Cover Freak

I had my fantasy baseball draft last week, which means that I was too busy preparing for it to spend a lot of time on this week’s post. So here’s a quick selection of random stuff.

Lydia Lunch “Heartattack And Vine” (Tom Waits)
I really like the thought that there’s no devil, only God when he’s drunk. I find it very comforting.

Sally Timms “Cry, Cry, Cry” (Johnny Cash)
Ms. Timms has an incredible voice and I’m quite fortunate that she lives in my hometown. I just wish she’d perform more often around town.

D’Nash “Stand By Me” (Ben E. King)
This one starts out sounding much like the original and then takes a sharp left turn.

Eric Hutchinson “When You Were Mine” (Prince)
I adore this song, particularly the line about how she didn’t have the decency to change the sheets. The original sounds hopelessly cheesy and dated nowadays, but there are so many fine covers of it out there.

Amboy Dukes “Let’s Go Get Stoned” (Ray Charles)
Poor straight-arrow Ted Nugent, being forced to play all those songs about getting drunk and doing drugs because he was so young and innocent. At least according to Ted. I can almost feel sorry for him until I realize that he couldn’t have possibly been so stupid to not know what those songs were about.

Historic U.S. Route 66 started in Chicago and ended in Los Angeles. So when people decide to retrace the path of Route 66 they often start in Chicago. Last week a guy from Australia was here to start a trip along Route 66 on his bicycle. Which made it seem like as good a time as any to pay tribute to the Mother Road.

Depeche Mode “Route 66″ (Nat King Cole)
I was kind of surprised to learn that this song was originally recorded by Nat King Cole, because the song has become such a rock ‘n’ roll staple and I don’t think of Nat King Cole as a rock artist. Depeche Mode was never known as rock ‘n’ roll band either, so it should come as no surprise that they cranked out such a dreadful version of the song.

Jean S. ”Kun Chicago kuoli (The Night Chicago Died)” (Paper Lace)
Despite the fact that Route 66 wound from Chicago to L.A, it’s not that big a deal around here. There’s a stretch of the road near my house and there are signs denoting it, but there aren’t the tourist trap souvenir shops selling Route 66 crap that you find in smaller towns along the route.

I’m not sure what language Jean S. is singing here, but I do like the synth-disco take on Paper Lace’s one hit. Being from Chicago the lyrics to this song have always bothered me because they say that the story happened on the East Side of the city. Chicago has a North Side, a West Side, and a South Side. Because the city is bordered on the east by Lake Michigan that part of town is known as the Lakefront, not the East Side. Anybody who has ever been here can tell you that. So I’m just as happy listening to this song in whatever incomprehensible language he’s singing in.

The Pine Hill Haints “St. Louis Blues” (Bessie Smith & Louis Armstrong)
According to the song Route 66 goes through “Saint Louie.” I went to college in Missouri and I was never impressed by the city of St. Louis. I’m sure it has its special charms but I never found any of them. So for me “St. Louis Blues” is the perfect song about driving through that town.

Alice Ripley “Take It Easy” (The Eagles)
Don’t forget Winona. You’d be surprised how few songs have been written about Winona, Arizona. So in order to come up with five songs for this week’s travelogue I had to stretch a little and include this song that name checks Winslow, AZ. Winslow is about a 45 minute drive from Winona, so that’s close enough, right?

Caballero Reynaldo & The Grand Kazoo ”San Ber’Dino” (Frank Zappa)
Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino. In this song poor Potato-Headed Bobby gets sentenced to 30 days in San Ber’Dino, so it sounds like you’re better off not stopping there. Just drive on through to Los Angeles.

It’s April Fool’s Day, the one day of the year where you’re actually encouraged to lie to people and make them feel like idiots. Probably the best part of this holiday is identifying the gullible and humorless who believe some of the insane gibberish that gets posted all over the internet on this day.

I did consider posting some insane gibberish about how I was starting my own record label so I could return the Edison wax cylinder to prominence. But instead I decided to just post songs about fools.

The Four Tops “Fool On The Hill” (The Beatles)
I’m not a big Beatles fan. Mainly because of the fact that the Baby Boomers who control radio, television, and movies have turned their music into audio wallpaper by making it inescapable. That’s why I like a good Beatles cover, it takes something numbingly familiar and makes it seem fresh and new.  Like this soulful side from the Four Tops.

Just Jack “Lovefool” (The Cardigans)
I’ve heard the original version of this song but I’ve never really taken much notice of it or of the Cardigans. But I’m really digging this rubbery electronic take on it.

Elvis Costello “Ship Of Fools” (Grateful Dead)
I use this song as an example of a good cover in the Cover Freak Manifesto. I’ve already described my distaste for the Grateful Dead in detail in several previous posts. But here Elvis turns a meandering Dead concert staple into a bitter Irish recrimination that spews bile and venom that the Dead could never even contemplate.

