You don't have to drink right now, but you can dip your feet.

Usually when I get form-letter mass e-mails from bands or their record companies, they do not contain any information relating to covers. In fact, most of the "I'm a big fan of your blog and you might want to review my band/a band represented by the label I work for" do not contain information relating to covers. Some "big fans" they are, huh? Aaaaaaaanyhooo, today's Minty Fresh mass e-mail actually delivered in the form of a very pretty cover of the Killers' "When You Were Young" as performed by Astrid Swan, whose album drops May 22. You can download it here.

Scala believes in you.

Scala and Kolacny Bros., the wildly popular choir whose covers have been featured here three or four times, is attempting to create the world's longest canon. If you're interested in adding to the project by videotaping yourself singing a snippet of Kylie Minogue's "I Believe in You" (and subsequently being entered in a contest to win a Wii, among other things), visit the Scala and Kolacny Bros. canon site.

Thanks to Aurélie from Scala for the heads-up!
 

Feels like more than a kiss to me.

One of my favorite so so so so wrong songs ever as performed by the pretty pretty pretty pretty boys of Grizzly Bear. They've covered this a lot while touring and this video recording, although cut off just before the end, is pretty awesome.

The Goon Squad finally comes to town!

Five years (get it?) later I finally deliver the Bowie covers. I'll spare you the tedious details of my life that led to the gap in posts, but know I've been thinking of you. The following tracks span many genres, hopefully you'll enjoy (or be otherwise amused by) at least a few.

Ozzy Osbourne "All the Young Dudes" (Mott the Hoople cover, comp. David Bowie)

Lady Besery's Garden "Andy Warhol" (David Bowie cover)

Lassigue Bendthaus "Ashes to Ashes (Digital Spacepop Replicant)" (David Bowie cover)

Des de Moor and Russell Churney "Boys Keep Swinging" (David Bowie cover)

Claudia Brucken and Andrew Poppy "Drive-In Saturday" (David Bowie cover)

Die Lady Di "Fashion" (David Bowie cover)

Galactic Achievement Society "Jean Genie" (David Bowie cover)

Pauline Easy "Life on Mars" (David Bowie cover)

Swans of Avon "Look Back in Anger" (David Bowie cover)

Black Box Recorder "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" (David Bowie cover)

Mates of State "Starman" (David Bowie cover)

Frankie Goes to Hollywood "Suffragette City" (David Bowie cover)
 

Some cat was layin' down some rock 'n' roll, lotta soul.

I'm probably going to throw up (?) a handful of Bowie covers tomorrow, but until I do, you can get a pretty decent cover of "Starman" from Austin singer-songwriter Justin Wiles's Music Page. I also recommend that fans of Elliott Smith, Nilsson, Donovan, Jeff Buckley, Rufus Wainwright, Simon & Garfunkel, Jose Gonzalez, Dear 23-era Posies, etc. check out the slew of original stuff there as well. Some of the songs—including but not limited to "Triple Hotel" and "Expecting a Song"—kind of freak me out because they sound like Elliott Smith came back and collaborated with him. And, if you're in Austin, you can see him play at the showcase on Tuesday the 17th at B.B. Rovers. No, he's not a friend of mine or anything. He's just a cute talented young artist I stumbled on recently whose work impressed me far more than that of a lot of signed artists in the same genre. It's very rare for me to randomly find artists on the Internet sharing nearly 50 of their songs for free that are actually worth listening to.
 

Maybe that rehab suggestion wasn't so bad after all, huh Amy?

I know lots of people who won't shut up about Amy Winehouse being the best thing since sliced bread. But let's face it: Sliced bread isn't that fucking amazing either. Gear up for one of the biggest train-wreck covers of all time:

You are weak, but He is strong.

Jesus shouted me out in his Easter post and now He gets His comeuppance via three of the most annoying covers of "Jesus Loves Me" I have on my hard drive right now. Thanks, Yo!

