Surf’s Up!
The sweaty dog days of summer are upon us. You can hunker down in the air conditioning or you can go to the beach. And who better to provide music for your trip to the beach but the Beach Boys?
Octothorpe “Kokomo” (Beach Boys)
I just love the combination of cheesy keyboards and low-fi production values. The vocals are obnoxiously over modulated. The whole thing sounds like the guy with the battery-powered keyboard singing on the subway platform for tips. Certainly not something you’ll hear on the radio these days.
David Bowie “God Only Knows” (Beach Boys)
This has got to be one of the most unlikely covers ever. David Bowie, even with his many personas, is about as far from a surfer dude as you can get. But here he brings his famous “scary voice” to bear on a splendidly overwrought lounge version of the most melodramatic Beach Boys song.
Melt Banana “Surfin’ USA” (Beach Boys)
This sounds like somebody shoving the Beach Boys down a flight of stairs. The first minute or so is chaotic and almost unlistenable, but hang in there and it turns into a nice little rave up.
Lash “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” (Beach Boys)
The original version of this song manages to be both wistful and hopeful. This one is all twitchy impatience, which to my mind fits the lyrics quite well.
Barry McGuire “Sloop John B” (Beach Boys)
Yeah, it’s the “Eve Of Destruction” guy. His gravel-throated shouting works pretty well on this rockin’ little ditty.
Gone Fishin’
I’ve been on vacation this past week in southwestern Michigan. I haven’t been fishing, I’ve been taking my daughter down to the beach, riding my bicycle, and watching the sun set over Lake Michigan. At any rate, I haven’t had a lot of time to work up a theme this week. So it’s another random selection, with special thanks to Uncle Flakey for several of these tunes.
SST “I’m A Believer” (The Monkees)
It’s a bossa nova cover of the Monkees hit. What’s not to like?
Laramie “Crimson And Clover” (Tommy James and the Shondells)
Bluegrass covers always run the risk of being a little too gimmicky. This version doesn’t have that problem, it works very nicely and sounds like the song was always intended to sound like this.
Tina Louise Barr “Under The Boardwalk” (The Drifters)
Tina Louise Barr is quite the virtuoso on the autoharp. Uncle Flakey sent me a cover album that she did a few years back. It’s good to have friends like Uncle Flakey.
Update: For the first time in the history of this blog, an artist has requested that I remove a song. And so I have.
Sentient Machine “Disco Inferno” (The Trammps)
Sentient Machine is an indie band who sent me this song back in March. It’s a very muscular, guitar-driven version of the disco classic.
Hellsongs “Paranoid” (Black Sabbath)
Early Black Sabbath was a big part of the soundtrack of my adolescent days. Something about a young Ozzy resonated with the pissed off alienated teen that I was. And strangely, this mellow version resonates with the middle-aged suburban guy that I’ve become.
Home Furnishings
Zappa Tribute Update: The Cover Freak Zappa Tribute is progressing nicely. There’s still time to get involved if you’d like. Details are available here. If you’ve already contributed a song, thanks. If you’ve promised me a song and haven’t gotten it to me, please be sure to get it to me by mid-November.
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My neighbor owns a house in southwestern Michigan. It’s the house she grew up in. After her parents died she tried renting it out. Her last tenant was a meth freak who sold everything that wasn’t nailed down and a few things that were. When the gas company cut off service because she didn’t pay her bills she started taking doors off the walls and shelves out of the closets and burning them in the fireplace.
My neighbor has since evicted the meth freak and decided to use the house as a vacation retreat. My family is helping her furnish and repair it, so my thoughts have turned toward home furnishings lately.
Ensemble Ambrosius “Sofa No. 1″ (Frank Zappa)
Since I started out talking about FZ I figured I’d post a cover of one of my favorite FZ songs. It’s a beautiful, sentimental melody even if the alternate version has German lyrics that don’t make a whole lot of sense in English or German. The Ensemble Ambrosius does a wonderful job with it. Nobody has stepped up to cover this song for the Cover Freak Zappa Tribute, but there’s still time. Not that I’m hinting or anything. Special thanks to Uncle Flakey for sending this song my way.
