cover #24 – Suede, “The Wild Ones”

Cover #24, and yep, we’re still doing this, whether you like it or not, until we get 30, dammit, because I say so, is Suede’s “The Wild Ones”, from Dog Man Star, released in 1994 and written by Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler.

So, Suede never really got much attention in this country, and that’s really a pity.   You’ve maybe heard “The Beautiful Ones” or, more likely, “Filmstar”, if you sat through the credits after Eddie Izzard’s Dress To Kill comedy show.  But, man, they had some great songs.  This one in particular should have been the “In Your Eyes” of its generation.  It should have been in some movie, where boy loses girl and gets girl back again by playing her some heartwrenching ballad.

This, my friends, is a heartwrenching ballad.  I think it’s about Brett breaking up with Justine from Elastica, but I’m not sure.

Justine, by the way, went on to date Damon Albarn from Blur for several years (see cover #8, “End of a Century’” and, well, basically all of the albums Blur and 13.)   It should be noted that I freaking love Elastica.  Of all the bands that came out of that era – England from 1993-1998 aka “Britpop” – they were my favorite, moreso even than Oasis.   Unfortunately, Justine’s bandmates were all massive smack fiends and it’s really hard to be the best band in the world when everyone’s lying on the floor staring at the babies crawling on the ceiling instead of, you know, rehearsing.   So, Justine’s influence – apart from their self-titled 1993 record which gave the world “Connection” and 15 other rad little tunes – is mainly as the chief muse of the Britpop era.  She dated Brett from Suede, dumped him for Damon from Blur,  dumped him because he was being – let’s face it – kind of a dick, and then went on to host a home improvement show of some type.  The whole thing is written up beautifully in the book The Last Party, which I’ve re-read many, many times because I’m a massive Britpop fanboy and it’s sad.

There’s a story about what Suede means to me, but it’s sort of personal.   I mean, it’s dumb high school stuff, mostly, but I’m putting a break here in case you don’t care/feel uncomfortable with the idea of me talking about kissing girls and such.

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Cover #23 – TV on the Radio, “Wolf Like Me”

Cover #23 is “Wolf Like Me”, by TV on the Radio, from the 2006 album Return To Cookie Mountain, written by Tunde Adebimpe.

I first saw TV on the Radio when they opened for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs a few summers ago.  I wasn’t that into them, I gotta admit.  Not sure what it was, but it wasn’t workin’ for me.

Then, about three months later, I was enjoying a bagel and there was this amazing, weird, mind-altering music on the stereo in the bagel store, and I asked the girl behind the counter who it was, and she said “TV on the Radio, duh.”  Sometimes you gotta be in the right frame of mind to receive something like that.   Sometimes, it has to be raining outside and you’re eating a bagel in Brighton, and suddenly, TV on the Radio makes a lot of sense.  I mean, these guys are so wonderfully cool and odd, and no one – no one – sounds like them.

“Wolf Like Me” , well, it’s a driving, weird song about being a werewolf.  It’s instantly catchy and soulful and edgy.  I’ve wanted to cover it since I started doing this thing, but I didn’t know how to do it.  Oh sure, I could’ve covered it as is, but they already did it perfect the first time, and besides, if you’re covering an off-the-wall band like TV on the Radio, you gotta do something off-the-wall with it.

So: I made “Wolf Like Me” into a ballad.  I couldn’t get the drums to work anyway.  The tonal inspiration was “A Warm Place” or “Eraser (Polite)” mix by Nine Inch Nails.

I really like this one.

Stream.  Download.

Next up…: well, if Justine from Elastica dumped me, I’d feel the same way, mate.

Cover #21: The Cure, “Doing The Unstuck”

Cover #21 is The Cure’s “Doing The Unstuck”, from the 1992 album Wish.  It was written by Robert Smith, Simon Gallup, Boris Williams, Perry Bamonte and Porl Thompson.

The first obviously, earnestly happy song The Cure ever recorded, and the first Cure song I ever loved.  It was actually the song that got me into the band in the first place.  It was the summer of 1996, and I was in a band called Soma.  The frontman was a young man named Jon Martin who frequently teased up his hair like Robert Smith, and the sound of our band was – if kind words could be applied here – at least as schizophrenic and diverse as The Cure’s.  Also, we sucked.  Really bad.

