So ... in ... phase.

I know it's difficult to believe given my passions for reality TV, pop culture, retro hits and cover songs, but I haven't really been watching Hit Me Baby One More Time. I figured it would be really depressing. And from what little snippets I've seen here and there, it seems I was right. Still, I heard good things about Wang Chung's version of Nelly's "Hot in Herre." And, you know, it really was pretty good. You can hear it at WC's MySpace page. Enjoy.

I've waited hours for this.

Like all good aging hipsters, I once had a really big thing for the Cure. And it's my birthday and I have nothing better to do than relive my thing for the Cure. If you feel me on this, you should check out Plainsong.net, which features a pretty comprehensive list of "selective" covers (I think he or she means "selected," but I'll be nice since I don't think English is his/her first language) and tribute albums. I respectfully disagree with many of the author's opinions on which tribute albums and songs are worthwhile, but it's a nice list nonetheless.

From Fictional: A Tribute to the Cure

Blipp! "The Caterpillar" (Cure cover)


From Give Me the Cure: DC Bands Cover the Cure
By far the most emo/indie of the Cure tributes.

Chisel "Six Different Ways" (Cure cover)
I love Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, don't get me wrong, but oh how I miss Chisel. And this song, as well as any track on The Head on the Door, reminds me of one of the longest make-out sessions of my high school career. I think my then boyfriend (now gay, of course) let the cassette play through on automatic reverse about three times as we cavorted in his basement.

DJ Bootious Maximus "The Love Cats" (Cure cover)

Tuscadero "Boys Don't Cry" (Cure cover)

Dismemberment Plan "Close to Me" (Cure cover)


From Into a Sea of Cure (an Argentine tribute to The Cure)

Shh... "Lullaby" (Cure cover)


From Pink Pig—The Whole Cure in the Mirror
A whole bunch of Cure fans you've most likely never heard of covering every Cure song that exists.

Lucho Giesso "A Few Hours After This" (Cure cover)
Many of my favorite Cure songs were B-sides, and this is my all-time favorite. Well, not this version, which is overwrought to say the least.

Damon Boyce "A Man Inside My Mouth" (Cure cover)
Another B-side that makes me nostalgic. Sorta. My freshman year of high school, we hit the gymnastics portion of the semester and my crazy friend who was on the school dance squad made us do a routine to this song (the original, of course, as this version did not exist back then). That she chose it was cool I guess, but gym-class gymnastics routines? Not so much.


From 15 Imaginary Songs: A Tribute to the Cure

The Caves "Just Like Heaven" (Cure cover)

Morbid Poetry "Push" (Cure cover)

Decadence "Disintegration" (Cure cover)


From Disintegrated: A Hardcore Tribute to the Cure
Why?

Cave In "Plainsong" (Cure cover)

Bad Luck Thirteen Riot Extravaganza "Pictures of You" (Cure cover)
I hate shit like this, and not just because it's a cover of my least favorite Cure hit ever and not just because it's hardcore. What I hate is the idea of a band badmouthing the types of people most likely to be Cure fans on a tribute album to the Cure. Yeah, we get it, you're cool and above it all and would never shop at Hot Topic although your band name implies otherwise. You showed us!

And, you know, I never do this (or at least I've never done it before), in celebration of my own birthday, I've decided to repost a track I posted ages ago. It's one of my favorite Cure covers and you can find it here.

Chameleon, Comedian, Corinthian and Caricature.

I'm a terrible music blogger, I know. Updating only once a week? That sucks, right? But, man, I don't know how all the other MP3 bloggers do it. Daily updates? Huge essays? I'm a total slacker and I can't even find the time for that level of dedication.

I'm really going to try to post more frequently. My birthday is a week from today and I generally make my New Year's Resolutions then. Maybe I can up it to two or three entries a week for a while. Unless there's something really good on TV ...

El Nino "Reptile"< (Lisa Germano cover)
This is just one of hundreds of songs I've snagged from Musical Family Tree, a massive, ever-growing collection of MP3s from Bloomington/Indianapolis-based acts. Some of these bands are still performing and some are now defunct, but many are the bands I spent a lot of time adoring in the early/mid-1990s when I was in Bloomington. And not just because they were my friends and acquaintances. El Nino was one of said bands. And so was Lisa Germano, for a while. I miss Bloomington.