Baby Lu-Lu "Jesus Loves Me" (Traditional, sort of)
The 365 Days Project/Ubuweb classic. Nothing creepier than a grown woman singing religious tunes as a 3-year-old.

Mike Freund "Jesus Loves Me" (Traditional, sort of)
Just a hardcore-lovin' boy with the Son of God on his side.

Placebo "Jesus Loves Me" (Traditional, sort of)
I've tried several times to sincerely like Placebo—even going so far as to meet Brian Molko a couple of times at lame record label-sponsored "meet and greets"—but his creepy nephew-of-Kermit-the-frog voice always gets in the way. My Spidey senses say Jesus merely tolerates him.

Dial "L" for Low.

First a note to say that, as of tomorrow, my domain and web issues will have been resolved, thanks to donations from readers like you. Thanks! In addition to my being able to afford to host my own stuff, my longtime Internet pal Mikey has also offered me some of his space/bandwidth, which may afford me the luxury of posting more frequently. Today's songs are on his server as a test to make sure he can handle the mighty power of the Copy, Right? downloaders. Mwahahahahaha!

Komeda "Mushroom" (Can cover)
I was late on the Can bandwagon. Admittedly, this was partially because a slew of pretentious, music-snob types I knew would stand around at parties clamoring on and on about them and how music today sucks and I didn't want to have anything in common with those assholes. But good music is good music and sometimes music snobs are right, albeit narrow-minded and incapable of embracing the future. I first started obsessing about Ege Bamyasi and Tago Mago in 1996 around the same time I was obsessing about Komeda's The Genius of Komeda. Little did I know at the time that a mere two years later these two great tastes would taste great together in B-Side form. Or did I create that reality? Time will tell.

Ergo Phizmiz and His Orchestra "Hollaback Girl" (Gwen Stefani cover)
God, what I would have given to exchange this sort of surreal Klezmeresque sound for that of Gwen and Eve's "Rich Girl." Gwen tries to play it off as if she's eclectic, but come on.

Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra "Sesame Street" (TV theme song)
It's always a funky jam, isn't it?

Alyssa Milano "Da Doo Ron Ron" (The Crystals cover/Comp. Phil Spector)
It kills me a little to know that the man responsible for the hits of my favorite girl group ever, The Crystals, is such a violent, murderous nut now, but not nearly as much as it kills me to hear Alyssa Milano "singing" this song. Makes the Shaun Cassidy version seem brilliant. I hate sax solos.

The Mini Pops "Video Killed the Radio Star" (The Buggles cover)
Well before Kidz Bop, the Mini Pops destroyed then-modern pop hits. Unlike the Kidz Bop overlords, whoever was in charge of the Mini Pops actually let the kids sing the main vocals as well as the background vocals. And, I'm guessing from a few of the really bad notes, perhaps allowed them near the synthesizers as well. (Brady, I bet you're regretting sending me those free iTunes downloads now that you see this is the type of crap I got!)

Gun "Word Up" (Cameo cover)
This sounds to me what it might sound like if INXS were to have played a hard rock bar band in a really bad '80s movie with which I probably would have become mildly obsessed.

The Associates "Love Hangover" (Diana Ross cover)
For every Bronski Beat, Spandau Ballet or Soft Cell that had a hit or two in the States with some '80s New Romantic anthem, there is a band like the Associates who were as good or better but never caught on here. This is one of my favorite covers of the genre and the era.

The Drones "Downbound Train" (Chuck Berry cover)
Blues rock has never really been my thing, even when coming from bands who dabble in noise rock as well, but I have a friend who is absolutely obsessed with the Drones. This is for him.

Captain Smartypants "Xanadu" (Olivia Newton-John/ELO cover)
There have been many times in my life I've wished to be a gay man, most of which involved having sex with my gay male friends. But I would also have made an awesome drag queen. And have excelled in a gay men's chorus. Especially singing this.

