One of the cool things about running this blog is having independent artists send me new music. I make a note of the good stuff and try to work it into posts I’m writing. But there are usually good songs that just don’t fit into a theme I’m doing for some reason and after awhile they start to stack up. So here’s a selection of songs I’ve been sent recently that have nothing in common other than they’re relatively new.

Natubella “NIB” (Black Sabbath)
Most disco-tronic covers don’t sound much like the original. Natubella does a great job of making this song dancefloor-friendly while keeping the wallop of the Black Sabbath classic. That’s important to me because the original was a major part of the soundtrack of my high school years.

Gina & Tony “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” (Nancy Sinatra)
For some odd reason Gina & Tony decided to turn everybody’s second-favorite Nancy Sinatra song into a nine-part suite. It hangs together well but is kinda long to post here. This is a radio edit that gives a good flavor of what the larger work sounds like.

Lumpy “Red Rubber Ball” (The Cyrcle)
I’ve always liked the original version of this song because of the tension between the chipper music and the caustic, bitter lyrics. Lumpy reimagines it as a mutant waltz with mariachi horns. There’s regret and hope, with less bitterness. Well done, Lumpy.

Darrin James Band “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You” (Bob Dylan)
I like Darrin James‘ whole new album The Lovely Ugly Truth. It surveys American roots music without sounding trite or derivative. This is a very nice soulful reading of a Bob Dylan song that I’m not sick of hearing.

Donna Beasley “Love My Way” (Psychedelic Furs)
This song never really did much for me, what with the monotonous buzzing of those synthesizers and of the singer’s voice. “Languorous” isn’t a word I often use to describe the music of the Psychedelic Furs, but Donna Beasley infuses the song with an exquisite sense of languor.

Thanks For Your Support
I renewed the web hosting contract for Cover Freak last week. I paid for it with the kind donations of my readers. Thanks to all of you for your generous support. I’ll try to make sure you get your money’s worth in the upcoming year.

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The holiday season was not too happy for the Freak family this year. A week before Christmas my brother became seriously ill. I got a call at 4 a.m. telling me to come to the hospital to see him before he died. Thanks to skilled doctors and advanced medical technology my brother cheated death. He came home from the hospital last week, a little worse for wear but still better off than the alternative. I’m glad he’s still with us, I’m glad he’s back home, and I’m glad that I get to post songs about life instead of songs about death.

The Blind Corn Liquor Pickers “Once In A Lifetime” (Talking Heads)
This has got to be one of the weirdest songs ever to become widely popular. Just when I think that society has lost all appreciation of anything with artistic merit something like this comes along and restores my faith in humanity.

Big Daddy “A Day In The Life” (The Beatles)
I never realized that there was a straight line from Buddy Holly to the Beatles until I heard this song. This is from Big Daddy’s brilliant Sgt. Pepper’s album, where they covered the entire Beatles album in various 50s musical styles.

Harry Nilsson “Always Look At The Bright Side Of Life” (Monty Python)
Alright, this song deals with death in addition to life. But it does it so cheerfully. I remember reading that Life Of Brian is considered the Pythons’ greatest film in England, while Holy Grail is considered by Americans to be their best effort. It’s not that surprising when you consider that the U.S. was founded by religious fanatics with thin skins.

Anggun “Life On Mars?” (David Bowie)
This is from an album called Snow On The Sahara, which really applies to the feel of this song. There are a lot of sounds layered on top of each other here, including the ever-popular pan flute.

Denis Fischer “Lust For Life” (Iggy Pop)
This song is really dark and troubling. It sounds like he’s got a lust for the kind of life you see people living in a David Lynch film. I always feel like I need to take a shower after listening to it.

From time to time the delightful Mrs. Freak suggests a theme for Cover Freak. They’re usually pretty good suggestions, but I don’t always get to them right away. I might have some ideas of my own for themes or I just might not feel like putting together a post on that topic for awhile. Well, back in November Mrs. Freak suggested that I feature girl groups in a post and she was recently complaining that I hadn’t done anything with her suggestion yet. Keeping your spouse happy is an important part of a long and successful marriage, so here’s the girl group post.

Steve Carlson “Be My Baby” (The Ronettes)
The Ronettes version is generally regarded as the ultimate example of Phil Spector’s Wall Of Sound. There are boatloads of covers of this song out there, most of them emulating the Wall Of Sound to some extent. Steve Carlson does a wonderful acoustic version, full of earnest teenage yearning and very nice percussion.