If you have the time and interest, you might find a handful of interesting covers by interesting acts in the giant MFT catalog and it would take me forever to locate, list and link them all, but I'll point you in the direction of a few:

1. Vess Ruhtenberg (United States Three, among others) and Michelle Marchessault (ex Gerunds and Sardina, both of which you should check out) performing "Blue Moon"
2. Sardina performing "Me and My Arrow," which I originally posted around this time last year.
3. Admiral Stereo has covers of "Gouge Away" and "Honey Pie," among others.

I hope at least some of you take the time to check out the music offered at that site. Jeb's got a real labor of love going on there, and I for one couldn't be more appreciative.

Five in Love "Smooth" (Santana/Rob Thomas cover)
I can't hear any version of this song without remembering the horrifically hot summer of 1999 in which I was commuting daily to the Borders in Deerfield, where I briefly worked as an interim manager. One of the worst summers of my life, though I didn't really know that at the time. I think I'm over it enough to enjoy this swingy cover though. I think ...

In Flames "Land of Confusion" (Genesis cover)
I never thought I'd say this, but more and more, I enjoy Swedish death metal.

The Minus 5 "Wicked Annabella" (Kinks cover)
A competent cover by Scott McCaughey's ever-changing chamber-pop collective. Man, I love Ken Stringfellow.

The London Punkharmonic Orchestra "Ever Fallen In Love?" (Buzzcocks cover)
Ah. Classical punk covers. Were they the catalyst for all those ridiculous "String Quartet Tributes" out there nowadays? Perhaps. But I'm not holding it against them. Hell, anything is better than the Fine Young Cannibals version.

Pop Will Eat Itself "Games Without Frontiers" (Peter Gabriel cover)
In my college dorm there was a very friendly, straight-laced looking girl named Erika who was really into bands like PWEI. It kind of freaked me out. In a good way. I like this cover way more than the original, but that's not saying much since I'm one of the few people who seem to be in the "Oh my God, I fucking hate Peter Gabriel" camp.

Replicants "The Bewlay Brothers" (David Bowie cover)
I didn't really embrace the Replicants at first, but I see now the error of my ways. This is one of my favorite Bowie songs covered in a really engaging way. Yay for that.

Ushuaia Rocks! "Pink Moon" (Nick Drake cover)
Argentine punk bands. I can never get enough.

Also: Remember the database of Smiths/Morrissey covers I posted a few entries ago? Well, here are a couple for other acts. (Note: These are databases of INFORMATION. I'm not implying that you can find the actual tracks there.)

Dylan covers

U2 covers

Weirdo-electro Monday

I've been amused by industrial and electronic covers lately, so I'm foisting them upon you. Some of these are Faustesque or Negativlandy and some are just industrogoth techno and so on. All are pretty strange.

Dimthings "Superstition" (Stevie Wonder cover)

Plastics "Last Train to Clarksville" (Monkees cover)

Coercion "Cars" (Gary Numan cover)

Jeff and Jane Hudson "The Girl [Boy] from Ipanema" (de Moraes/Gimbel/Jobim)

Sun Yama "Subterranean Homesick Blues" (Bob Dylan cover)

Second Delay "Born to be Alive" (Patrick Hernandez cover)

Dark Distant Spaces "Space Age Love Song" (Flock of Seagulls cover)

Familiar Faces "Mad World" (Tears for Fears cover)

Battery "Gangsta's Paradise" (Coolio cover)

Pinker Tone "Louie Louie" (Kingsmen cover)

Sista Mannen Pa Jordon "I Want You to Want Me" (Cheap Trick cover)

Turner "Right by Your Side" (Eurythmics cover)
Now, I'm all for a band covering a song and making it their own, but I'm not so down with someone taking the lyrics from a song and completely rewriting the music. But whatever.

I have to let that raga drop.

Sorry again for not hosting my own tracks yet this week, my ISP at home has been having issues, to say the least. [And I recently acquired a DVR unit and a record player, both of which have been monopolizing my time of late.] Until my ISP fixes itself, I hope you don't mind that I keep directing you elsewhere. For instance:

Reader Nik directed me to Music for Maniacs, an MP3 blog dedicated to outsider music which, as such, features a ton of weirdo covers. How I was unaware of this awesome blog previously is beyond me, since it's right up my alley. Right now, there are some pretty cool offerings, including but not limited to Rachid Taha's excellent cover of "Rock the Casbah," which I've been meaning to post myself for a while.

Reader Jonathan alerted me to the existence of Like a Version, a compilation of live covers recorded by Australian youth radio station triple j, which I hope to acquire soon.

