Covers 6: Beck and his gang, Arcade Fire, Decemberists, Spoon, My Morning Jacket

Following up on the covers we threw you last week, here's the next two instalments of Beck's Record Club, more INXS from the Australian band's Kick.

Record Club: INXS "Devil Inside" from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.

Record Club: INXS "New Sensation" from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.

On to other covers, You Ain't No Picasso has continued to share some interesting artists doing other artists, recently unveiling an Arcade Fire collection including their covers of Springsteen, Pixies, Violent Femmes, The Clash, Lennon, and so on. Check out YANP's covers archive for more collections for Spoon, Decemberists, and of Montreal. Some of them are live and the sound quality is not for audiophile purists, but there's definitely some cool and unusual song choices. Hearing The Decemberists and/or Colin Meloy solo doing Robyn Hitchcock, Heart, Bjork, Cheap Trick, Squeeze, The Soft Boys and more makes me appreciate The D's even more. And I love Spoon, so anything's appreciated, but Guided by Voices, The Kinks, Wire, Julian Cope covers, among others? No wonder Spoon turned out so durned good. And included in the My Morning Jacket collection? INXS's Never Tear Us Apart. Is INXS cool these days?

Covers 5: Peter Gabriel Scratches His Itch

photo by mac filko

Whole albums of covers can be hit-and-miss affairs. Bowie's Pin-ups album was pretty good, but it was arguably done at the peak of his powers, whereas Duran Duran put out their covers album, Thank You, after their comeback album. Both records were probably done to get something out there without the pressure of writing enough new material, but Bowie's was full of fire and passion, while Duran Duran's just sounded tired. Def Leppard put one out not too long ago which was similarly mediocre.

So doing a whole album of cover songs can be a risky proposition. It can seem like the easy way out, especially if slavish imitations add nothing to the original versions. Peter Gabriel recently released Scratch My Back, his own covers album. One would be hard-pressed to argue that Gabriel is at his creative apex, since aside from soundtracks, he releases a pop/rock record every 8 or 10 years these days.

Then again, Gabriel is not Duran Duran or Def Leppard, he's always done things in his idiosyncratic way. Scratch My Back is no different,since he decided to record the whole thing with orchestration intead of stock rock instrumentation - no guitars, no drums, for example. Gabriel has also managed to get the artists he's covered to record a Peter Gabriel song, except for David Bowie, who is busy hibernating (supposedly Brian Eno is going to reciprocate in Bowie's stead). So far, Bon Iver has covered Come Talk to Me, Stepehn Merrit (Magnetic Fields) has covered Not One of Us, and Paul Simon has done Biko. I've heard rumblings that Arcade Fire and Radiohead might not get their songs done, but we'll see.




Track Listing (listen here):

Heroes (David Bowie)
The Boy in the Bubble (Paul Simon)
Mirrorball (Elbow)
Flume (Bon Iver)
Listening Wind (Talking Heads)
The Power of the Heart (Lou Reed)
My Body is a Cage (Arcade Fire)
The Book of Love (The Magnetic Fields)
I Think it's Going to Rain Today (Randy Newman)
Apres Moi (Regina Spektor)
Philadelphia (Neil Young)
Street Spirit (Radiohead)



The Book of Love - Magnetic Fields

Peter Gabriel - The Book Of Love by user543929

Street Spirit (Fade Out) - Radiohead

Peter Gabriel - Street Spirit (Fade Out) by v7nce

My Body is a Cage - Arcade Fire

Peter Gabriel - My Body Is A Cage (Arcade Fire Cover) by seriousstache

Heroes - David Bowie

Peter Gabriel - Heroes by MiK*

Peter Gabriel has even covered the Vampire Weekend tune that dropped PG's name into the lyrics, here's Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa.

