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.

The U.S.A. is a shining beacon of Darwinian capitalist free enterprise, so we don’t have any of that evil surrender-monkey socialized medicine around here. Because of that I’ve been struggling to get a prescription filled for some expensive medication that is very important to my ability to perform the activities of my daily life.

You see, I recently took a day job which brought with it a new health insurance plan. I also changed doctors because my longtime doctor is nowhere near where I live or work and I wanted one more geographically desirable. So I had to jump through a number of bureaucratic hoops just to convince the insurance company to pay for the medication. Then I had to bitch-slap my doctor’s office and my mail-order pharmacy to get them to talk to each other so I could get what I needed. I finally got everything together but it wasn’t without lots of time and aggravation on my part and a week without the medication that I normally take twice a week.

I’m just as mad at my insurance company as I am at my doctor, but you’d be surprised at how few quality cover songs about insurance company bureaucrats there are out there. So for this post I’ll just have to stick to the doctor.

Devo “Witch Doctor” (David Seville)
My doctor is a medical professional, not a witch doctor. Although if she had told me to rub yak butter all over my body I probably could have gotten yak butter more easily than I was able to get prescription medication. Hmmm, maybe I should see if there’s a witch doctor in my insurance company’s list of approved doctors.

Dr. John “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead You Rascal You” (Louis Armstrong)
Dr. John isn’t a real doctor and I’m confident that my new doctor won’t be happy when I’m dead. But I also didn’t get a real concerned vibe when I was trying to get my prescription filled. The problem was that my doctor gave me a paper prescription for my medicine. I get this medicine through a mail-order pharmacy. So I thought I could just fax the prescription to them. But the bureaucrats at the pharmacy (citing rules created by bureaucrats in Washington) said that they could only accept a prescription from a pharmacy or a doctor. They gave me the choice of taking it to a pharmacy and having them fax it to the mail order place or having the mail order pharmacy contact my doctor. I decided it would be easier if my pharmacy contacted my doctor directly. Which would have been true if my doctor had bothered to return calls and faxes from the pharmacy.

Fred Schneider “Coconut” (Harry Nilsson)
Another homeopathic remedy enshrined in song. It’s not clear exactly how you’re supposed to combine the lime and the coconut, but it does seem to be good for what ails you. I really should have tried putting the lime in the coconut when I was waiting to get my prescription filled.

Fred Schneider of the B-52s sounds downright demented on this one, which is why I like it.

The Beatlesøns “Dear Doctor” (Rolling Stones)
I give big props to these guys for covering such an obscure Stones song. It’s pretty much the only song you’ll ever hear that asks a doctor to cut out your heart and preserve it in a jar. I don’t think you’d be able to get a doctor to do that, no matter how heartbroken you are. The possibility for a malpractice suit is just too great.

Demented Scum Cats “I Don’t Need No Doctor” (Ray Charles)
I know what’s ailing me, but alas I still need a doctor to prescribe the medication that I need.

I think Demented Scum Cats is one of the greatest band names ever. And this version of the Ray Charles classic sounds just like you’d expect it would if it were played by a band called the Demented Scum Cats.

Davey Jones of the Monkees died last week and it was a sad day around Casa De Freak. Seems that Mrs. Freak had a preadolescent crush on Mr. Jones and was convinced that she would marry him. Alas, things between them didn’t work out and she wound up with me. Granted life with me is less glamorous than I image life as a Monkee Wife would be, but  I think that Mrs. Freak is a catchier name than Mrs. Jones.

As I’ve seen the reaction to the death of Mr. Jones I’ve seen a lot of comments in the media and various music blogs about the place of the Monkees in pop music history. While the Prefab Four certainly paved the way for marketing-derived bands from the Sex Pistols to New Kids On The Block, the real importance of his death lies with its impact on Women Of A Certain Age who crushed on him like Mrs. Freak.

And so this week we honor the memory of a generation’s favorite short Englishman.

SST “I’m A Believer” (The Monkees)
For me this song encapsulates the doe-eyed optimism of the 60s before the Summer of Love fell apart. And this cool syncopated take is very much of the 60s in its own right. It sounds like the version that your friend’s cool parents might listen to.

Code Of Ethics “Pleasant Valley Sunday” (The Monkees)
This has always struck me as kind of an odd choice of a song for the Monkees since it criticizes empty consumerism and suburban life. Not only was it a departure from their standard selection of optimistic love songs, let’s face it the whole concept of the Monkees was based on empty consumerism.

Atomic Kitten “Daydream Believer” (The Monkees)
I realize that writing a good song lyric is a challenge, what with the need to fit words into the meter of the music. But the line “my shaving razor’s cold and it stings” has always bugged me. Your shaving razor? As opposed to all the other razors you use for other non-shaving purposes? Like the one you keep in your shoe to cut people?

Atomic Kitten was a British prefab pop group so it’s very appropriate that they covered the Monkees.

Harry Nilsson “Cuddly Toy” (The Monkees)
Harry Nilsson wrote this song so it may not be entirely fair to call this a cover, especially since this recording comes from his appearance in the studio to play his songs for the Monkees. He was trying to sell them a song or two and wound up getting them to bite on “Cuddly Toy.” Still, it’s nice to hear this little pop gem in a stripped down acoustic setting. It really sounds like a lost track from Rubber Soul.

Jim Paul Blair “Gonna Buy Me A Dog” (The Monkees)
The original version of this was played as a jokey novelty tune with gratuitous barking , but it’s perfect as a bluegrass kiss-off.

Buzzy Jones “Your Auntie Grizelda” (The Monkees)
Normally I post five songs a week but since the Nilsson song’s a bit questionable I’m including a bonus song. This is another novelty tune that was never released as a single but for some reason appears on every Monkees compilation. This version sounds a bit more threatening than the original, like the singer wouldn’t mind sticking a switchblade in Auntie Grizelda. I love the subtle lyrical change where he calls her a bitch.