Alos, I suspect many of you do this already, but if you're not getting the Coverville podcasts, you're really missing out.

A light that never goes out.

I'm not sure why I've waited this long to hip all you Smiths/Morrissey fans to Our Frank's serious obsession with amassing the largest database of Smiths/Moz tributes and covers, but better late than never, yes? I've been stealing helping myself to his files for years now on my preferred P2P, and I don't see why I should hold back on alerting you to the vastness of his collection. Impressive. And a little scary. But fucking awesome.

Baby, check this out, I've got something to say.

Sorry about the lack of posts, time keeps slipping away from me. I've been planning on posting a handful of relatively popular songs that are covers that no one seems to know are covers, but I got sidetracked.

That idea, however, was partially inspired by They Might Be Giants' version of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)," which a friend referenced the other day as "the greatest song TMBG ever wrote." Yeah, well, except it was originally a quirky little hit from the '50s and they didn't write it.

Then I started thinking about how much I used to love TMBG, and started some random Googling that led me to a few TMBG-related covers already available on the ol' Internet.

For instance:

Here you can download a reworking of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople" entitled "The Disarmament Song" as sung by Ellen Bernfeld, who was the voice of the Misfits' Pizzazz on Jem and the Holograms.

The downloads section of the Media page over at the celtic/bluegrass/pop-rock band Carbon Leaf's site is full of covers, including a live version of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)."

If you scroll down to "Non-Album Tracks" on this page, you can find a scary, off-key version of "Older" by the Snot Patties. There's a Modest Mouse cover there as well.

A band called Very Low Sodium has a pretty good cover of "Destination Moon" on its site.

There was a tribute CD available at one time called We Might Be Giants Too, which I believe began as a downloadable album via TMBG.org and which I don't have. Then there was a rumor that a second was coming out. Don't know if that ever happened, but you can hear one of its potential tracks—"Moving to the Sun" as performed by Father Bingo and the Legion of Decency (as well as a Dead Milkmen cover)—here.

A hip new TMBG tribute CD is hitting the streets soon, and you can hear snippets of a few of the tracks by visiting its My Space page. I'm particularly excited to see that the CD's producer has recorded his own poppy version of my favorite TMBG track, "Narrow My Eyes." And the Hotel Lights are doing another fave, "The End of the Tour." Exciting.

On a weirder tip, I wish I had the money right now to buy steel-drum cover band (who knew?) Apocalypso's album, because I am positively dying to hear their version of "Man, It's So Loud in Here." (You can hear a few of the other non-TMBG covers over at CD Baby.)

So, yeah, that's what I have for you today. Hopefully I'll get a minute tonight to post some actual tracks for you, TMBG-related and otherwise. Hope this tides you over a bit.

We can be like they are. Come on, baby!

I've spent a good part of the weekend making my friend Jovan a multi-disc compilation of "the gayest stuff in Liza's PC"—see here and here—and I just realized I should post some stuff here too. My holiday weekend was the lamest ever. I'm sure there were barbecues and get-togethers and goings on, I just happened not to be invited to any. So, lest you believe me "cool," now you know the truth. I'm a sad, sad soul. And I will die alone. But Blue Oyster Cult knows how to console me and ready me for the end, yes? (Sorry for the lack of umlauts. I'm lazy about my HTML, yo.)

The Beautiful South "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" (Blue Oyster Cult cover)
Fey British jazz-pop death.

Clint Ruin and Lydia Lunch "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" (Blue Oyster Cult cover)
Punk-staple death.

Apollo 440 "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" (Blue Oyster Cult cover)
Techno-pop death.

Unto Ashes "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" (Blue Oyster Cult cover)
Pretty, ethereal, folk-goth death.

H.I.M. "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" (Blue Oyster Cult cover)
Hard-rock glam-goth Finnish death.

Andy McCoy and Pelle Miljoona "Kuin Romeo Ja Julia [(Don't Fear) The Reaper]" (Blue Oyster Cult cover)
Mainstream Finnish death.

Goo Goo Dolls "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" (Blue Oyster Cult cover)
"Grunge" death. (Surprisingly slightly more punk-sounding than the Ruin/Lunch cover.)

Oh, and thanks again for all the Threadless love. By the way, they have a few brand-new geektastic designs up now, if you're interested. The $10 sale ends Sunday.

Other voices, other rooms.

