Archie and the Bunkers
Play the Damned EP
scum stats: my copy on black, apparently there’s a limited quantity on black with red and yellow splatter
If middle fingers on the front cover didn’t piss me off or have me rolling my eyes, then that’s saying something.
What can I say, I’m a sucker for younger folks playing rock and roll. The drums/organ, big brother/little brother duo of Archie and the Bunkers are good. Their heads seem on straight, they’re influenced by all the right shit from the past. And I honestly think that if they keep at it, they will make something GREAT.
As for Damned covers, they dug a little below the surface, ignoring the obvious covers like “New Rose” or “Neat Neat Neat” and I have to give ‘em credit for that. I never spent much time with the Damned, really just a little bit with the first album. So besides the lead-off track, these songs are all kinda fresh to me.
I think the band is still figuring things out and I predict in another year, two tops, they will put out a masterpiece. Until then, this record (and the rest of their increasingly-expanding catalog) serve as moderate placeholders.
In my never-ending quest to keep you weirdos engaged, post in the comments about your favorite releases where one artist covers exclusively another artist. Don’t just LIST something, convince me as to why it is important. Can be Pussy Galore doing Exile, Sonic Youth doing the Fall, Dylan (or Willie) doing Sinatra, whatever. Maybe turn me on to something I’m unaware of? Anyway, most enlightening comment (as determined by me) gets an original Sub Pop pressing of the White Stripes covering the songs of Captain Beefheart. See the connection there? Deadline is a week from today, so get your shit in here already.
Leslie Odom Jr’s self titled album is amazing and full of Jazz covers of Nat King Cole, Johnny Mercer and others, along with some songs from musicals and movies like Sally (look for the silver lining) and Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory (cheer up charlie). I saw him live a little over a year ago when he came to my city and the one night he was there just so happened to land on my birthday and I was able to get a copy of the album signed by him. He performed a lot from the album and his other work, and ended the night with a cover of Without You from RENT (which was the first musical he fell in love with and later got a role in as he told us in between songs) which was amazing and sat in my head for months. A few months ago he recorded and released his cover of that song as a single and it’s just as good as it was that night.
I mean, it has to be Vitamin String Quartet. Hands down. They thing is, they’ve done so many great albums that every human can find one that sends their soul flying. Queen, Michael Jackson, STP, AFI… their arrangements are beautiful and remind us that good music is good music, regardless of the genre conventions that are applied to it. When you strip it down to four string instruments, you experience the soul of the music.
The String Quartet Tribute to Nirvana Is the album to start with, in my opinion. It’s haunting and lovely and everything it should be. It’s what Tori Amos tried but failed to do.
Dinosaur Jr.’s cover of The Cure’s Just like Heaven. Beautiful guitars. Amazibg feedback. J Masic’s iconic voice. And the cherry on top is the demonic “Youuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!!” An original take on a classic song that has in turn become iconic and classic itself.
I was literally just thinking about how awesome Ryan Adams’ cover of all of Taylor Swift’s 1989 was… like the Stripes’ cover of Beefheart, it made me think about how songs exist on their own and can be interpreted very differently. I’m not a huge T Swift fan but hearing those songs reworked and stripped down to a more singer-songwriter focus made them real and showed how strong they were even without all the A-List production.
Roman GianArthur has an EP titled OK Lady, where he covers a handful of Radiohead songs, mashed with some D’Angelo, peppered with his own, great guitar skills. I just saw Radiohead in Detroit a couple of weeks ago, heard the songs live, in front of me, performed by Radiohead, and still got in my car after the show and put this EP on. What I’m trying to say is that I prefer these to the originals. I’m sorry. They’re that good.
Zakk Sabbath
Though not typically something I would ever listen to, one particularly amazing collections of covers I have ever heard is this album Radiodread (yes its suppose to have a d in it) by Easy Star All-Stars. This album takes Ok Computer by Radiohead, which as I am sure you know is an absolute masterpiece, and manages to find a way to succesfully reimagine every track on the amazing album. Reggae, Jazz, all infused with the alt-rock tracks that were themes to the 90’s like Paranoid Android, Let Down, and the HIGHLY relevent for our country No Surprises. I have always felt, writing amazing songs is an extremely amazing talent that very few people have the talent to do, but to be able to take an already amazing song or album and not only cover it, but make it your own with a new rendition is absolutley incredible and even more rare.
There are a bunch of official and unofficial covers of John Mayer covering Hendrix. Wind Cries Mary, Bold as Love, Wait til Tomorrow, All Along the Watchtower, just to mention a couple. There are few musicians that have the musicianship to be able to do so at Jimi’s caliber. Beware of the JM’s official live cut of “Bold as Love” it has an eye rolling speech in the middle. Anyway check em out, won’t regret it.
One of my personal favorite albums of alll time is Beck doing Yanni’s Live at the Acropolis. Somehow everyone knows the Yanni record because we all used to watch too much PBS. Beck (and Thurston Moore!) make the album sound familiar and totally different all at once. The opening track Santorini is a real standout. Completing the package is the pencil art reconstruction of the album cover. The only sad thing about it is that it was never physically produced and only available on his website. Seriously worth a listen though.
My high school history teacher (1994 ish) was the guitarist in a band called Squatweiler. They did an amazing cover of Call Me by Blondie some years later. I’m still into the band to this day and owe a large part of my love for the “scene” from those early Squatweiler shows where attendance earned extra credit.