Cover Freak

I dearly love baseball. I like hockey and soccer. I’m indifferent to basketball. But I hate football. I think George Will is a pompous windbag but I do like his description of football as “violence punctuated by committee meetings.”  The Super Bowl is today and as much as I dislike the sport a couple of good things have come from the football championship game. Hunter Thompson’s account of the 1973 Super Bowl is hilarious, and it’s always a good day to go to the deserted hardware store. People get very excited about the television commercials that air during the Super Bowl and I can understand the argument that they’re often more interesting than the game itself. But for me the really interesting thing is the halftime show.

In the early days of the Super Bowl halftime was sort of a necessary evil and they just threw a marching band on the field to kill the time. But the moguls in charge of the NFL eventually realized that the halftime show could drive higher TV ratings and so they began to book popular artists. So here’s some music played and/or originally performed by artists who have played the Super Bowl halftime show.

Taco “Puttin’ On The Ritz” (Fred Astaire)
In 1984 the NFL presented a “Salute To The Superstars Of The Silver Screen” as played by two college marching bands. The extravaganza was produced by the Walt Disney Company, who showed a little more imagination than they did for their previous Super Bowl halftime show. That one was entitled “It’s A Small World”. This was one of the songs that they played. And it’s a fitting song since it’s probably one of the songs most often associated with 1930s musicals.

Taco is an Indonesian-born Dutch singer who made it big in Germany before he became a one-hit wonder in the U.S. with this song in 1983 thanks to MTV. This song is more than just a cover, it contains snippets of a half-dozen or so Irving Berlin songs.

Concrete Blonde “Ghost Riders In The Sky” (Vaughan Monroe)
In 1987 they got Disney to produce the show again and the imagineers showed a puzzling lack of creativity by throwing together “A Salute To Hollywood’s 100th Anniversary.” Complete with marching bands, drill teams, George Burns and Mickey Rooney. The music was a weird mishmash of television show theme songs, music from Disney cartoons, and this tune. This was kind of Disney’s Dark Days, so maybe we can excuse them for doing halftime shows about Hollywood movies every time they got the chance.

Hearing Concrete Blonde usually makes me reach for an ice pick to plunge into my ear canal, but somehow they got this song right.

Motorhead “Blue Suede Shoes” (Carl Perkins)
I’m sorry I missed the 1989 halftime show. Diet Coke presented “Be Bop Bamboozled.” In 3D, no less. Featuring some Elvis impersonator named Elvis Presto, who also did card tricks. Wikipedia doesn’t have a set list for this one, but I can’t imagine that 3D Fake Elvis didn’t do this bit of standard repertoire.

I wanna be like Lemmy when I grow up. This is without a doubt the fiercest Elvis cover ever recorded.

Shinehead “Billie Jean” (Michael Jackson)
It wasn’t until 1993 that the NFL moguls realized that they could rake in advertising bucks by getting real live musical stars to play at halftime instead of having college marching bands play popular hits. Michael Jackson had not yet become the tragic/pathetic self-parody that he was to become in later years and acquitted himself quite well.

This song works surprisingly well with a reggae arrangement.

Kate The Kat “I Was Made For Loving You” (Kiss)
1999 saw one of the most misbegotten Super Bowl halftime shows. It was a “Celebration of Soul, Salsa, and Swing.” Which is kind a weird concept since those musical styles don’t seem to me to have a whole lot in common except for the fact that they all begin with the letter “s”. Couldn’t they have just picked one and filled 15 minutes? But the most bizarre aspect of the show was that one of the featured performers was Kiss. Say what you will about their music, I don’t think anybody would describe it as soul, salsa, or swing.

For some reason I have a fairly extensive collection of lounge covers of Kiss songs. This one’s a favorite of mine.

The Academy Award nominees were announced last week and it looks like it was a bit of a down year for movie music since only two songs were even nominated. No matter, this week we celebrate Best Song winners from past years.