The Live Journal Audiography community is having a covers theme right now. Head over there to find lots of people posting covers, some of which I've posted here previously and many I have not. Be warned, however, that most users in that community use You Send It to host their files, so the extraction can take a while.

Also, thanks to all of you who are still buying stuff at Threadless' $10 sale. My friends who will be getting free shirts as a result thank you.

The only thing I ever really wanted to say was wrong.

Scrawl "Public Image" (P.I.L. cover)
I used to really have a thing for Scrawl (and P.I.L., come to think of it) back in the day.

Killing Heidi "Tomorrow" (Silverchair cover)
Australian band I'd never heard of covers Australian band I wish I'd never heard of.

Tin Tin Out "Here's Where the Story Ends" (Sundays cover)
Not different enough from the original (or good enough to exist). But whatever.

Morgan Fisher as Hybrid Kids as British Standard Unit "D'Ya Think I'm Sexy" (Rod Stewart cover)
Former keyboardist for Mott the Hoople asks some friends to help him create wacky covers and makes up band names to go along with them because we needed a industro-synth version of this so desperately.

Stephan Eicher "Sweet Jane" (Velvet Underground cover)
Most covers of "Sweet Jane" are syrupy and not at all very different from the original—most of them.

That's what I'm paid for.

Themes are great and all, but I prefer random smatterings. (That and I apparently feel like testing the true strength of my bandwidth.) So here goes ...

The Konki Duet "Il Fait Tout Gris (Fade to Grey)" (Visage cover)
Electronic J-Pop with 1960s-era honey-dripping French vocal stylings? Don't mind if I do.

Bruce Willis "Under the Boardwalk" (comp. Resnick/Young)
Help us.

Shivaree "The Fat Lady of Limbourg" (Brian Eno cover)
I've been aware of Shivaree for a while now, but man, did their presence on the Kill Bill Vol. 2 soundtrack give them a real boost or what? Good for them. Any band who covers this track is at least a little okay in my book.

Shiina Ringo "Yer Blues" (Beatles cover)
I want more hard-rocking, guttural Japanese goddesses to cover songs like this.

Manic Street Preachers "We Are All Bourgeois Now" (McCarthy cover)
The band McCarthy was but a blip on my radar during its heyday in the mid to late '80s, but I liked this cover enough to reinvestigate them. Jangly and fun. Check 'em out.

Emilie Simon "I Wanna be Your Dog" (Iggy Pop cover)
I know I've been Iggy-heavy lately, but I suspect you love it.

Ronnie Ong "Buttons and Bows" (comp. Ray Evans)
WFMU says the liner notes of this one refer to Ong as "Singapore's answer to Trini Lopez." Did any one ever ask? Whatever. I'm always down for 1960s Asian fuzz rock.

Sufjan Stevens "The One I Love" (REM cover)
Dear Sufjan: Marry me. Or just meet me for coffee. Or something.

June Tabor "Pharaoh" (Richard Thompson cover)
I'm shocked by how much I like this.

Visage "2525" (Zager and Evans cover)
Before "Fade to Grey" [see above] became their biggest hit, Visage released this cover as their first single. Oh, new wave! If only it would make a comeback...

Donovan's Brain "Smothered in Hugs" (Guided by Voices cover)
This is the worst GBV cover I've ever heard. And that's saying something.

Not lame.

Sheesh. Between Comcast (whose service has been iffy at best lately) and Blogger (whose service seems to have been in and out as well) and power outages during thunderstorms, it's taken me three or four days to make this damned post. If it weren't for the fact that I was able to spend the last few days watching Freaks and Geeks DVDs, I'd have gone postal.

Aaaaaanyhow ... local reader/photographer/general cute geeky type Peter sent me these tracks from a new Cars tribute—click here to hear sample MP3s, read band descriptions and buy the disc—he helped wrangle. Nice. Many of Not Lame's cover comps (as well as it's bubblegum, psych and powerpop comps) are pretty worthwhile. I've long been a fan of Right to Chews and the like. And the 1984 Cars cocnert was the first concert I actually chose to go to.

Damone "Just What I Needed" (The Cars cover)

The Argument "Hello Again" (The Cars cover)

Bleu "You Might Think" (The Cars cover)

Not Cars-related: Parents, kids at heart and furries might be interested in checking out the Wormseye video for the Kidz Bop version of "Since U Been Gone" found here. (Thanks, Don!)

Seis de Mayo*

The Beat Boys "O Meu Tamborim (My Green Tambourine)" (Lemon Pipers cover in Portuguese)
Love it! This is from one of the Brazilian Nuggets comps, which are, for the most part, completely awesome.

