Cover Versions

I've recently been Djing at my friend's awesome night Re-Cover (a night dedicated to the art of the cover version). So here's a list of some of my favourite cover versions. Enjoy!

Box Elders @ Barden's Boudoir 04/12/09

Bardens touts itself as a ‘boudoir’ as if suggesting that it’s some kind of velvet covered, perfume soaked utopia. Of course it is nothing of the kind, it’s actually is a dingy dive with sweat dripping off the walls and a selection of flat beers served in plastic cups. The only nods towards the Louis XIV opulence that the name implies are a couple of leather armchairs at the back. Dave Goldberg, Box Elders’ multi-talented drummer and keyboardist, explains to me that this particular style of armchair upholstery is known as ‘diamond tuck’. I’m mildly impressed with Goldberg’s command of upholstery terms but not nearly as impressed as I am with his ability to play the drums, the keyboard and shake his maracas all at the same time.

Some bands like to express their collective ethos by wearing matching sharp suits and making similar dance moves. The Box Elders are not one of those bands. In fact, the three members of Box Elders don’t look like they should be in a band together at all. Bassist Clayton McIntyre, with his long flowing blonde mane and his tasselled leather waistcoat, tells me that he is the reincarnation of original Metallica bassist Cliff Burton. A little spooky when you discover that he was born on the day Cliff died. Clayton rocks and headbangs his way through the set while brother Jeremiah, on lead guitar looks a little more subdued in a Tom Waits-esque fedora. At the back Goldberg sweats it out with his multi instrument ensemble giving a performance that is so energetic it would be equally at home on the Baltimore electro scene.

Cliff Burton:



It is a pleasure to watch the Box Elders performing their lo-fi, ramshackle brand of noise pop. Although incongruous each member brings their own unique energy to the band. The songs have a tongue and cheek irreverence about them and Jeremiah introduces one song by explaining, ‘This is a sad song about loving someone who can’t love you back. It’s called necrophilia.’
The song Dave samples Jonathan Richman’s Egyptian Reggae and, like Richman, the Box Elders make smile inducing, quirky and uplifting music.





They ended the set with cover of Teenage Kicks by The Undertones which they dedicated to their road manager ‘who hates everything apart from this song'. It was a brilliantly upbeat cover that was bound to raise a smile out of even the most hard to please of roadies.

http://www.myspace.com/boxelders

When The Going Gets Tough - Ten Songs To Save Your Life

Happy Halloween! How The Cramps put the Psycho into Rockabilly

Formed in 1976 by husband and wife duo Lux Interior and Poison Ivy, The Cramps pioneered a ghoulish new brand of rock 'n' roll known as psychobilly. They took all the best elements of rockabilly, garage and surf music and steeped them in fetishism, Horror, 50's kitsch and B-movie clichés.

They covered rockabilly standards and masterfully subverted them with lashings of leather, blood curdling screams and the eerily distinctive sound of the psychobilly guitar.







With one foot in the past and one foot in the rock 'n' roll apocalypse they resurrected ? Mark & the Mysterians garage classic 96 Tears in the monstrous form of Human Fly...





...and turned Fever, originally made famous by Peggy Lee, into a haunting graveyard anthem.






With song titles like Bikini Girls With Machine Guns and I Was A Teenage Werewolf The Cramps inhabited a lusty, transgressive, go-go dancing world.




Unfortunately, lead singer, Lux Interior passed away in February of this year but I'm sure that if you look hard enough you'll still be able to find his spirit gyrating at a Zombie Dance somewhere this Halloween....

The Felice Brothers with support A.A. Bondy @ Shepherd's Bush Empire 22nd October 2009

I'm looking at my gig notes from last night. When I say 'notes' I mean a few words scribbled on a Ticketmaster envelope. Across the top of the envelope my Felice Brothers gig companion has written 'Born fifty years too late'. Her argument is that this is rehashed Dylan 'for the kids' and that The Felice Brothers don't speak from the heart but instead draw upon tired old clichés of whiskey soaked men on the run. Now although lead singer, Ian Felice, has a voice more than a little similar to Dylan's and the influences of The Band, Woody Guthrie and Townes Van Zandt are all patently clear, I think there is certainly a place for The Felice Brothers in the here and now.

My friend argues that Ian Felice does not delve into himself in his writing. She explains that he is simply living out tired old outlaw fantasies. He writes lyrics such as,
'my teenage daughter’s knocked up'
and what would a scrawny twenty year old know about such things?



Conversely, what I love about The Felice Brothers is their ability to deliver lyrically rich songs which address themes that are universal and timeless. Yes there are the usual references to poverty, prison and infidelity but when do those themes stop being relevant? As long as life involves struggle there will always be a place for music like this. Frankie's Gun is a deathbed song about a man who has been shot by his friend, Frankie. Clearly, this is a fictional narrative but it's rich with idiom,
'There's ten or twenty dollars and there ain't no lesser, that's for to take my sister to the picture show.'

and some brilliantly evoked detail about the friendship between the two men,

'Frankie, you're a friend of mine, got me off a bender after long-legged Brenda died'



They are five piece outfit with only two actual Felice brothers. Ian Felice is on lead vocals and lead guitar and James Felice is on accordion and keyboard. They are joined by David Turbeville on drums, a man called Christmas on bass and Greg Farley, a slightly over enthusiastic Marky Mark-esque character, on fiddle and washboard. Their performance at The Shepherd's Bush Empire was passionate and energetic. They were joined on stage mid-way through their set by support act (and Ian Felice's best friend), the wonderful A.A. Bondy.

Perhaps the set was a tad long and could have been broken up with a bit more interaction with the crowd and a more spaced out encore but they delivered an astounding array of songs from their vast catalogue. The set included the blush inducing Ballad of Lou the Welterweight which my friend strongly objected to on the basis of its crude content and lack of relation to personal experience but which I love because of the sepia drenched image of a fallen boxer it evokes in my mind,

'Before the bell would ring he had a way like Errol Flynn as he sauntered to the ring'



They ended with a cover of Two Hands by Townes Van Zandt. This choice seemed perhaps a little too earnest but it definitely ended the gig on an uplifting note.



A.A. Bondy's support set was one of the highlights of evening. He wandered on to the stage, with his harmonica and guitar, sleeves rolled like a young Springsteen. In a dreamy state, eyes barely open he began with the gorgeous Mightiest of Guns



The rest of the set was filled with beautiful and fragile songs such as When The Devil's Loose. At times the floating quality of the music transformed The Shepherd's Bush Empire into a ship on choppy waters. He joked about Alabama having no culture and explained that when people asked whether he'd been to The Tate on his London visit he replied,

'We just sit in our hotel room and watch YouTubes'