Alms For The Poor: Cover Freak is five years old this week. And that means that it’s time for my yearly grovel for money. Cover Freak is my hobby and I quite enjoy it. It does cost money to host the web site and to purchase the music I share with the world. While I understand that times are tough all over, I am asking that you use the orange button at the top of the left column of this page to contribute $2 to the care and feeding of Cover Freak. It’s a modest request considering what it costs to buy a pack of cigarettes or even a sandwich nowadays. And if you’re coming back on any kind of regular basis I would hope that you’re getting at least $2 worth of entertainment out of the site. If all my regular readers would contribute that much it would be a very big deal to me. Thanks for your support.

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Another year has flown past. I posted more than ten great songs, but I have to draw the line somewhere. Without further ado, here’s the best of the last year on Cover Freak.

Trio “Tutti Fruitty” (Little Richard)
I was watching the World Series the other night and somebody made a reference to the Mike Meyers “Sprockets” skits from Saturday Night Live. The ex-jock color analyst Tim McCarver had no idea what the guy was talking about. The play-by-play guy gamely tried to explain it but got nowhere. Poor Tim simply had no frame of reference.

At any rate, this is the kind of art-damaged German music that Sprockets was built on.

Fritz Ostermayer “Angst In My Pants” (Sparks)
Sparks were the prototypical twitchy 80s new-wave MTV band. Which is why this cover, dripping with Weimar cabaret sleaze, always blows me away.

William Elliott Whitmore “Don’t Pray On Me” (Bad Religion)
Mr. Whitmore sings songs that cover some of the same subject matter as Bad Religion so it’s really not that surprising to hear him cover this song despite working in a very different musical style. One of the most memorable shows I’ve ever seen featured Mr. Whitmore playing in a former church that had a huge neon cross suspended above the altar. He asked that it be turned on and he then proceeded to sing a song about digging his own grave. Amazing stuff.

Stacy Phillips and Paul Howard “If 6 Was 9” (Jimi Hendrix)
The music of Jimi Hendrix is firmly rooted in the blues, even if it doesn’t always sound that way. But these two guys boil this song down to its bones as a hardcore Delta blues tune.

Lumpy “Willie The Pimp” (Frank Zappa)
This is my favorite song from the Frank Zappa tribute album I put out last December. It’s a wonderful dub reggae arrangement with lots of overdubbed horns. I always give extra credit for a flugelhorn.

Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women “Que Sera, Sera” (Doris Day)
The original version of this song was breezy and sentimental, but it didn’t rock. Dave Alvin and his all-girl band give it the rockin’ roots rock treatment.

Lizzy Parks “It Was A Very Good Year” (Frank Sinatra)
If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time you know about my love of the Hammond organ. And this is a song that really works the Mighty B-3 to great effect. I also like the fact that Ms. Parks doesn’t pretend to be an old lady looking back on her life. She promises that when she’s 35 she’ll have a gas of a year. And I bet she will.

String Swing “Things Have Changed” (Bob Dylan)
There are a lot of Dylan covers out there, in all musical styles. But you don’t hear a lot of swing jazz arrangements of his music. The song is still cynical but not quite so world-weary and nihilistic as when Bob sings it.

Bent Knee “Since I Been Loving You” (Led Zeppelin)
This one starts off as a rather quiet song. But that’s just to lull you into a false sense of security before the band absolutely explodes. They pack a wallop that Led Zep would envy.

Mark Ronson “Toxic” (Britney Spears)
I have a bunch of covers of this song, but this is hands-down the slinkiest. It also features somebody named Tiggers who contributes a rap that is decidedly not safe for work.