Capital Inicial "O Passageiro (The Passenger)" (Iggy Pop cover in Portuguese)
If this were an American band covering this in English, I'd probably find it predictably "alternative." But Brazilian rockers are cuter, so this is much better.

Roberta Miranda "A Mulher Em Mim " (Shania Twain cover in Portuguese)
Sigh. Nothing good can come from the mediocre covering the mediocre. Even in a foreign tongue.

Rebekah Del Rio "Llorando (Crying)" (Roy Orbison cover in Spanish, from Mulholland Drive)
Even though I've read what it was all supposed to mean, I still don't really get it.

Los Rockin' Rebeldes "Danny Boy" (Traditional song in Spanish—people are still debating its original composer)
This is freaky, It starts off with a Mexican Scott Walker/Rufus Wainwright vibe and jumps into garage psych. Que sorpresa!

Los Locos del Ritmo "Hey Joe" (Jimi Hendrix cover in Spanish)
This has more a sense of immediacy to me than the original. Or maybe I've just had too much tequila. (This track as well as the one above are from Mexican Rock and Roll Psych-Out, which rules.)

Paralisis Permanente "Quiero Ser Tu Perro (I Want to be Your Dog)" (Iggy Pop cover in Spanish)
Apparently Latin American and/or Spanish grupos love Iggy. And who can blame them?

Braun (and the Mob) "Da Flash an da Funk (Flashlight)" (Parliament cover in Spanish)
Yay for glitchy funk from Germany sung in Spanish!

Selena "Fotos Y Recuerdos (Back on the Chain Gang)" (Pretenders cover in Spanish)
Ah, fair Jennifer Lopez Selena! The Spanish lyrics of this song replace the "Chain Gang" idiom with "photos and memories," thus changing the entire tone of the song—a fate I'm sure has befallen many today's selections. Pretty annoying. Had I a chance to see her perform live before her terrible fate, I'd have spent the duration of this song staring at her midriff.

Los Abandoned "Como la Flor" (Selena cover)
Speaking of Selena, she is not above reproach! Chilean/Los Angelean post-punkers rework one of her big hits (the sole track today that was originally performed in Spanish) so you can mosh to it. Or do whatever dance people at Blink-182 concerts do.

*All songs featured today are not solely by Mexican performers, but there are a couple.

I miss you like crazy.

Hey, kids, sorry about the dearth of MP3s this week, I've been a bit queasy the past few days and my priorities shifted. I'll post some soon, I promise. To tide you over until then, you might want to scroll through some of the comments people have left in my past few entries. There you should find a handful of links to strange sites sharing covers.

I never said I wasn't gonna tell nobody.

Oh my god. New Copy, Right? reader Brad Walsh (thanks, ultragrrrl for linking me so he could find me!) has made me ecstatic by letting me in on his electro covers. That anyone would cover Stacey Q's "Two of Hearts" in the first place makes me giddy. That it's actually cool makes it even better. (Does anyone remember Stacey's stint as Cinnamon of The Facts of Life? That was the shit.) And though Crystal Waters' "100% Pure Love" is one of my most hated songs (still not as much as the homeless song), his cover is amusingly refreshing. Check out those covers as well as a few more on his music page. And, while you're there, why not try some remixes and originals too?

I'll probably post some new tracks by Tuesday night.

I know just what it takes to make a pro blush.

Mini Pops "Bette Davis Eyes" (Kim Carnes cover)
Decades before Kidz Bop came along and tried to convince us that kids responded better to today's pop hits when an untalented non-famous adult sang it with a group of kids cheering in the background, there was a group of actual British kids rerecording hits of their era. Apparently the group's producers (go K-tel!) thought getting 8-year-olds to seductively sing songs about a manipulative woman who fucks guys on the floor of her apartment was an awesome idea. And they were so wrong they were almost right. Seriously, if has anyone out there has Mini Pops LPs (or 8-tracks!) and can convert them to MP3s and send them to me, I'd ... well, I don't know what I would do. But I'd be ecstatic. (Thanks, Mark, for this one!)

Gwyneth Paltrow "Bette Davis Eyes" (Kim Carnes cover, from Duets)
And this version is even more disturbing!

Also—not related to kids (or celebrities) singing adult themed-songs but related to covers in general—Steve over at Domino Rally has the Bad Plus doing Iron Man, y'all.

I have people all over the world working for me for free!

