All hands on the good ones.

Just a quick heads-up that Blog Soup is currently hosting a handful of live covers by Sleater-Kinney. You know you wanna!

A million lights are dancing and there you are.

Frente "Hounds of Love" (Kate Bush cover)
I was never a really big fan of Frente's covers of "Bizarre Love Triangle," probably because I grew completely sick of that song in the late '80s and because I found it too syrupy, but I really like this.

The Puppini Sisters "Wuthering Heights" (Kate Bush cover)
You knew it was just a matter of time before there were Andrews Sisters-style cover bands, didn't you? Quite adorable.

Negazione "I Think I See the Light" (Cat Stevens cover)
Not exactly the song I'd expect an Italian punk band to cover, but it works.

The Mekons "Alone and Forsaken" (Hank Williams cover)
I love this cover and thought of it last week while watching the 1964 film Your Cheatin' Heart starring George Hamilton as Hank Williams. While the casting confused me a bit and it was quite historically inaccurate, it was great to be reminded of how talented Williams truly was.

18th Dye "Trains and Boats and Planes" (comp. Burt Bacharach)
there was a time in the mid-1990s when I was obsessed with droning, fuzzy guitars and fell in love with German band's 18th Dye's Tribute to a Bus album. I just learned of this cover the other day and was ecstatic in the geekiest way, as I am also a huge Bacharach fan.

Angtoria "Confide In Me" (Kylie Minogue cover)
I'm not the biggest fan of orchestral metal, but I don't hate this. And this chick could totally kick Amy Lee's ass, an idea that appeals to me.

Javier Alvarez "Xanadu" (Olivia Newton-John/ELO cover)
A strange, slow doo-wop/R&B/electronic take on the ONJ/ELO classic, with which I've been obsessed the past few weeks. Thanks to unemployment and insomnia, I've been scouring YouTube for all thing ONJ and happily discovered the Making Xanadu documentary I remember seeing as a child on Channel 32. Heaven, I tell you:
    *Making Xanadu (Part 1)
    *Making Xanadu (Part 2)
    *Making Xanadu (Part 3)
    *Making Xanadu (Part 4)

    *Also on YouTube: Check out Abba, ONJ and Andy Gibb jamming out some Beach Boys songs. A kitsch orgasm, to be sure.

The Popdudes "Waterloo" (Abba cover)
Speaking of Abba, here's a cover by a power-pop supergroup sent in by reader Pete. I'd like it to be a little faster and poppier, but whatever.

And when you wake up it's a new mornin'—the sun is shinin' it's a new morning.

Big Heavy Stuff "Hyper-Ballad" (Bjork cover)
Pretty Australian cover #1.

Martin White "Army of Me" (Bjork cover)
Of course, I have to follow the nice, laid-back Bjork cover with a crazy accordion Bjork cover. You know how I roll.

Foo Fighters "Baker Street" (Gerry Rafferty cover)
When I was a kid, the sax solo from "Baker Street" was one of those earworms that I could never get out of my head. Even if I'd gone months or years without hearing the actual song, the solo would pop into my head on at least a weekly basis. Therefore, I grew to loathe the song. But my respect for soft '70s schmaltz has returned since then, and I can finally handle it.

The Brown U. Derbies "Karma Police" (Radiohead cover)
It's been a while since I've creeped myself (and others?) out with an a cappella track, so here's a new one. (For my inadequate description of my horror/fascination with a cappella, see this super-old post.)

Kasey Chambers "Better Be Home Soon" (Crowded House cover)
Pretty Australian cover #2.

Missy Higgins "Moses" (Patty Griffin cover)
Pretty Australian cover #3.

Luther Wright & the Wrongs "Is There Anybody Out There?" (Pink Floyd cover)
From the LW&TW's country/western/bluegrass/punk Rebuild the Wall album, which is exactly what the title infers: a song-for-song tribute to The Wall. Somebody had to do it, right? Right?

Susperia "The Sun Always Shines on TV" (A-Ha cover)
Most covers of this song—aka one of my favorite songs EVER—fall in either the Hi-NRG techno/trance genre or the Death Metal genre. I'm not sure what's up with that, but this cover is definitely part of the latter.

Emery "Holding Out for a Hero" (Bonnie Tyler cover)
Meh. I'm neither her nor there on soft emo punk covers in general, but I love the original a lot (I recently performed quite a rousing version of my own at karaoke) and this version didn't make me want to hurt anyone or anything.

Because I think some might be interested:

Three pages of KISS covers here.

Lots of Muppet albums available for download here.

The livin' is easy.

Apropos of nothing, I just wanted to say that I really screwed up by not trying out for the World Series of Pop Culture when tryouts were in town. Especially since, as of last week, I'm unemployed and could use the prize money. Whatever, right? Just gives me more time for random cover smatterings, yes?

