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.

Last year I did a Year In Review post and it went pretty well, so this year I’m taking a look back at the decade just passed. So many things happen over the course of ten years but these are the things that grabbed my attention for one reason or another.

Man Or Astro-man? “Interplanet Janet” (from Schoolhouse Rock)
In August 2006 Pluto was demoted to “dwarf planet” status. How does a planet get demoted? Pluto seriously needs to get a new agent. As I reach middle age it seems that science is conspiring to piss all over my childhood. First they start renaming the dinosaurs and now Pluto’s not a planet. It’s enough to give a guy a complex.

Pat Boone “Paradise City” (Guns N’ Roses)
Chinese Democracy was finally released in November 2008. It was at first widely anticipated, then became a joke as the years and promised release dates slid by. When it finally came out nobody really gave a damn any more, which was a good thing because the album was a piece of crap.

The original lyrics of “Paradise City” were “Take me down to Paradise City where the girls are fat and they got big titties.” I would so love to hear Pat Boone sing that.

John Connors “The Patty Duke Show Theme” (from The Patty Duke Show)
Digital broadcast TV came to the U.S. in 2009 after a few false starts. Thanks to the wonders of digital signal compression TV stations now can broadcast four channels using the bandwidth that they had been using to broadcast one analog channel. For the most part they haven’t figured out what to do with the extra channels, I’m seeing a lot of 24-hour weather broadcasts. But Chicago’s WCIU-TV has it figured out. They’ve devoted one channel to reruns of classic TV shows ranging from Have Gun, Will Travel to The Twilight Zone to Starsky And Hutch. They haven’t broken out Patty Duke yet, but I figure it’s inevitable. Another channel shows obscure movies, including some horrible monster movies from the 60s and 70s. They’re so old school that when Octaman ran short they filled the time with an old Pink Panther cartoon. Now that’s a good use of the public airwaves.

Diesel “Paranoid” (Black Sabbath)
I saw Ozzy play live when it mattered. He had just released his first solo album and had something to prove. Randy Rhodes was playing guitar and Motorhead was the opening act, touring to support the Ace of Spades album. The Aragon Ballroom was packed and some sweaty drunk passed out and fell on me. All in all it was one of those life-defining occasions. And then in 2002 Ozzy staggered onto my TV screen looking drug-addled and pathetic. It was hard for me to reconcile the doddering stooge on my TV with the fierce performer I saw that night so long ago.

Brian Grosz “Gimme Some Money” (Spinal Tap)
The Euro entered circulation in the European Union on January 1, 2002. It had been used in accounting since 1995 but now people could spend Euro coins and currency. It’s interesting how the EU dealt with nationalism on the part of its member states when it came to currency design. The coins all have the same design on the “heads” side and each country is allowed to design its own “tails” side. The paper money has nice generic bridges on all the bills.

This song comes to us from the very excellent Spinal Tap tribute CD put out by the very excellent Brian Ibbott over at Coverville.

Erasure “Too Darn Hot” (comp. Cole Porter)
Global warming has become pretty undeniable over the last decade. The people who used to argue that it wasn’t happening have now by and large moved on to arguing that it’s not being caused by people and even if it is it would be too expensive to fix the problem. In the meantime the ice caps are melting and polar bears have turned to cannibalism because they can’t get out on the ice to hunt for seals any more. It is indeed too darn hot.

If you scroll down and take a look at my Thanksgiving post you’ll notice that I mentioned that the Chris and Heather Country Calendar Show was coming up. The show happened a week ago yesterday and I had a wonderful time. I was even more excited to find that they had put together a second CD of the music from Country Calendar shows past. With that much more material to choose from, I couldn’t resist putting together a post of music from those shows.

If you don’t want to scroll down to the bottom of the page, here’s the deal. Every year Chicago cartoonist and filmmaker Heather McAdams draws a calendar that pays tribute to country musicians famous and obscure. It’s a great source of knowledge or trivia, depending on your point of view. Every December Heather and her husband Chris Ligon get their musician friends together to play music from the artists featured in that year’s calendar. The evening also includes film (or this year for the first time, video) of the original artists in action. It’s kind of a yearly Christmas party for the musicians involved and they put on the show in a bar three blocks from my house, making it a can’t-miss event for me.

Devil In A Woodpile “The Most Beautiful Girl” (Charlie Rich)
I always thought that this song was impossibly cheesy. But when I heard Devil In A Woodpile reinvent it as a country blues stomp I was blown away. One more example of a well-written song that shines when it’s liberated from its original arrangement.

Andrew Bird with Scott Ligon “Bubbles In My Beer” (Bob Wills)
I like Bob Wills’ music much more when it’s covered by other people. I find the original recordings difficult to listen to because Mr. Wills never shut the hell up. He constantly jabbered over the musicians in his band while they were playing. Makes me want to reach into my stereo and bitch-slap the guy.

Jon Langford and Sally Timms “Streets of Bakersfield” (Buck Owens)
Ms. Timms is a mercurial performer with an amazing voice. She’s all business on this recording, which is mildly disappointing. I did notice that this year they scheduled her early in the evening. I don’t know if that was a coincidence or if Chris and Heather were trying to get her onstage before she drank too much.

Neko Case “The Moon Is High (And So Am I)” (George Jones)
For his own sake I’m glad that Mr. Jones has dried out. But the world’s a little less exciting now that he’s not riding his lawn mower to the liquor store.

The Wichita Shut-Ins “A Wound Time Can’t Erase” (The Stonemans)
I was there the night this one was recorded and I remember the film of the Stonemans. The mandolin player was really cute and seriously hyperactive. She constantly danced this frantic sort of jig while savagely thrashing her instrument. It was inspirational to see.