I recently acquired several very nice wooden cigar boxes. I like cigar boxes and I use them for storing stuff. But even I have to admit that I have all the cigar boxes I need. I was casting about for something to do with these new boxes and since I’m learning to play the mandolin I thought I might take a shot at building a cigar box mandolin. Looking around online I found quite a bit of information and plans for building cigar box guitars and ukuleles, but very little information on how to build a cigar box mandolin. Seems like the most productive thing I can do with my frustration over this is to turn it into a Cover Freak post.

Angelique Kidjo “Little Boxes” (Malvina Reynolds)
I’ve never seen the TV program Weeds because it’s on Showtime and I live in a basic cable household. But I love the program because they spent two seasons getting a different artist to cover this song every week to use as the show’s theme. The songs all sound different and almost all of them are keepers. I particularly love this African-flavored version.

Enormous Richard “Music Box Dancer” (Frank Mills)
This song was originally an instrumental, but these guys apparently felt that what it was lacking were demented lyrics. The line about “dainty ballerina clothes and enormous thighs” is particularly inspired.

Storybox “Let’s Go Crazy” (The Clash)
Rock journalist Jimmy Guterman put together the Sandinista Project, where he got 36 artists to each cover a tune from the Sandinista album. The results are uneven, as they often are on a project like this. Storybox does a fine job, slowing this song down a half-step and adding mariachi horns.

Richard Cheese “Man In The Box” (Alice In Chains)
What can be said about the Cheese Man that hasn’t already been said? He can make any song sound swanky.

Band In A Box “All Cats Are Grey” (The Cure)
I’ve never liked the Cure, the whiny singing and monotonous synthesizers get on my nerves. So I was prepared to not like this song. But I really dig the atmospheric chamber orchestra treatment.

Technical Note: I’m trying out a plugin for my blog software that adds a small audio player next to the music links. If you don’t want to pop up a separate window to listen to the music you can just click on the little arrow next to the song title. If you’re using an iPhone or iPad you can still click on the old-style link.

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I was having a problem coming up with a theme this week. I had nothing. And then I realized that if life gives you lemons you should make lemonade. And if I have nothing to post, nothing is exactly what I should post.

Big Daddy “Nothing Compares 2 U” (Prince)
A Little Richard sound-alike declares himself the “undisputed queen of rock and roll” and proceeds to do a spot-on rendition of what it would sound like if Little Richard tackled a Prince song. Highly amusing and highly recommended.

Figures On A Beach “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” (Bachman Turner Overdrive)
The original is a great slice of 70s party music. This version is music for a very different kind of party.

T-Bone Burnett “Nothing In Return” (Roky Erickson)
Roky Erickson is most famous for gonzo garage rock, but he’s also written some very heartfelt love songs. T-Bone Burnett is one of my favorite musicians and songwriters, although these days he’s best known as a producer and music director for movies. Here T-Bone finds just the right shade of guileless teenage heartbreak as he sings of unrequited love.

The Persuasions “The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing” (Frank Zappa)
With all the religious intolerance and demagoguery going around these days, it seems like a good time to listen to FZ’s little sermon.

The Pigeons “I Who Have Nothing” (Ben E. King)
The Pigeons are what Vanilla Fudge called themselves before Carmine Appice joined the band. Even early on in their career they had the whole psychedelic-baroque style down cold.

Labor unions have gotten a bad rap over the last decade or two. Some of the complaints are justified, as a shortsighted desire to squeeze every nickel out of business owners has contributed to some of the systemic problems of American industry. But there’s plenty of blame to go around on that front.

People tend to forget that things that even nonunion workers take for granted were won by the hard work of union members willing to get their skulls broken by Pinkerton goons. The 40-hour work week, paid vacations, and employer-funded health care are things that we can thank the unions for. My grandfather fed eight children during the Great Depression thanks to his union job, and I would not have had the opportunities that I’ve had in my life were it not for my grandpa’s union job.

So as you celebrate Labor Day tomorrow, put aside the beer and barbecue for a moment and show some gratitude to those who have come before you in the workforce.

Uncle Tupelo “Coalminers” (comp. Sarah Ogan Gunning)
The recent mine collapse in Chile has reminded us all that mining is indeed the most dangerous work in our world today. Thankfully the miners are alive and should be rescued in a couple of months. I do feel sorry for the one guy who had his wife and his mistress run into each other during a vigil outside the mine. That’s going to be a hellish thing to deal with after three months underground.

Lone Pine “Workingman’s Palace” (Jon Langford)
I think the fact that he’s a Welshman living in America has given Jon Langford a keen eye for the aspects of America that the natives have either grown accustomed to or would prefer not to see. There’s a great line in this song about how “everybody’s feeling strange about their lives and who’s to blame.” We’re seeing how economic uncertainty has led to a great deal of resentment toward immigrants these days. In the end the subject of the song will just meet you at the the workingman’s palace, the corner bar where things are like they’ve always been.

The Blues Band “Maggie’s Farm” (Bob Dylan)
Years before Johnny Paycheck, Bob Dylan was telling his boss to take his job and shove it. Jobs used to be so plentiful in America that if your boss was a bastard you could tell him to go scratch and go find another job. These days everybody is so anxious about keeping their jobs that bosses have free reign to abuse the help more than ever before.

I don’t know anything about his band, but I wonder if their name comes from the fact that they completely lack imagination or that they are so arrogant that in their minds they are indeed THE blues band.