Montefiori Cocktail "Sunny" (comp. Bobby Hebb)

Friends of Dean Martinez "Summertime" (comp. George Gershwin, from Porgy and Bess)

Claudine Longet "End of the World" (comp. Sylvia Dee/Arthur Kent, most popularly performed by the Carpenters)

Nina Persson (of The Cardigans) "The Bluest Eyes in Texas" (Restless Heart cover)

Richard Cheese "The Rockafellar Skank" (Fatboy Slim cover)

Area 7 "I Want to Break Free" (Queen cover)

Remember when you were young? You shone like the sun.

 

Syd Barrett's "Vegetable Man" as performed by:

Baby Robots (USA)

Bugo (Italy)

Enzima (Italy

Kech (Italy)

Les Little Searchers (France)

Kawabata Makoto (Japan)

Swedish Whistler (Sweden)

Larsen (Italy)

Mandog (Japan)

Tirlindana (Italy)

It's my birthday and I'll only post one song if I want to.

Nouvelle Vague "Let Me Go" (Heaven 17 cover)

I'd like to tell you the way I feel for you, but I'd only be lying to myself.

Ten years ago today Jim Ellison committed suicide, which in turn killed one of my absolute favorite bands of the era. Jim and Material Issue, you are missed.

Material Issue "Jet" (Paul McCartney/Wings cover)

Material Issue "Blockbuster" (Sweet cover)

Material Issue "Bus Stop" (Hollies cover)

Material Issue "Run to Me" (Bee Gees cover)

Material Issue "The Boxer" (Simon & Garfunkel cover)

I'm back in the ring to take another swing.

The Mexicos "Everything I Do" (Bryan Adams cover)

Ohm Guru "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want" (Smiths cover)

Bing Ji Ling "You Shook Me All Night Long" (AC/DC cover)

Bis "Love Will Tear Us Apart" (Joy Division cover)

Do you suppose they could save my life?

It's this sort of thing that makes me wonder whether I should cherish or regret that I don't have any sort of self-recording skills:

Tom 7's Do-It-Yourself Guided By Voices Cover Band

Truthfully, I respect anyone who likes GBV this much. And I kind of love his "14 Cheerleader Coldfront."

My tattoo has inspired me and I've been listening to GBV nonstop for days. I'll probably post a few GBV covers soon. I'm waiting for a few CDs to arrive via mail first.

Until then, there's also a pretty cover of "Atom Eyes" here on the Bright Paper Werewolves' Sounds Page.

All you ever wanted, all you ever needed, is here in my arms.

This was a bit too massive covers-wise to allow to stay hidden in the comments, so if you're a Depeche Mode fan and you find yourself wishing for more covers of "Enjoy the Silence" than ever needed to exist, head over to this MOKB post.

Also, here's a nice e-mail I received recently from web animator extraordinaire, Scott Bateman, who creates a new web animation every damned day:

Here's how it happened:

A while back you posted Sawa Kobayashi's cover of "Patience." I
listened to it like, all the time, and mentioned it in my blog. Sawa
Googled herself apparently, and left a comment in my blog. I asked her
if I could animate "Patience" as part of my Bateman365 project (I'm
making an animated film every day for a year; today is day 271). She
said yes.

The animation went up this morning at:

http://www.batemania.com/bateman365/day271.html

And it couldn't have happened without you!

Take care,
Scott

Pretty cool, huh?

You can't lie to yourself that it's the chance of a lifetime.

Well, since my last post, I learned that another Internet friend of mine died this week. Those of you with Live Journals (or without) may have known or known of Andrew (aka Andrew Watchmaker, Mandrew, the_passives, andrewpants). He was either the most popular or most unpopular person on the Internet at any given time, but he was never anything but nice to me. When he came to Chicago a few years back, he introduced me to my close friend Ray who, in turn, introduced me to a handful of other fabulous people.

After hearing of his death, I learned that a very new friend of mine was a close friend of Andrew's for years. She and I met up last night at the L&L and invited the friend who introduced us to come out and meet us. A slew of whiskey and beer later, and the next thing you know, we all had brand-new band-related tattoos. Um, we're bad-ass. I think.

Braid "Trompe le Monde" (Pixies cover)



It was Jessica who led us to the tattoo parlor, as she and a few other friends of Andrew had decided to honor his memory by getting uber-emo and tattooing lyrics from Braid (see previous post as well), one of Andrew's favorite bands, on themselves. Oh god, I can picture him laughing his ass off about it right now.