Reader Tarek just alerted me that local emo types Canasta have a handful of covers, live and otherwise, available on their audio page—including a pretty little cover of one of my favorite '80s one-hit wonders, Peter Schilling's "Major Tom (Coming Home)." (Actually, I quite enjoyed his "World of Lust and Crime" as well, but no one I know seems to remember that.)

Reader Skott sent a track my way that's kinda interesting (especially if you, like me, are a fan of the Vocoder): David Torn's sons Elijah and Cody covering Alicia Keys' "Falling."

And, you're not going to believe this one, but a record label rep actually sent me something covers-related! Usually I get the standard "Hi, my name's Schmo and I'm a big fan of your site. Please check out [insert sucky band who has no covers available] and consider promoting them for me" crap that I suspect all MP3 bloggers get. But Sean from Redder Records let me in on a few new Kind of Like Spitting (whose covers I quite often enjoy, even!) covers available here. Wonders never cease!

They never wanted to kill; they are not naturally evil ... such things they do just to make themselves more attractive to you. Have they failed?

Alison Moyet "There are Worse Things I Could Do" (from Grease)
I can think of no blue-eyed soul songstress I'd rather hear cover this bad-girls-have-hearts-too classic.

Dogstar "Superstar" (Carpenters cover)
Ah, Keanu. You know it's bad when you're playing bass for a band that probably could've been as successful as Matchbox 20 if only they had half an ounce of charisma. Or a quarter ounce of eyeliner.

J. Church "Last of the Famous international Playboys" (Morrissey cover)
I don't care for this punk cover, but I am glad to see bands covering my favorite Morrissey song.

Rabbit in the Moon "Waiting for the Night" (Depeche Mode cover)
It's a cheesy thing to admit, but I'll have you know that Depeche Mode's Violator was the soundtrack to nearly all of my masturbation from the end of my senior year of high school through to the beginning of my freshman year of college. What a dork I was. [Ponders a blog dedicated to teenage alt.Liza's masturbation songs ... thinks better of it.] This version from Florida's most popular [only?] trancesters is pretty good for what it is. Especially if you've just taken two Vicodin and have a lot of candles burning.

Sexy Sadie "Moonage Daydream" (David Bowie cover)
Speaking of sex:

Dear hot Spanish boys,

You may serenade me with David Bowie anytime. Then we will dance on the beach and have a menage a trois. Or tres. Or quatro. Or cinco. Or whatever. I'm perpetually ready and willing to be tu mama tambien. [Pardon the lack of accent marks. I'm too lazy to look up the proper HTML.]

Love, Liza

Toonces "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" (Cyndi Lauper cover)
I can't find any info online about Toonces. Are they Japanese? German? Finnish? Or simply the product of a Cover Fight? Anyone?

I'll never understand why so many people prefer to be catty when it's just as easy to be nice.

So, someone is calling me out in another blog's comments because, supposedly, the files I'm sharing have viruses. This, of course, is news to me. Hell, I didn't even know it was possible for MP3s to have viruses in them. Does this mean I'm stupid? Perhaps. But I scan my computer (including the folders with MP3s in them) for viruses on a regular basis with regularly updated anti-virus software and I've yet to have anything alert me to viruses. So, if you can shed some light on how this all works by letting me know directly or by giving me some solutions to remedy any perceived problems so that I might fix them, that would be most appreciated. Or maybe you could tell me what proof you have that my files have viruses or tell me which files they are. Or, if you prefer, you can choose the less friendly, totally prickish route and just go badmouthing me elsewhere for something I was completely unaware of.

So, yeah. I would be grateful for any helpful input on this matter.

Let me walk down the highway with my brother in peace.

Hey, kids. A random insomnia-inspired Googling of an old friend—who was once in my best pal Ryan's band back in the day in Bloomington, Indiana—led me to her current band's website, where you can download a cover of her singing Bob Dylan's "Let Me Die in My Footsteps." I knew she was in Chicago since I ran into her a year or so ago at a sushi bar, but haven't made it out to see her band yet. It's now on my to-do list. So, yeah, check it out. Ami has a fucking fantastic voice.

And, while we're talking about my old musical pals from my days in Bloomington and their cover songs, PJ from Sardina—a band I've talked about at length in past entries—has a slew of covers available for download here. (A selection which includes the "Me and My Arrow" cover I once posted last year.)

Oh, and as for friends of the online variety, it's Joy Division cover season over at Spoilt Victorian Child.