David Lindley and Wally Ingram “Do You Want My Job?” (Little Village)
People need to feed their families and sometimes they have to take distasteful jobs in order to do it. It’s so sad that the guy singing this song is poisoning his home for two dollars a day so he can buy his kids sneakers.

James Madison Quartet “Work For Food” (Dramarama)
I’m not a big power pop guy, but I love Dramarama. Their album Vinyl is one of the most perfect ever made. The subject of this song is troubled but he denies a problem with his attitude.

When I was growing up my local record store sold imported British music magazines. I liked reading Melody Maker and NME. I was amused at how the writers would talk up the Next Big Thing until they became successful and then they’d write about how much they sucked. Then they’d start hyping the Next Next Big Thing. I know that all critics everywhere are prone to this phenomenon, but the Brits really elevated it to its purest form. I studied the pattern of hype-and-slag the way some people study the life cycle of fruit flies.

Anyway, Kerrang! was the British music magazine I loved the most. They had an exclamation mark in their name long before Yahoo and they were real big on the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. Being a metal fan and somebody who’s always looking for new music, Kerrang! was right up my alley. And here are some of the bands they hyped before they started to suck.

Hellsongs “Run To The Hills” (Iron Maiden)
You have to admire the way Iron Maiden have built a career for themselves. It’s a tribute to relentless touring and word of mouth in the face of record label indifference. They work just as hard now as they did before they started filling sports stadiums.

Hellsongs does a fine job of making what was originally an angry song sound very sad.

Emm Gryner “Pour Some Sugar On Me” (Def Leppard)
This may not be the best Def Leppard song to post when I’m talking about the NWOBHM, but there aren’t a whole lot of interesting covers of their early stuff. Whatever you think of Def Leppard, the idea of a one-armed drummer is Totally Metal.

Albert Kuvezin and Yat-Kha “Orgasmatron” (Motorhead)
You either love Tuvan throat singing or you hate it. I find it fascinating and Albert Kuvezin is one of the best live acts I’ve ever seen. Strangely enough his vocals on this song don’t sound all that different from Lemmy.

Girlschool “Race With The Devil” (Gun)
This song features a riff that’s deeply embedded in the DNA of rock and roll. Everybody recognizes the riff but most people couldn’t tell you what song it comes from. Gun was a popular band in England that featured the Gurvitz brothers, who went on to enlist with Ginger Baker to form the Baker-Gurvitz Army.

I always thought of Girlschool as the 80s version of the Runaways. Sadly there was no Joan Jett figure to survive the inevitable implosion of the band.

Tygers Of Pan Tang “Love Potion No. 9” (The Clovers)
Not every band in the NWOBHM could become a big star. There are laws of physics that prevent that sort of thing. And so the Tygers toiled at the fringes of the movement, eventually collapsing under pressure from their record company to record more covers like this one.

Two years ago my friend Lee discovered that she had a half-sister. Julie had been adopted as a child and tracked down her biological parents, which led her to Lee. They became Facebook friends and found a great deal of common ground. Last week they met in person for the first time and I stumbled into their family reunion. They quite graciously didn’t chase me away and even though I’m a cynical old man I found their story quite heartwarming. And so of course I had to turn it into a Cover Freak post.

Spooky Tooth “Son Of Your Father” (Elton John)
This isn’t one of Elton John’s most well-known songs but it’s one of my favorites. I like the admonition to treat me as your father would treat you. Depending on what kind of person somebody’s father is, that might not be the best thing to ask of a person. Both characters die by the end of the song, it’s a cautionary tale.

Lee and Julie are daughters of the same father and Lee certainly worked hard to treat her new sister as her own despite what must have been a very weird situation for her. There was no gunplay, for which I am glad. I’m sure the fact that her sister turned out to be Julie helped tremendously. We should all be so lucky to have such a thoroughly charming sibling as Jule pop into our lives unexpectedly.

Kaci Brown “I Think I Love You” (The Partridge Family)
There has been much discussion over the years about the effects of television on society. One of the most insidious in my opinion has been the popular perception of what family is, or should be. From the days of Father Knows Best up to The Cosby Show, television has presented an idealized vision of the American family. Real families are messy things sometimes, and often don’t resemble the Cleavers. More often than not family conflicts can’t be resolved in 22 minutes, allowing for commercial breaks. While you can’t pick your relatives, your family is what you make of it. Sometimes you have to accept your relatives for who and what they are and make the best of it.

And the thing is, even those TV families often fall short of their own standards. Mr. Brady was a closeted gay man living a lie, and those child actors are all messed up. Just look at Danny Bonaduce.

Randy California “Mother And Child Reunion” (Paul Simon)
I’m sure that Julie’s reunion with her birth mother was more difficult on a whole bunch of levels than her reunion with Lee. I can’t help but admire somebody who’s willing to get naked and jump off the cliff into the unknown like that. While that part of Julie’s search for her family may have been strange, from what I can tell it was not at all mournful. Which is a testament to how good everybody involved in the situation has been.

Jason Ringenburg “Ivan Meets G.I. Joe” (The Clash)
Things did not go at all well when Ivan met G.I. Joe. They went much better when Lee met Julie.

The Busters “Friday On My Mind” (The Easybeats)
The sisters met on a Friday. Friday the 13th to be exact. I like their collective contempt for superstition. And they did have fun in the city, heading downtown to do all the standard touristy stuff since Julie had never been to Chicago. I don’t know if they spent all their bread, but nobody seemed to lose their head.