Jawbreaker "Into you Like a Train" (Psychedelic Furs cover)



The other day, Lauren talked to me for about 20 minutes about Jawbreaker, a band I never really paid much attention to. But now I know that the one of the guys is now an English professor at Hunter College. Her contention is that even though he's a teacher now, he will always be "the guy from Jawbreaker." My response? "Yeah, to the minority of people in this country who know who in the fuck Jawbreaker is." (I mean, come on, the bulk of the people in this country actually like that godawful "Bad Day" song by Daniel Powter!!!) What can I say? Punkish stuff isn't usually my bag. But it is Lauren's; thus, her Jawbreaker logo tattoo was born.

Minor Majority "Motor Away" (Guided by Voices cover)



My turn. I've said elsewhere that this is either the coolest decision or the geekiest decision I have ever made. I also implied that it might actually be a powerful combination of the two, the resulting explosive strength of which will ensure I take over the world—or at least my own version of it——this summer. So, we'll see. GB-motherfuckin'-V, people!

The pleasure, the privilege, is mine.

Feeling a touch morose the past few days. First, I learned I will most probably have to have my bone marrow tested next week due to the fact that I inexplicably have a giant spleen. Then I learned that my longtime Internet friend—and passionate music lover—Greg died after battling pulmonary fibrosis for quite some time. Sad news. And there's no band in the world that has helped me wallow and vent more over the past few decades than the Smiths. And no song more than the first Smiths song I ever knew, covers of which follow this paragraph. I have more covers of this, but felt I had to draw the line. I make no claims that any of these are great, although the Ghost Mice version in particular makes me smile, though I know not everyone would say the same.

"There is a Light That Never Goes Out" (Smiths cover) by:

Ally Craig

Braid

Deluxe

Edison Shine

The Ghost Mice

The Lancaster Orchestra (Actually a version of "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want," 'cause I got lazy. I'll leave it though, for those interested.)

Loquat

My Awesome Compilation

Nada Surf

The Ocean Blue

Saloon

Schneider TM - aka "The Light 3000"

Speedstar

Only God knows where I've been.

B.A. Baracus Band "Africa" (Toto cover)
I've recently become a little obsessed with Yacht Rock (I know, I'm TOTALLY late on this), so I've been meaning to hunt out covers of smooth rock. Of course, I already have a lot, but I need new stuff, you know? And lo and behold, this version of the Toto classic hit shuffle the other day and here we are.

H-BLOCKX "Celebrate Youth" (Rick Springfield cover)
Similarly, I've been revisiting my childhood love of Rick Springfield. I believe I thought the lyrics to this song were very deep. The whole "younger man looking at the older man" and "the older man looking at the boy" thing. What can I say, I was a kid. I don't know that it inspired me to celebrate my youth or anything, as it sure depresses me now.

Rick Springfield "I've Done Everything for You" (Sammy Hagar cover)
I was pretty upset when I learned decades ago that this wasn't a Springfield original. Why is it that with mediocre pop stars the covers are always the rockingest?

The Concretes "Miss You" (Rolling Stones cover)
I must admit that I cursed the Concretes for the Target ad using their "Say Something New," thereby allowing it to earworm me with such frequency that I began to despise it. Alas, they are Swedish and I love the Swedes. Not to mention disco-era Stones. So I'm all for this.

Your Eyes are Doves "Blaze of Glory" (Jon Bon Jovi cover)
I'm not remembering who pointed me in the direction of Your Eyes Are Doves, but I wholeheartedly thank you. Or maybe I stumbled on it by myself, in which case I will remind you that I'm fucking awesome.

The BossHoss "Toxic" (Britney Spears cover)

The BossHoss "All the Things She Said" (T.A.T.U. cover)
The Rawhide theme meets today's pop acts in German country/western coverversionen experts The BossHoss' Internashville Urban Hymns album. Listening to it all at once gets a little annoying, but a track here or there thrown onto a crazy mix CD will wow your friends. Trust me.

The Fixx "These Boots are Made for Walking" (Nancy Sinatra cover)
I'm not particularly crazy about this cover, but posting it gives me an opportunity to share one of my favorite stories, so I'm going for it:

When I worked at the Borders on Michigan Avenue back in my retail-whore days, one of my co-workers was a friendly guy named Ted who was about 10 years older than I and who was big on old-school new wave and whatnot. One day, I assisted a very friendly man with an English accent for about 10 minutes or so. When I'd sufficiently located his discs, he descended the escalator and Ted comes up to me excitedly and asks, "Do you know who that was?" I tell him, "No, but he did look slightly familiar." He answers, "That was the keyboard player from the Fixx!!!" Ah. Ted. After giggling delightedly and remarking to Ted that he's probably the only person I know who could possibly recognize the keyboard player from the Fixx—Rupert Greenall, BTW—Ted brings me the Fixx CDs we have in stock and remarks that it's too bad he's gone because he'd like to have the CDs signed. I, of course, heartily admire and respect Ted's new-wave passion and offer to walk around the store and see if I can find him.