However, I made some really good friends, and occasionally we made passable music.  We’d drive around after rehearsal with Jon’s all Cure mix tape in the stereo, and this song seemed to always be on.  Then, later, Janine from camp had it on a mix tape, too, and we used to sing it together.  It really seemed to capture a specific mood, a specific moment in our lives when all was angst, but anything was possible.

Look.. um… this might be my favorite song.  Ever.  I hope I did it justice.  I’m not doing it justice here, writing about it, but this song may have changed my life drastically in one of those James Burke’s Connections-style chains of events.  If I’d never heard it, my life would be really different.  I wouldn’t have gotten to know this person who introduced me to that person who introduced me to this thing which led me to go here and do this or try that.  And I’m pretty sure “Doing The Unstuck” is to blame.

“Doing The Unstuck” means “getting off your ass and living,” and for a band like the Cure, who specialize in gloomy navel-gazing, it’s quite a statement.  It’s like if the Insane Clown Posse wrote a heartfelt ballad about how violence was wrong.

Robert Smith just turned 50 years old.  He’s still got the hair and the makeup, because growing old with dignity is lame.  The Cure may well be my favorite band ever, and this was my entry point.  I listen to it every year as the weather gets warmer and I start to unthaw from the winter blues.

Also, I quoted the last line from this song in my yearbook  quote, because I was that guy.

Download.  Stream.

Next up…: what’s this blog called again?  well, there you go.

cover #20 – Marilyn Manson, “The Nobodies”

Cover #20 is “The Nobodies” by Marilyn Manson, from the 2000 album Holy Wood: In The Shadow Of The Valley Of Death.  It was written by M.Manson.

This is the 20th cover of the month – I had intended to post it on April 20th, the 10 year anniversary of the Columbine Massacre.

Eric and Dylan did not listen to Marilyn Manson.  As Jello Biafra once pointed out, if they were such big fans of his (as several lazy journalists claimed), why didn’t they wait until after his show in Denver, CO later that month?  Manson’s more a grand guignol-style artist of grotesque imagery and doesn’t really seem to advocate the sort of violence we saw that day in Colorado, but he sure looked scary to middle America back in 1999.

Eric and Dylan did play Doom, but so did I and I never killed anyone.  They didn’t wear trenchcoats when they committed the murders.  They weren’t members of any “Trenchcoat Mafia”.  That expression was something a bunch of computer geeks and goths who went to the school jokingly called themselves.   I understood this mentality – some of my best friends wore black trenchcoats.

There’s been so much writing about Columbine already.  There’s a new book out that’s supposed to be pretty insightful.  Most of what’s written, however, falls into two camps: the “oh, the killers liked the goth music and that’s why they did it and CASSIE SED YES!” camp, and the “no they didn’t and NO SHE DIDN’T!” camp.  I’m not going to add to that.

All I’m gonna do is play a tune Marilyn Manson wrote about Columbine, and about a murder spree in the age of instant celebrities.  We’re the nobodies who want to be somebodies.  Some children died the other day.  You should have seen the ratings that day.  If you’ve seen Bowling For Columbine, you know he’s the most insightful person in it.

Download.  Stream.

Next up…: He’s fifty and he could kick your ass without smearing his eyeliner.

cover #19: Better Than Ezra, “In The Blood”

Cover #19 is “In The Blood”, originally written and recorded by  Better Than Ezra for their 1995 album Deluxe.  It was written by Kevin Griffin.

Aaaaand we’re back, after a brief absence of only (mumbles a number under his breath) days.  This whole life thing, it’s crazy, no?

Seriously, this week has been really busy, adjusting to a new job and all, so I’ve barely had time to think, let alone record.  But here we are.  After all that waiting, you’ve got a brand new cover by me, and it’s a song by… um… Better Than Ezra.

Now, now, hang on a minute.  “In The Blood” is a great tune, and it (and not “Good”) was the reason I bought Deluxe back in the ’90s in the first place.  I’m a sucker for lesser-known alt-rock almost-hits, and always have been.  That’s why I like “Photograph” better than “The Freshmen” and “Molly” better than “Plowed.”

This cover owes a lot to the Postal Service in execution, so it’s a very 2000’s take on a very ’90s song.  Enjoy!

Download.  Stream.