The Cadets”Fools Rush In” (Glenn Miller)
This is one of those classic songs that has a certain orthodoxy when it gets covered. You can either sing it as a slow ballad or as a chipper upbeat jazz tune. The only exceptions I’ve found are Bow Wow Wow’s polyrhythmic take that I posted recently and this greasy doo-wop version.

R.L. Burnside “Chain Of Fools” (Aretha Franklin)
I was a little surprised to find that crusty Delta bluesman R.L. Burnside covered this soul classic. But it works. It works quite well, in fact.

Last week I tried to log into the admin side of Cover Freak and discovered that the site had been hacked. They didn’t do much damage, changing some passwords and messing with the way the site looks in a web browser. I fixed the damage but it’s disturbing to think that cyber bullies are picking on me.

The tech support folks at my web hosting company suggested removing all my files from their servers and reinstalling everything from scratch. I tried to get away with not doing that and just changing my passwords. But the hackers came back and changed my passwords again so I had to put in a fair amount of time tearing Cover Freak down and rebuilding it from the ground up.

The time I spent doing that is the time I would ordinarily have spent lovingly crafting this week’s theme. So I’m just doing a quick post of songs that I’ve recently been sent by independent artists. Cover Freak has posted each and every Sunday since October of 2006 and no hacker is gonna stop me now. The hackers can eat a bag of dicks as far as I’m concerned.

Beatface “Your Shook Me All Night Long” (AC/DC)
Electronic covers of AC/DC always amuse me, and Beatface does a fine job here.

Emily Peal “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” (Cher)
This song starts out very spare and quiet, not much different than the original. And then it absolutely explodes. Check out Emily Peal here.

Metropolis America “Possession” (Sarah McLachlan)
The singer-songwriter’s big hit gets a very lavish production. Metropolis America pumps the song up while staying true to the song’s roots.

Overlord “Kelly” (Del Shannon)
I always give extra points to people who cover obscure songs. This one still has the unmistakable Del Shannon vibe. You wouldn’t expect a band called Overlord to be big on vocal harmonies, but these guys are.

The Salt Flats “Never Going Back Again” (Fleetwood Mac)
The version from the Rumours album is a simple finger-picking tune. The Salt Flats use an Omnichord and a drum machine to transform the song.

One of the things I do with my spare time is volunteer at the Old Town School Of Folk Music. It’s not a bad deal, you help out with a show (usually as an usher) and you get to see most of the show for free. And they give you points you can redeem for classes.

This past weekend I worked a special event at OTS, the Blue Jean Gala. It’s a fundraiser they run every year and this year they brought Levon Helm’s Midnight Ramble to town for two nights. I was able to see almost all of the Friday show, which was fantastic. The guy standing next to me kept complaining about how disappointed he was in what he got for his $250 ticket, but I think his expectations were just out of line.

Shawn Mullins “Sunday Morning Coming Down” (Ray Stevens)
Shawn Mullins was the opening act Saturday night and he was also scheduled to sit in with Mr. Helm’s band during their set. The Saturday show is going to end way too late for me to comment here about his performance.

Robert Palmer “Sailing Shoes” (Little Feat)
Barrere & Fred Tackett from Little Feat opened up Friday night, playing as an acoustic duo. They also sat in with Mr. Helm’s band.

Most people have forgotten (or never known) that Robert Palmer had a career as a suave R&B artist before he did “Addicted To Love.” The album version of this song is part of a larger ten-minute medley, here we have a greatest-hits-album friendly edit that features just the one song, which is why it cuts off rather abruptly at the end.

Smash Mouth “Do It Again” (Steely Dan)
Donald Fagen of Steely Dan performed as a member of Mr. Helm’s band. I was impressed at how good he was at playing roots music since Steely Dan’s music is so sophisticated and jazzy.

Smash Mouth is my secret shame and my guilty pleasure. One night when I was flipping channels on my TV I stumbled across them playing live. And I was impressed despite my best efforts not to be. I understand that they traffic in dumb frat-boy rock, but it appeals to me for some reason.

Sherie Rene Scott, Lindsay Mendez & Betsy Wolfe “The Weight” (The Band)
Levon Helm of course came to the public’s attention as part of The Band. This was the big show closer Friday night, with the opening act coming out onto a very crowded stage.

This song is very popular with gospel and soul performers. I heard Mavis Staples play it in a tiny little bar a couple of years ago. This version is very still at first but builds up quite the head of steam.

Levon Helm and the RCO All Stars “Got My Mojo Working” (Muddy Waters)
I couldn’t do this post without a song from the man himself. Mr. Helm looks rather frail these days, but he played and sang with an energy that belied his appearance.

This is a difficult song to cover because it’s been done to death by every two-bit cover band in the world and everybody knows what it’s “supposed” to sound like. Fortunately in this case the RCO All Stars includes Dr. John, who brings the gris-gris swamp voodoo to bear on the old warhorse. Yeah it’s the second week in a row for the good doctor, but that’s never a bad thing.