Frank Rogala "Fuck and Run" (Liz Phair cover)
Speaking of the gays, here's another thing I would do: Cover songs women wrote about men without needing to change the gender of the subject. In fact, if I were a gay man, I might become a one-man Liz Phair tribute artist, covering every song she's ever done. Well, from the good albums anyhow.
 

Half the world is always dying, you know.

Patrick & Eugene "59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)" (Simon & Garfunkel cover)
Earlier the sun was out and I was cleaning and this hit the shuffle and I was, oh, so happy.

Vivane Serval "Une Femme Amoureuse (A Woman in Love)" (French Barbra Streisand cover, comp. the Bee Gees)
A few of today's songs are France- or French-related. The other night I had a dream that I was an American Idol contestant and got to meet Barbra Streisand and was the only contestant who'd ever heard of her. I asked her if Robert Redford was a good kisser. She said no, but that he was better at it than Sanjaya. My response? "No duh!" This dream is far less disturbing than the one in which I got drunk at a bar, met Steve-O, brought him home with me, had sex with him and wound up getting pregnant. Or maybe not.

Dorina Galambos "Bathwater" (No Doubt cover)
Speaking of TV talent competitions and Sanjaya, here is a contestant from Hungary's Megasztár singing the song Sanjaya butchered last week. I'm not saying it's awesome or anything, but I will say the standards are obviously slightly higher in my homeland. I'm actually Romanian and Croatian, but my maternal grandfather was born in Hungary and Transylvania used to be part of Hungary and blah blah blah. The bottom line is that Southern European sluts gals like Dorina and myself rule. At least more than Sanjaya does. And why doesn't American Idol let contestants sing cool songs like this and have judges with such emotive faces? And is anyone else grossed out by the idea of bathing in someone else's bathwater?

Future Kings of Spain "Love of the Common Man" (Todd Rundgren cover)
Here's the J. Mascis-esque cover I promised the other day. (BTW, what is up with the Dinosaur Jr. Nikes? I think they're so ridiculous and ugly that I almost want a pair 'cause I'm all ironic and shit, but I'd never spend hundreds of dollars on a shoe, let alone a Nike.)

Fionn Regan "Getting Better" (Beatles cover)
Fionn is a dreamy folk singer that has a couple of really cool videos for really pretty songs: examples one and two.

Happy Flowers "Mrs. Lennon" (Yoko Ono cover)
Possibly the only Happy Flowers track that I can listen to all the way through.

Maggie Gyllenhaal "How Lucky Am I" (Sign of the Fox cover)
I'll tell you how lucky you are, Maggie: You are the mother of the child of my longtime dream actor boyfriend Peter Sarsgaard. And you get to act in cute little indie romantic comedies like Happy Endings, in which you get to sing pretty, somber remakes of power-pop songs. Bitch.

Yeti Girls "Don't Bring Me Down" (ELO cover)
I listen to Electric Light Orchestra all the time because they are genius.

Cinerama "Yesterday Once More" (Carpenters cover)
Not as tasty as their cover of t.A.T.u.'s "All the Thing She Said," but I was in a Carpenters-cover mood and this hit the spot just fine.

Monsieur Blumenberg (of Montefiori Cocktail) "Can't Get you Out of My Head" (Kylie Minogue cover)
La la la la la la la la. La la la la la la la la.
 

Make the homies say "ho."

In addition to a few of his popular rock covers, there is now a free downloadable version of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force theme over at lounge-cover guru extraordinaire Richard Cheese's MySpace page.

All that junk.

I don't think I've hated an "artist" more than I hate Fergie, and I once went through a similar phase with Alanis Morissette, although I've cut her some slack since the early/mid-'90s when I automatically hated anything that hit the mainstream and was heralded as edgy but really wasn't. Reader Emily pointed out this sorta horrifying/sorta delicious video to me, and I feel it's my duty to share.