Each week I'm posting a random or not-so-random cover song. Only the current week's track will be available but if you see a past one you'd like, contact me and we'll make arrangements.
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Sunday, August 15th, 2010
Handsome Furs cover Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Liam MaloneyI live in a world where I believe everyone loves Tom Petty. And why wouldn’t everyone? The man’s got one of the best catalogs of rock songs of the past 30 years, puts on a great live show and was the best thing in The Postman, though that may be more of a commentary on The Postman than Petty.
Handsome Furs love them some Tom Petty too, as evidenced by this cover they pulled out at a 2007 hometown club show in Montreal. And while covering Petty isn’t especially uncommon, the duo of Boeckner and Perry eschewed the strummy country-rockers that most try on for size and went for Petty’s 1982 hit “You Got Lucky” – an unusual tune for the Heartbreakers, with its dark tone and New Wave synths but a perfect fit for Handsome Furs for exactly those reasons.
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers are currently on tour for their latest album Mojo and will be at the Air Canada Centre next week on August 25. Handsome Furs are currently on the back burner as Boeckner tends to Wolf Parade – they’re at the Sound Academy on November 26 – but considering that the man is both prolific and a workaholic, expect to see a new Handsome Furs record sooner rather than later.
MP3: Handsome Furs – “You Got Lucky”
Video: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “You Got Lucky”
Sunday, August 8th, 2010
The Hold Steady and Malcolm Middleton cover Bryan Adams
This is a track that I forgot I had in my archives and which elicited a double-take when I was cruising for something to post. I didn’t believe it was tagged correctly or was some sort of hoax, but no – that thick Scottish brogue does indeed belong to former Arab Strap-per Malcolm Middleton, he is indeed trading verses with Craig Finn whilst the rest of The Hold Steady back him up and yes, that is indeed a Bryan Adams tune they’re tackling.
It was recorded in May of 2009 for the BBC Radio 1 and it was a Hold Steady session and interview with Colin Murray and the necessary background for how and why the Brooklyn bar rockers and Glaswegian moper got together in the first place is well-covered at Lip Service Librarian and MP3s of the whole interview and session – which also includes a Zep cover – can be found at The Hold Steady Taped Show Archive.
The Hold Steady are spending 2010 promoting their latest record Heaven Is Whenever. Malcolm Middleton’s last solo record Waxing Gibbous came out last Summer. The first two Arab Strap albums The Week Never Starts Round Here and Philophobia are being reissued on August 17, each with a bonus disc of BBC session material. Bryan Adams is spending more time as a photographer than musician lately and Canadian music is all the better for it.
MP3: The Hold Steady with Malcolm Middleton – “Run To You”
Video: Bryan Adams – “Run To You”
Sunday, August 1st, 2010
Versus cover Joy Division
WikidepiaA Means To An End, the 1995 tribute album to Joy Division, is a curious entity. Though their status as legends had been cemented for many years, it was still largely an underground and music geek thing – I’m pretty sure you couldn’t get Closer t-shirts in child sizes as you can now (it’s true, I’ve seen them). And I remember a not inconsiderable marketing push behind A Means To An End when it came out – on a major label – even though there wasn’t really a single act on the track list who was a household name; at best they were dorm room names.
But maybe there was a kid out there who picked up The Crow soundtrack the year before and lost his shit to the Nine Inch Nails’ version of “Dead Souls” and actually learned that it wasn’t a NIN song and thus learned who Joy Division were and, being in the middle of the ’90s alt.rock explosion, wanted to hear their songs done by artists who were relevant to them (and unknown to everyone else, thus increasing their potential cool points). Maybe A Means To An End was for them.
And if so, then they’d have discovered New York’s Versus doing a mostly faithful but still distinctly Versus (thanks to the vocals of James Baluyut and Fontaine Toups) version of “Twenty Four Hours”. And they’d have become fans of that band through the rest of the ’90s, only to lose them when they went on an extended hiatus in 2000. A hiatus that would last a decade until this coming Tuesday’s release of On The Ones And Threes, a Versus record that sounds like Versus never went away. And then they would be happy.
Versus play Lee’s Palace on August 13.
MP3: Versus – “Twenty Four Hours”
Stream: Joy Division – “Twenty Four Hours”
Sunday, July 25th, 2010
The Morning Benders cover The Smiths
GiganticIn doing my cursory research for this week’s selection, I found myself far more interested in the original song than the cover – or more specifically, the video circulating online for the cover.
“I Won’t Share You” was a rather fitting closing track to the final Smiths record, Strangeways, Here We Come, a stripped down number centered around Morrissey’s vocals and Marr’s strummed acoustic 12-string, but it would have made a rather odd single. And despite the fact that I could not find any evidencet hat it was ever actually released as a single, a video – with the rather official-looking “© 1987 Rough Trade” on the opening frame and a rather Smiths-y aesthetic – very much existed. What gives?
A little further digging turned up Passions Just Like Mine, a Smiths trainspotter fansite with a videos page that had the following note:
“I Won’t Share You”
A previously uncirculated video for “I Won’t Share You” was leaked on the internet at the end of 2008. It is credited to Derek Jarman, from 1987 but was supposedly put together in the early 1990s for a multimedia exhibition organised by Rough Trade which would have raised money for the Terrance Higgins Trust. The planning ended when Rough Trade went into liquidation. The video was therefore only half finished, it would have had band footage over-layed (like the “Ask” and “Panic” videos).
Yay internet! As for the cover, its origins are far less esoteric – a couple years ago The Morning Benders, via their blog, gave away (and are still giving away) an album’s worth of covers entitled The Bedroom Covers – probably a hint as to the environment where they were recorded – and this Smiths cover, which finds Chris Chu getting in touch with his inner crooner, was one of the selections and while they probably didn’t know it at the time, it would be a somewhat prophetic move as the band would sign to The Smiths’ label Rough Trade for the release of this year’s Big Echo.
The Morning Benders are in town for three performances next week – two dates opening for The Black Keys at the Kool Haus on August 3 and 4, and a free acoustic show outside of The Big Chill ice cream in Little Italy on August 4 at 5:30PM. The Smiths are and will ever remain broken up.
MP3: The Morning Benders – “I Won’t Share You”
Video: The Smiths – “I Won’t Share You”
Sunday, July 18th, 2010
Calexico cover Arcade Fire
iTunesThere aren’t many better out there than Calexico at crafting covers that do the originals justice while becoming wholly their own – after all, not many others out there have their secret recipe of southwestern (musical) herbs and spices to work with. They don’t just save them for the live setting, either – more than a few of their reinterpretations have been recorded and officially released.
This includes their take on Arcade Fire’s “Ocean Of Noise”, a song they have some extra familiarity with having contributed the horns on the Neon Bible original. They later recorded a version of the whole song and it clearly met with the writers’ seal of approval – Arcade Fire released it as the b-side to their 2007 “Intervention” single.
Calexico are in town for a show at the Phoenix on July 22, and are about due for a new record though no formal announcement about a release has been made. Arcade Fire will release their long-awaited third full-length The Suburbs on August 3 and follow that up with a show on the Toronto Islands on August 14.
MP3: Calexico – “Ocean Of Noise”
Video: Arcade Fire – “Ocean Of Noise” (live)
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