Elton Britt “Sweet Leilani” (Bing Crosby, 1937)
The original version of this song was string-drenched and only vaguely Hawaiian. Since then there has been no shortage of covers done in a more “native” style with lots of lap steel and/or slack key guitars. But for some reason Elton Britt decided that this song was the perfect candidate for a singing cowboy remake complete with yodeling. Because nothing evokes the South Pacific for me quite like yodeling.

Gene Simmons “When You Wish Upon A Star” (Cliff Edwards, 1940)
It must have been the late 70s when the members of KISS all decided to make solo records. But since they were savvy businessmen and knew deep down in their hearts that nobody gave a crap about them as individual musicians, the albums were released as a sort of matched set. The covers all had the same design, and each record came with a poster honoring the kabuki-painted mope that created it. If you collected all four records you could put them all together into one huge super-awsome poster, sort of like the Power Rangers.

It must have been the early 80s when I found Gene Simmons’ solo record rotting in a cutout bin at my local record store. It only cost a buck or two so I picked it up. I was disappointed when I discovered that my copy did not include a poster, but that disappointment faded away when I heard this song. I don’t know who told Mr. Simmons that covering this song would be a good idea, but I hope he was taken out and shot afterward. Mr. Tongue’s attempts to hit the high notes in this one never fail to make me howl with laughter.

The Utopians “Love Is A Many Splendored Thing” (The Four Aces, 1955)
This song comes from an album called Down To GREASE On Holiday which had alternative takes on music from the musical Grease along with a few other songs actually from the 1950s. There’s a pretty straight cover somewhere in there underneath all the layers of odd sound effects and synthesizers.

Mrs. Miller “Chim-Chim-Cher-ee (Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews, 1964)
Long before Wing was being immortalized on South Park, there was Mrs. Miller. She had a horrible pseudo-operatic “style” of singing and no sense of rhythm or melody. She was so bad that she became a minor celebrity, appearing on the Tonight Show for Johnny Carson to laugh at. I think she finally figured out that she was being ridiculed and quit show business. And all of our lives became a little more dreary.

Doping Panda “Under the Sea” (Samuel E. Wright, 1989)
This song marked the beginning of Disney’s decade-long domination of the Best Song award. One could argue that consistently winning speaks to Disney’s mastery of the use of music in film. But considering how many times two or three songs from the same Disney movie were nominated, I’d suspect different reasons. Bribery is a possibility but I don’t think it’s anything so dramatic. I just don’t think that there’s much original music being written for film these days outside of animation. Maybe there should be a new award for best use of music in a film. Then Quentin Tarantino would get an Oscar for every movie he made.

One of my consulting clients is a bakery. They had a good-sized bakery and shop in Chicago’s northern suburbs. Their products were very high-end, very artistically decorated, and incredibly tasty. Then they decided to open a very large factory-style facility in southern Wisconsin to bake stuff by the pallet load for large retailers like Whole Foods.

The owners abruptly shut down the business in December, giving no notice to their employees or anybody else. I understand that the company is being sued by the employees who were fired with no advanced warning. I’m sure that there are suppliers and customers lining up at the courthouse as well.

Floyd, the company owner, called me last week for some technical advice. After a bit of chit-chat I mentioned that I had heard about his company going out of business and he replied that he had quite simply gotten in over his head.

I’m somewhat stunned about the whole turn of events and have turned to Cover Freak to work out my feelings about it.

Barb Jungr “Things Have Changed” (Bob Dylan)
Yeah, things have changed. Especially for the employees who showed up for work to find the doors locked. Finding yourself with no livelihood two weeks before Christmas changes things in a hurry.

But things didn’t change abruptly for Floyd. The business expansion he was planning was a large, high-stakes venture. When a project like that has problems you see them far in advance if you’re paying any attention at all. A wise and prudent businessman cuts his losses in such a situation and preserves his core business. Floyd didn’t. He let his business keep hemorrhaging money and didn’t tell anybody until it was too late for anybody to not get screwed by his bad management decisions. I find Floyd’s conduct both sad and appalling.

