian.

Moonshine Willy “Don’t You Want Me” (Human League)
Moonshine Willy was one of the first acts signed by Bloodshot Records. Just one more reason they’re one of my favorite record labels. The band is gone but thankfully they left this cover behind.

Jon Langford and the Pine Valley Cosmonauts “Delilah” (Tom Jones)
I recently saw Jon Langford at my favorite dive bar performing with a very large Welsh men’s choir. When they did this song it was a grand singalong that had everybody swaying along as they waved their beers in the air. This version has a great arrangement with a barroom piano and fiddle.

Glass Eye “Minnie The Moocher” (Cab Calloway)
This is another one of those songs that has ten thousand covers. This minimalist guitar and drum version is a refreshing change from most of those other covers.

Petty Booka “Material Girl” (Madonna)
A ukulele cover of a Madonna song is cool enough, but when the ukes are played by two adorably cute Japanese women you’ve really got something special. I wasn’t sure if they sang their songs phonetically like Shonen Knife until I tried to talk to them after a show. They were gracious and charming even if they couldn’t understand a word I was saying.

Vote Early Vote Often: Next week is the second anniversary of Cover Freak. There’s still time to let me know if there are any songs from the last twelve months that you’d like reposted. Let me be clear about that. I will only repost songs from the last twelve months. That means the oldest songs I will repost are ones originally posted in October 2007. I will not repost any songs that I originally posted over twelve months ago.

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There are several ways to view the career of the band Blondie: vehicle for Debbie Harry, genre-hopping musical opportunists, new-wave sellouts, creative visionaries. One thing that you can’t argue is that they covered a huge amount of musical ground.

The Puppini Sisters “Heart of Glass” (Blondie)
I have no affection for disco, especially as performed by former new-wave trendsetters. But I love the Puppini Sisters and this Andrews Sisters style take on the song makes me smile.

Lee Rocker “One Way Or Another” (Blondie)
This song is such an iconic new-wave anthem that everybody that covers it seems to be afraid to do anything new with it. So this roots-rock treatment is quite a treat. And needless to say, Lee Rocker is one of the best rock and roll stage names ever. It’s almost as good as Lux Interior.

The Box Tops “Call Me” (Blondie)
There’s something sleazy and seductive going on here. And when I think of the Box Tops (which honestly isn’t all that often) “sleazy” and “seductive” are not the words that come immediately to mind. This comes to us from the wonderful When Pigs Fly compilation.

Smashing Pumpkins “Dreaming” (Blondie)
The Pumpkins are really hit and miss as a cover band. About half of their covers just sound like a generic Smashing Pumpkins song. And then the other half are absolutely inspired like this one. It’s slower than the original with a fantastically insistent drumbeat and great washes of distorted guitar.

Blondie “The Tide Is High” (The Paragons)
Most people don’t know that this was originally an obscure reggae song before Blondie added the horns and turned it into a big hit. Now there are lots of versions of it out there, most of them covering Blondie’s cover.

It’s My Party: Two weeks from now I’ll be celebrating the second anniversary of Cover Freak. I’ll be marking the occasion with another best-of post. So feel free to browse the archives and let me know if there are any songs from the last twelve months that you’d like reposted.

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I’ve been really stressed out lately. I got a massage on Thursday and my longtime massage therapist told me that she’d never seen me that tense. So I need to listen to some smooth calming music to help take the edge off.

Eldissa “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” (Frankie Valli)
Empty out a pineapple, fill it with rum, and dig that bossa nova beat.

The Johnny Mann Singers “Heart Full Of Soul” (The Yardbirds)
Something about the whole sound of this song makes me think of the Dick Van Dyke Show. It’s what I think Rob and Laura would be listening to on their hi-fi while sipping highballs after Richie went to bed.

Karen Souza “Creep” (Radiohead)
A couple of weeks ago I posted a ska version of this tune. The fact that it works just as well as a cool jazz number is a testament to what an incredibly well-written song it is. My wife recently informed me that it’s one of her favorites. Given the lyrics I wonder if I need to be concerned.

Prozac For Lovers “Love Will Tear Us Apart” (Joy Division)
This is one of those covers that’s so perfect that you can’t imagine the song being done any other way. It’s always been a loungy bossa nova song. The guys in Joy Division just plain got the song wrong.

Don Costa “Nice Work If You Can Get It” (Fred Astaire)
Don Costa is best known as Frank Sinatra’s arranger and conductor during the late 60s and early 70s. He was apparently the person who convinced Sinatra to record “Bad Bad Leroy Brown.” I picked up the LP Echoing Voices And Trombones at the late great Record Roundup. I got it for my brother-in-law who plays the trombone. He said he liked it but I think he was just being polite.

Buy My Book: Hang The DJ is a book of alternative music lists. There’s lots of interesting and funny stuff in there. There’s also a list that I wrote. Buy several copies and give them to all your friends. Then maybe somebody else will pay me to write something.

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I realized that I’ve posted a couple of songs about losers recently. So I decided to go full-bore and post a whole bunch of songs about losers.

Vanilla Fudge “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” (Rod Stewart)
If you need to ask, you’re not. The drummer for Vanilla Fudge wrote this song so I guess this is what it’s supposed to sound like. Amazing that Rod Stewart got it so wrong.

Adam Brand “Teenage Dirtbag” (Wheatus)
It’s the age-old story of the high school loser pining for the hot cheerleader who doesn’t know who he is. But it’s got great lyrics. The singer refers to himself as a teenage dirtbag fer cryin’ out loud! And how many other songs can you think of that actually say “her boyfriend’s a dick?”

Sfuzzi East/West “I’m A Loser” (Beatles)
There are millions of Beatles covers but way too few of them bring anything new to the song being covered. This one loses the inexplicable chipper bounciness of the original and replaces it with a somber reflectiveness that suits the lyrics well.

Dave Alvin “Loser” (Grateful Dead)
I was never a big Grateful Dead fan before I went off to college. When I got there my assigned dorm roommate was a pretty severe alcoholic. He would drink a quart of rotgut vodka at a sitting. He would black out two or three times a week. I asked him if it bothered him that he blacked out two or three times a week. His response was “It used to bother me but I got used to it.” He was not the greatest person to be trapped with in a 12 x 12 room. I figure that by now he’s either sober, in jail, or dead.

He also claimed to be a Deadhead. What that meant to him was that he had two Grateful Dead albums. They were both greatest hits collections and about half of the songs on each record were also on the other. He played them incessantly. I came to despise the Dead and to associate them with hopeless loserly booziness.

It took me years to work my way back to being indifferent to the Dead. At least I’m to a point now where I can post this song.

Danny Barnes “Loser” (Beck)
The former Bad Livers banjo player loads this song up with so many weird sound effects that I’m sure Beck would approve.