The Afghan Whigs cover The Clash

WikipediaThere’s not a whole lot to recommend Burning London, the 1999 tribute album to The Clash. The lineup is mostly ’90s-vintage acts who’ve not aged well and the performances are by and large unremarkable – certainly not a compilation worthy of one of the greatest rock bands ever. But there’s one standout – to me, at least – courtesy of The Afghan Whigs, and not just because they were far and away a better band than most of their peers on the comp.

They also turn in a genuinely good and soulful rendition of The Clash’s meditation on consumerism, which is incidentally probably my favourite Clash tune. Greg Dulli injecting some of his trademark soul – as well as some of “Stand By Me” and “Train In Vain” in the coda – while maintaining the plaintiveness of the original. Purists probably hate it but purists hate everything. Nuts to purists.

Though Greg Dulli has never gone away since the Whig’s dissolution in 2001, keeping busy with the Twilight Singers, Gutter Twins and solo work, he got more headlines than he has in a while this past week with the announcement that The Afghan Whigs had reunited and were going to be touring in 2012. As we come up on the ninth anniversary of Joe Strummer’s death, obviously a proper Clash reunion is never going to happen but Mick Jones and Paul Simonon did get together onstage last week for the first time in 29 years at a benefit show for a few songs together. And that’s something.

MP3: The Afghan Whigs – “Lost In The Supermarket”
Stream: The Clash – “Lost In The Supermarket”

Frank YangSo I’ve been posting a cover a week for about seven years now, and that’s kind of neat and all, but I bow down before Mr. Bill Janovitz, erstwhile frontman of Buffalo Tom, who’s been engaged in a much more impressive weekly cover series at his blog “Part Time Man Of Rock” over the past year, where he’s been recording and posting a reinterpretation every week since last November.

Over the course of the past year and a bit, Janovitz has tackled The Replacements, Neil Young, The Clash, Radiohead and so many more, including the latest installment – a tribute recorded Christmas Day to Vic Chesnutt, who passed away earlier that day. All have been accompanied by thoughtful writeups, interpretive explanations, social commentary, biographical bits – the couple of weeks around the start of November wherein he dealt with the sudden death of a relative are particularly affecting – and oh yeah, great tunes.

There’s so much worthy stuff available on his site, both to read and to hear, that I think I could spend all of next year just reposting whatever he puts up and feel perfectly comfortable that the quality of what’s being shared hasn’t gone down a bit (and probably even up). I won’t, but here to close out 2009 is a (large) selection of stuff I’ve loved from Bill’s blog and note that you can quickly check out all the others. Share and enjoy.

MP3: Bill Janovitz – “Little Mascara” (Replacements cover)
MP3: Bill Janovitz – “The Campaigner” (Neil Young cover)
MP3: Bill Janovitz – “Straight To Hell” (The Clash cover)
MP3: Bill Janovitz – “No Surprises” (Radiohead cover)
MP3: Bill Janovitz – “Rocket Man” (Elton John cover)
MP3: Bill Janovitz – “Man Out Of Time” (Elvis Costello cover)
MP3: Bill Janovitz – “Wendell Gee” (R.E.M. cover)
MP3: Bill Janovitz – “American Girl” (Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers cover)
MP3: Bill Janovitz – “Florida” (Vic Chesnutt cover)