I’m not a Bob Dylan fan, but every once in a while he comes up with a song that’s just pure brilliance. This is one of those songs. I like the musical arrangement but I find the singing to be a little too “jazzy.” Others might beg to differ.

Hem “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes” (Elvis Costello)
I’m sure that everybody that Floyd left holding the bag is disgusted and I can only hope that they eventually try to be amused. There’s also a line in this song about what happens when you go chasing after vengeance. I hope that everybody gets what they’re owed by the company and I hope that Floyd gets what he deserves for screwing so many people. That would be justice, not vengeance.

Hem does a great job slowing this song down and bringing on the mandolin and pedal steel guitar.

The Sodamen “Blink Of An Eye” (The Waco Brothers)
It was all gone in the blink of an eye. The bakery’s web site announced that they were closing “effective immediately.” And that’s the most shocking part. No attempt was made to let people make plans and find another job.

I love the Waco Brothers. They’re a fantastic live band and this punk rock two-step never fails to get the crowd riled up. The Sodamen deliver a competent cover, nothing revelatory but they get the attitude right.

Holly Wilson “In Too Deep” (Genesis)
There’s a saying that when you find yourself in a hole the first thing you should do is stop digging. Floyd got in too deep but he just kept digging, apparently thinking that if he just got all the way down to China everything would be okay. It didn’t quite work out that way.

The original version of this song is one of the most horrible Adult Contemporary songs Genesis ever did. But this bossa nova version almost redeems it.

A Day To Remember “Over My Head” (The Fray)
Floyd’s comment about getting in over his head originally struck me as a bit flip, but on further reflection I at least have to give him credit for being honest. He didn’t try to sugar coat it, he didn’t make excuses, he took responsibility for what happened. It doesn’t make the way he treated the people who depended on him any less awful, but maybe he’s not beyond redemption.

Somehow I managed to be blissfully unaware of The Fray before putting this post together. This version’s way better than the original.

Tomorrow marks the first time I’ve every had the day off for Martin Luther King day. It didn’t become an official holiday until after I got out of school and started my own business. Being self-employed I took work where I could find it and there were plenty of people to work for who didn’t take that day off. Now that I’m working for a school district I get the holiday off and I’m here to provide some appropriate music for the occasion.

Warrior King “What’s Going On” (Marvin Gaye)
Marvin Gaye’s concept album is about a Viet Nam war vet who returns home to a country he doesn’t understand. The title track deals with the upheaval of the 60s in general, including the civil rights movement. And it sounds good as a reggae song.

Vanilla Fudge “People Get Ready” (The Impressions)
This song really captured the excitement and optimism of the civil rights movement. Here we have a bunch of white guys from Long Island giving it the baroque psychedelic treatment.

Bruce Springsteen “We Shall Overcome” (Pete Seeger)
Pete Seeger’s song was written for the labor movement back when striking workers were getting their heads cracked open by Pinkerton goons hired by the factory owners. But its idea that the rightness of the cause would result in an inevitable victory translated well to the civil rights era and it became an unofficial anthem of that movement as well. I’m not a big fan of Bruce Springsteen but he does a good job with this one.

Ted Lennon “The Times They Are A-Changin’” (Bob Dylan)
Another song dealing with the turmoil of the 60s. It’s one of those Classic Rock staples that has become musical wallpaper over the years, but Ted Lennon plays it in a way that’s hard to ignore.

Afro Blue “A Change Is Gonna Come” (Sam Cooke)
Sam Cooke was hopeful but also acknowledged the struggle and adversity that went along with the struggle for change. This tasty a capella version apparently comes from a TV program called The Sing-Off that I had never heard of before now. I might need to start watching that one.

I’ve had experiences recently working in offices that have made me think about the state of our American consumer society. Let me preface all this by saying that I’m a capitalist. I have no problem working for a living, I have no problem with other people making crap and trying to sell it to me. The specific crap they make and the ways in which they try to sell it to me are another matter.