The Afghan Whigs “Come See About Me” (The Supremes)
The Supremes weren’t originally Diana Ross’ band. Motown Records started grooming her as a solo act and really screwed the rest of the ladies in the group. Mary Wilson was quite bitter about that for awhile but she’s probably over it now that she’s got that out-of-court settlement. For some reason this version sounds vaguely threatening to me, like it’s working on that Mary Wilson vibe.

Smith “Baby It’s You” (The Shirelles)
This is some great makeout music. It’s the kind of thing I’d expect to hear near closing time in a smoky sweaty bar when everybody gets a chance to do a slow grind with their favorite person.

Superchunk “Say My Name” (Destiny’s Child)
This song comes from the very good Guilt By Association CD from Engine Room Records. The label sent me that CD when it came out and I’ve featured several songs from it and linked back to their web page for the CD. Imagine my surprise when I was browsing my local used record shop and found GBA Volume Two. I guess they decided that the awesome media marketing power of Cover Freak wasn’t awesome enough to send out another CD. I can’t help feeling like my high school sweetheart jilted me.

Zebrahead “Wannabe” (The Spice Girls)
The appeal of the Spice Girls has always eluded me. They can’t sing, they can’t dance, and they’re not very good looking. Except for the one Eddie Murphy knocked up. She’s pretty cute. How did they sell so many records?

It’s been snowing in Chicago, like it has been across much of the country. We’re serious about snow removal around here ever since a snowstorm ended a politician’s career. As well it should have. We don’t expect much from our elected officials in Chicago, but they damn well better collect the garbage, fill the potholes, and plow the streets when it snows. Those are the minimum requirements of the social contract between the citizens and their government. When the first flake falls around here highly-paid professionals are already coating the streets with a thick blanket of salt, all part of a titanic effort to corrode everybody’s car and assure that no plants can grow that aren’t native to a salt marsh. Every titanic effort needs its own soundtrack and I’m here to provide it.

Snow Patrol “Crazy In Love” (Beyonce)
At one point this Scottish alterna-rock band forgets what their strengths are and they start rapping. It’s not pretty, but the non-rap portions of the song are quite nice.

Knut Reiersrud Band “Sometimes It Snows In April” (Prince)
The original song was a very sad ballad that ended Prince’s Parade album. Here we have a Norwegian band giving it a soul treatment that is much more hopeful and forward looking.

Johnny Winter “Let It Bleed” (Rolling Stones)
Has every weather guy and gal in the Midwest just moved here from Florida? It’s winter, it snows every year around this time. You bundle up, you move the snow out of your way, and you get on with your life. To judge from the media coverage you’d think that we’re all going to be buried in snow drifts and be easy prey for hungry zombie squirrels.

And just for the record, it drives me insane when they send the weather guy out into the snow to tell us that it’s snowing. Like I wouldn’t believe him if he was in the broadcast studio like a sensible person. Like I can’t look out my freaking window and see that it’s snowing.

Rose Laughlin “Cold Rain And Snow” (Traditional)
This is an old folk song most often associated with the Grateful Dead. Rose Laughlin delivers a very spare and spooky version featuring her voice, an organ, and a bodhran. It gives me chills in a way that the Dead’s aimless twiddling never could.

Phoebe Snow “Rockin’ Pneumonia And The Boogie Woogie Flu” (Huey “Piano” Smith)
Ms. Snow says right upfront that she likes to find old songs and make them contemporary. And she does a great job of it here. She really wails over a groove that’s a half-step slower than you usually hear this song played. I especially like that she explains how the song is based on a story by Chaucer.

What’s new? I don’t especially care, I’m just glad to be done with 2009.

The Dollyrots “Brand New Key” (Melanie)
The original is silly and harmless. This version is tough and muscular, which is probably a good way to face the new year/decade.

Nouvelle Vague “Just Can’t Get Enough” (Depeche Mode)
The phrase “nouvelle vague” translates from the French as “new wave.”

New Clear Clouds “Half Breed” (Cher)
I never thought that Cher looked much like a Native American. I wondered if it was just a story made up by her manager. Turns out that her father was Armenian and her mother was of Cherokee, English and French descent. So she’s at best a quarter-breed, but that wouldn’t have been nearly as catchy a song title.

Bob Marley “What’s New Pussycat?” (Tom Jones)
Bob sounds so young and fresh-faced! He really can’t pull off the swaggering lecherousness of Tom Jones, but then again neither can I.

New Buffalo “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” (Nina Simone)
New Buffalo is Australian musician Sally Seltmann, who wrote the song “1234” for Feist. So you can blame her for all those iPod commercials. Here she delivers a sad, quiet version of the Animals classic rock staple.