We’ll catch up.  You’ll get 30 covers, eventually.  Promise.  Posting the next one tomorrow afternoon, thanks to the magic of Auto-post.

Next up…: Ten years ago, I couldn’t wear my coat to school.

covers month so far….

First of all, I’d like to thank Julia for bringing this project to the attention of Brian from Coverville, an awesome podcast consisting solely of, well, cover songs.  I’m notoriously bad at promoting myself (because I suffer from a rare psychological disorder where I honestly can’t tell the difference between self-promotion and bragging) so it’s great to have friends who’ll do that sort of thing for me.  Again, thanks to Jon and Chris from Generation Goat for pimpin’ this madness on their podcast last week.

Now, then:  I’m starting a new job (huzzah) but I’m still working my old job, which means that Sunday is essentially a 17-hour work day for me – midnight to 5pm.  Saturday was hectic, Sunday evening will be spent sleeping, and Monday I’m back at the aforementioned new job.

We’ll get back to our regularly scheduled program in due course, however, with covers (probably) from Better Than Ezra, the Titanic lady, Smashing Pumpkins,  and more.  We’ll play catch up.  There will be 30 covers this month – they just might be a little bit off schedule.

Right now, though, I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to survive the next 18 hours without losing the ability to speak in complete sentences.  Bear with me.

Below the cut, you’ll find a rundown of all the covers so far.

Cover #18 – Belinda Carlisle, “Heaven Is A Place On Earth”

Cover #18 is Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven Is A Place On Earth”, from her 1987 album Heaven On Earth. It was written by Rick Nowels and Ellen Shipley.

This one’s by request, from Mikey.

Here’s what I wrote about this song a couple of years ago, when I wrote my review of the Top 100 Songs of 1988:

Long ago, back in the days before electricity and the wheel, back in the year of our lord nineteen hundred and eighty eight, you had three options when it came to securing a copy of your favorite song.

Option one was to buy it. Songs came packaged on big flat black things called records. They also came in small, fragile plastic things called tape cassettes. If you were really rich, you could secure yourself a Compact Disc of the song, which came in a big cardboard box with a smaller, plastic case inside that held the actual disc. If you only wanted to hear one song, you bought the CasSingle.

Option two was to borrow it from a friend and make your own taped copy of it. This was great, except that tape cassettes were the worst, most fragile invention known to man. If you liked a tape, it would inevitably become warbly and muffled at times. If you really liked a tape, it would get caught in your car’s tape player and you’d pull it out and there’d be magnetic tape everywhere. If the tape was a beloved one-of-a-kind mix tape made by the object of your affection for you that had all of your favorite songs, plus rare stuff from your favorite band and sound clips from various and sundry meaningful movies and tv shows, it would melt in your car on a hot day, rendering it useless. Then, God would laugh at you.

Option three was to tape it off the radio. There exists a tape somewhere at my mom’s house with “Heaven Is A Place On Earth”, “Walk Like An Egyptian”, and many other classic songs of the era that little me, unable to convince my mother to buy me a rock and roll record, captured like fireflies one summer night off of WZOU. I still think this song doesn’t sound quite right unless it’s coming out of a tinny Radio Shack tape player, at low, low volume, late at night, when I’m supposed to be asleep.

As you can see, this song’s a particular nostalgic favorite of mine.  And yes, if you know the Pluto Tapes song “Fireflies”, that’s what it’s about: taping songs off the radio.  I love Belinda’s voice and I love this song, and I’m man enough to admit it.  I don’t think my version does it justice at all, but I needed to post something today.

I was reluctant to post this one, because it’s not done yet.  I mean, it sounds all right, but it’s obviously not done.  I’m trying to go for a Goldfrapp-meets-N’Sync thing, and it’s not quite there yet.  This is a rough draft.  I didn’t even incorporate the key change, the middle is a half-baked idea at best, and the choruses are iffy.

The problem with the “one cover a day” thing isn’t the recording.  That’s easy.  You can record a simple version of a tune in about a half-hour, and if you want drums and synths and stuff, it’ll maybe take you two hours tops.  The problem comes when you start mixing, and realizing that this line’s off-pitch and that guitar part isn’t very good and you really should re-record it so your audience doesn’t cringe in pain at the horribleness of it all.  And, really, most of you probably think it sounds okay, but dammit, it’s my voice and my project and I reserve the right to be typically me about it, okay?