Rotary Connection “Burning Of The Midnight Lamp” (Jimi Hendrix)
The original version of this song is pretty grand and trippy, but Rotary Connection came up with an arrangement that would make Jimi proud. It’s full of soaring choral vocals and orchestral flourishes.
Inspiral Carpets “Tainted Love” (Gloria Jones)
Most of the rooms in the Michigan house have wall to wall carpeting. It’s nice enough, but not particularly inspirational. Or inspiral, for that matter.
Shelby Lynne “Breakfast In Bed” (Dusty Springfield)
Since my neighbor is using her childhood home as a sort of clubhouse for her friends we’ll be needing a few more beds so we can maximize the number of folks who can sleep there. Then we can all have breakfast in bed. This song comes from a Dusty Springfield tribute album that Shelby Lynne put out a few years ago.
Jerry Garcia and David Grisman “Rockin’ Chair” (Louis Armstrong)
My neighbor’s house is a 1950s ranch house, so it doesn’t have a front porch. As a result there’s not a huge need for a rocking chair, although it still might be nice to find one for the place.
America The Beautiful
It’s Independence Day, time to reflect on all the great things about this country that bring us together despite our differences. Warts and all, America is a great place to be.
Willie Nelson “America The Beautiful” (comp. Katharine Lee Bates)
It would be great if this became our national anthem instead of the militaristic “Star Spangled Banner.” It’ll never happen, of course, but we can still dream of singing a song about the glories of the USA before baseball games.
Richard Cheese “American Idiot” (Green Day)
It’s a happy, loungy version of Green Day’s indictment of America’s ills. I love the way he starts singing “Tequila” at the end.
Brecht Fist and Amy Rica “Breakfast In America” (Supertramp)
I’ve never been a huge Supertramp fan, but I’ve always liked this song about a foreigner’s perceptions of America. This version has an accordion, which I always like. Stick around for the frantic ending.
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass “America” (from West Side Story)
Every Herb Alpert song is charmingly cheesy, including this song about how the US is better than Puerto Rico. People sometimes forget that the original stage version of the song included lyrics that disparaged Puerto Rico, while the movie version included lyrics about American racism and the difficulties of Puerto Rican immigrants.
Yes “America” (Simon And Garfunkle)
Paul Simon’s folk tune about a cross-country bus ride gets the bloated prog-rock treatment.
On The Road Again
One of my fellow computer consultants is out of town and asked me to help cover any emergencies that her clients might have while she was gone. I was happy to oblige because she’s a good person who has helped me quite a bit over the years professionally. I wound up going out to visit her clients on Thursday and Friday. The only thing is that both of those clients were about as far as they could possibly be from my home, meaning that I spent quite a bit of quality time in my car last week. These are the songs that were running through my head as I crept through traffic.
Katie Melua “On The Road Again” (Canned Heat)
The original is one of the greatest examples of hypnotic boogie music ever recorded. This version is much more sophisticated and upscale. It starts out with some simple acoustic strumming, then the horns, percussion and piano come in. Ms. Melua has a wonderful voice to boot.
Jim White “King Of The Road” (Roger Miller)
Talk about your radical reinventions. This song just cries out to be played at top volume on the highway with the top down. Mr. White takes rhythmic liberties with it that I’m sure would have appalled Roger Miller. The only part I don’t like is when the original version is spliced in at the end. As if you wouldn’t have known otherwise how far this version is from the original.
The W’s “Country Roads” (John Denver)
I’ve never really liked this song, maybe because of where my musical taste was when it came out. Here we have a rockabilly version with a smokin’ horn section and it sounds great to me. For my money it’s way better than the original.
Ghoti Hook “On The Road Again” (Willie Nelson)
Remember the South Park episode where Cartman puts together a Christian rock group because he figures that Christians will buy anything as long as it mentions Jesus and/or God? While there’s plenty of bad Christian rock out there, just like any other musical style, some of those bands would be good playing any kind of music. The good Christians of Ghoti Hook showed that when they did a covers album that had Christian and secular songs on it.
The Bobs “The Golden Road” (Grateful Dead)
My favorite a capella group is from San Francisco, which might probably explains their fondness for the Grateful Dead. In the past I’ve explained my feelings about the Dead, but I like the harmonies on this song. Heck, I like the harmonies on just about any song the Bobs sing.