I didn't have to go far, he was in line at the cafe. I approach him and say, "I'm sorry to bother you, but my co-worker recognized you and was hoping you might sign a few CDs for him." Well, you can imagine how much Rupert Greenall gets recognized in the States—or anywhere, for that matter—and he happily comes back to the music department with me and meets Ted and signs the discs. He tells us that the Fixx is playing at the House of Blues and he asks if we'd like to be on the guest list, an offer we obviously couldn't refuse. Unfortunately, I was a bit under the weather that day and wasn't able to go, but Ted went and said he got to hang out with the band backstage and had a really cool time with one of his favorite '80s acts. And I'd wish nothing less for him because his love for music was more genuine than that of anyone else I worked with at the time. I wonder what he's up to nowadays.

As random as I wanna be.

I figured I'd better post something this week, seeing as my mystery illness debilitated me last week and this week I'm headed to Memphis. I haven't stopped loving you. Promise.

The Kooks "Crazy" (Gnarls Barkley cover)
I have to sheepishly admit I don't really get the whole Gnarls Barkley craze. I think their cover of "Gone Daddy Gone" is zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. But here's a cover I'm sure you've seen elsewhere because I'm not very cutting-edge.

The Danes "Off Your Face" (My Bloody Valentine cover)
My favorite MBV track covered by a Dallas-area band I thought was defunct, but apparently isn't.

Glambeats Corp. "She's So Cold" (Rolling Stones cover)
From Volume 2 of the Bossa N' Stones series.

Optiganally Yours "Wichita Lineman" (Jimmy Webb cover)
All hail the Optigan.

Helena Noguerra "Can't Get You Out of My Head" (Kylie Minogue cover)
Breathy French bossa, baby.

Raf "Self Control" (Laura Brannigan cover)
Um, you know how I am. Edit: Apparently, this is the original artist. Whatever. I'll leave it up.

The All Seeing I "The Beat Goes On" (Sonny & Cher cover)
This hits my shuffle play more than any other cover. I'm not certain why.

I miss you, Kirsty!

I'm pretty addicted to YouTube for its virtual cornucopia of '80s music videos, among other things. I had Kirsty MacColl's "There's a Guy Works at the Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis" in my head all day so I thought I'd case out what videos I could find. Here are the covers in the collection:

Kirsty MacColl's version of Billy Bragg's "New England":


Tracey Ullman's version of Kirsty MacColl's "They Don't Know":

Consider this.

No time to chat. Enjoy the Swedes!!!

Junip "The Ghost of Tom Joad" (Bruce Springsteen cover)

Nina Persson [Cardigans] "Losing My Religion" (REM cover)

Souls "Take Me With U" (Prince cover)

Stina Nordenstam "Bird on a Wire" (Leonard Cohen cover)

Stina Nordenstam "People are Strange" (Doors cover)

Yeah, give it to me now.

If you missed it when I posted Travis Morrison's cover of Ludacris' "What's Your Fantasy," Ben has it up here.

Unrelated: I'm currently obsessed with Scandinavian artists. I'm ODing on Robyn, Jenny Wilson, The Knife, Christian Kjellvander, Komeda, etc. Whom else should I be checking out?

Tell me: We both matter, don't we?

I'm not sure if it's the fact that the piano-heavy music and experimental vocals of Jenny Wilson and Regina Spektor keep hitting my iPod's shuffle play lately, but last night I was consumed with the need to listen to some Claudia Brücken (formerly of '80s gothy new-wave bands Propaganda and Act). I know I once posted Propaganda's cover of "Femme Fatale," which I love, but Brücken has paid homage to many artists, especially most recently on her collaboration with minimalist composer Andrew Poppy on their 2005 album Another Language—which was one of my favorite nearly all-cover albums of last year. Fans of Siouxsie, Tori, Kate Bush, the Art of Noise and Yoko Ono (and the aforementioned Wilson and Spektor) and the like: Commence to downloading posthaste.

Propaganda "Sorry for Laughing" (Josef K cover)

Act "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" (Smiths cover)
I wasn't aware of the existence of Act until a few years ago, but I stumbled on this cover and was duly impressed with its decidedly strange but intriguing arrangement.

Claudia Brücken and Andrew Poppy "Lipstick Vogue" (Elvis Costello cover)

Claudia Brücken and Andrew Poppy "Running Up that Hill" (Kate Bush cover)
Claudia already sounds so much like Kate that I wasn't sure what her point of covering this was... until I heard it. Poppy's arrangement completely shakes it up and I'm left a little awestruck by it.

I have my books and my poetry to protect me.

Magnet with Gemma Hayes "Lay Lady Lay" (Bob Dylan cover)

The Church "I am a Rock" (Simon and Garfunkel cover)

The Doleful Lions "There's no Other (Like my Baby)" (Crystals cover)

Equipe 84 "Bang Bang" (in Italian, comp. Sonny Bono)