Because it’s not done yet.  It’s obviously going to be good some day, so I invite you to look upon this version as a rare insight into my totally scatter-shot creative process.

Download.  Stream.

Next up…: It’s the reason that I’m asking.  Hey la.

Cover #17 – Oasis, “Supersonic”

Cover #17 is “Supersonic” by Oasis, from their 1994 album Definitely, Maybe.  Written by Noel Gallagher.

I got a lot of love for Oasis.  A lot.  The whole thing about them claiming to be bigger than the Beatles…..well, look.  They didn’t have a Sgt. Peppers in them.  They had maybe half a Rubber Soul.   But oh man what a half.   They were cocky, huge rock stars with cocky, huge rock songs when rock stars were supposed to mumble, be self-deprecating, and hide in their room with their heroin and Courtney Love and whatnot.

The idea for covering the song in this way was… I’m not sure.  I think I wanted to try something weird and trippy and completely different from the original, and I think it only half works.   But oh man, what a half.

This one, for better or for worse, goes out to Jon and Chris at Generation Goat, for mentioning this project on their podcast.  You guys flatter me too much.  Also, it’s one of the many songs we attempted to cover in our horrible high school band.

And by the by, Chris: I do remember covering “Walk Like An Egyptian.”  I’m just not so sure it’s a good idea to cover now.

Download.  Stream.

Cover #16 – Bill Staines, “River”

Cover #16 is “River” by Bill Staines, originally released on his 1979 album The Whistle of the Jay and later on his 1984 live album Bridges.

Bill Staines was the first concert I ever went to.  Actually, he was probably the first several concerts I ever went to, not counting Rosenshontz, or the performance of Jesus Christ Superstar I attended while in utero.  I think my parents knew Bill from their days running the George’s Attic coffee house back in the ’60s.

I was raised in coffee houses.  Did I ever tell you that?  Coffee houses, church basements, VFW halls, school cafeterias… anywhere that folk music types were allowed to come and play, there you would find Alan and Peggy and little Andy.  Bill was a mainstay in that scene for years around Boston – still is, I suppose, but there was a time when he was the man.  And deservedly so.

Bill lives in New Hampshire these days.  It’s like he stepped out of an alternate dimension, one where country music came out of a different tradition; not out of cowboys and prairies, but of loggers and maple sugar farms.   You’ve probably never heard of him, which is really too bad.   You know that song “All God’s Critters Got A Place In The Choir?”  From camp?  That’s his song.  He wrote it.

Of course I liked that song when I was a kid, because my parents would bring animal puppets and their friends and I would all make them dance around in the audience (thus priming me for a lifetime of audience participation-related events, from Rocky Horror to Blue Man Group to my college thesis project, a staging of The Compleat Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) by the Reduced Shakespeare Company, which was 50% audience participation and improv and included puppets) but that’s not the point.   “River” was the song I always wanted to hear.  It struck a chord with me as a kid, and I never knew why.  Now, further on down the river of life, it still makes me think.

And in case you’re experiencing some sort of whiplash, going from The Dresden Dolls to Bill Staines in the space of a day, know this: both Amanda Palmer and Bill are graduates of Lexington High School, where the teachers are apparently doing something right.  Both artists inspire their audiences to participate in the show, and both write songs with that inexplicable New England crispness.  “I was born in the path of the winter wind”/”I’m half my mother’s daughter, a fraction left up to dispute.”  Am I stretching?  Oh yes I am.  It’s late and I’m tired.

This is a fairly straight cover.  I’m not a particularly good finger-picker, so I went with my typical flat-pick-no-subtlety acoustic style, with occasional nods towards folksy pleasantries.

Download.  Stream.

Next up…: It’s a definite maybe.

Cover #15 – The Dresden Dolls, “Half Jack”

Cover #15 is “Half Jack” by The Dresden Dolls, from their self-titled debut album, released in 2003.  Written by Amanda Palmer.

The fact of the matter is this: The Dresden Dolls got me going to shows again, writing music again, wanting to get involved in art and performance again after school basically killed any desire I had to make art or do anything creative.  They made me believe in music again.

That’s it.

Download.  Stream.

Next up…: More from Lexington High School.