When I was working for the Large Soulless Corporation I worked in an ugly gray cubicle in an ugly gray office with no closet. There was no place to put my coat and I hate sitting on my coat all day so I went in search of one of those things that hooks over your cubicle wall and gives you a hook on which to hang your coat. Thinking that this would be something an office supply store would have I made the rounds of the local big box office supply stores. None of them had this relatively simple and inexpensive thing in their stores. They would be happy to sell it to me through their web site, forcing me to wait for it to be delivered and pay for the privilege of waiting for it to be delivered. Or I could order it online for in-store pickup in a day or two. But there was no way to just walk into a store and walk out with what I wanted.

In my new job with an elementary school district my office is in an unused classroom which also lacks a closet, since the kids all have lockers. The walls are concrete block so it’s difficult to put a hook into the wall to hold your coat. So I went looking for a coat rack. There aren’t any furniture stores near my house so I started visiting the local big box stores like Target, KMart, and Wal*Mart (even though Wal*Mart is evil). Once again such a simple and seemingly common object was only available through the stores’ web sites.

The retail landscape has changed radically in the last decade or two. You used to be able to go to a locally-owned store near your home and buy stuff. You might need to check a couple of stores or perhaps call around to find a store that had what you wanted. But you could usually walk into a nearby store and walk out with what you wanted. Then the big box stores started opening up on the outskirts of town, offering everything you could possibly want at incredibly low prices. People started shopping there even if the location was inconvenient and the service substandard compared to the local shop, and the local shops fell on hard times. Now the big box stores don’t want to stock anything except the highest-volume items and you can’t just walk into a store and walk out with a simple utilitarian item. Now you get that stuff on the internet, where there is no customer service at all, and those simple items aren’t quite so cheap after you pay for shipping.

Maybe I’m just a cranky old man, but I don’t think this is exactly progress. Anyway, here are some songs that kinda sorta are related to this week’s rant. And get off my lawn you damn kids!

The Torero Band “Can’t Buy Me Love” (The Beatles)
Money can’t buy me love but it can buy me someplace to hang my coat, if I’m willing to buy it online. Are coat racks completely out of fashion nowadays? Do people not wear coats? Do they just throw them on the floor instead of hanging them up? It makes me wonder how somebody without internet access buys a coat rack in this day and age. I don’t think we’re quite at the point where everybody is wired yet.

This is from a wonderful album of cheeseball mariachi Beatles covers. It’s long been a favorite of mine.

Mark Ronson “Pretty Green” (The Jam)
The frustrating thing is that I had my pocket full of pretty green and I wanted to give it to the man behind the counter but he didn’t have food and water to sell me. But listening to this polyrhythmic take on the Jam’s jaundiced view of consumer society takes some of the edge off.

General Store “Hold Me Now” (Thompson Twins)
Having grown up in a big city during the second half of the 20th century I’ve never seen a real live general store like they had on Green Acres. I don’t know if they exist anywhere anymore or if Wal*Mart has killed them all off.

Regardless of all that, this General Store does a really nice job on this 80s chestnut. I pretty much like any song with a pedal steel guitar and an accordion.

Clara Luzia “It’s A Sin” (Pet Shop Boys)
There’s a little pet shop a couple of blocks from my house that hasn’t been put out of business by Petco. I think it’s because he specializes in selling snakes, lizards, and the critters you feed to them. It looks like a good niche to be in.

This song sounds much more organic than the original, which I realize isn’t that difficult. But it does sound very good to me.

Petty Booka “Lost In The Supermarket” (The Clash)
Whenever I start turning into a cranky old man I listen to my favorite adorable Japanese duo. Petty Booka usually plays Chicago as part of a package tour of Japanese bands in the spring, as they work their way north after South By Southwest in Austin. I haven’t seen them play live in a couple of years so I’m hoping that they’ll be back again this year.