Hot chip peter gabriel cape cod kwassa kwassa vampire weekend cover by revrev



You can get a free download of Flume here by trading your e-mail address:

Covers 3: Nada Surf on the hi-fi

Nada Surf is one of those bands that became great when I wasn't paying attention. The 1996 album High/Low contained a single, Popular, that pigeon-holed the group for me. With clever, ironic lyrics, chunky guitars and a catchy feel that sat somewhere between tunes like Weezer's Buddy Holly and Nerf Herder's Van Halen, Popular didn't make me a lifelong fan. But in the last few years, I've been catching up on the albums I missed, and every one is full of compelling melodies, strong harmonies, and subtle beauty. I think it's hard to make records this pretty without sounding wimpy, but Nada Surf seem to be carving out their own niche of power pop glory.

Nada Surf are selling their new cover song album, if i had a hi-fi(album art pictured above), at their shows at the moment. The record won't be out for sale anywhere else until June 8th. I love that cover art, don't you? Made for a pretty gatefold sleeve, looks like, but I don't know if it will be released in that form (gatefold, I mean - it is coming out on vinyl).

Track listing:

Electrocution (Bill Fox)

Enjoy the Silence (Depeche Mode)

Love Goes On (The Go-Betweens)

Janine (Arthur Russell)

You Were So Warm (Dwight Twilley)

Love and Anger (Kate Bush)

The Agony of Laffitte (Spoon)

Bye Bye Beaute (Coralie Clement)

Question (Moody Blues)

Bright Side (Soft Pack)

Evolution (Mercromina)

I Remembered What I Was Going to Say (The Silly Pillows)


Nada Surf - Electrocution by Royalty Central

This OMD cover's not on if i had a hi-fi, but it's pretty good.

If you leave- nada surf by 0agal0

The songs below are Nada Surf originals, but Scruffy loves them, maybe you will too.

01-Nada Surf-See These Bones by felixrey

Nada Surf - Weightless by ByronMittens

Nada surf's web site will let you hear a demo of Depeche Mode's Enjoy the Silence, too.

Covers 2: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists

photo by Tom Brogan

You can always tell fellow music obsessed types by the music they listen to themselves. Ted Leo clearly loves music, as evidenced by the gargantuan amount of cover songs he's unleashed upon us fellow music geeks. You Ain't No Picasso has amassed a startling collection of covers you can snatch up here. How did he know I love Nick Lowe? How did he guess my fascination with Split Enz? Has Mr. Leo been spying on me and my current fixation with The Replacements? Maybe not, but if he starts doing Son Volt, Hardship Post, and Robyn Hitchcock or the Soft Boys, I'm gonna get worried. Here's a sprinkling, download them all and much, much more at YANP.

So It Goes (Nick Lowe)




Six Months in a Leaky Boat (Split Enz)- Ted Leo and the Pharmacists




Can't Hardly Wait (The Replacements)




I'm Looking Through You (The Beatles)




Joey (Concrete Blonde)




Outdoor Miner (Wire)




The Onion's A/V. Club are putting 25 video cover versions out there, and Ted Leo did the first. Tears for Fears? The other covers sure look interesting, with Scruffy favourites like R.E.M., Guided By Voices, and Pavement all making the cut.



Ted Leo and the Pharmacists have a new record out called The Brutalist Bricks. Here's a couple from that one.




Ted Leo And The Pharmacists - Even Heroes Have To Die by Royalty Central


Ted Leo - The Mighty Sparrow by nmemagazine

Covers 1: Bill Janovitz, Part time Man of Rock

I've never devoted a whole post to someone else's blog, but Bill Janovitz's part of our digital world has often had a stranglehold on my attention. Janovitz may be mainly known as the frontman of Buffalo Tom. Few people seem to know that he has continued to make great records; for example, his first solo cd, Lonesome Billy, should be hailed as an American classic. And Buffalo Tom has put out some good music fairly recently too.

But Janovitz's blog, Bill Janovitz - Part Time Man of Rock, is a mixture of good blogging, great art, fine writing, occasional history lessons (always relevant), and personal experiences, and it always comes back to the music. Well-chosen covers for his Cover of the Week (The Replacements, Radiohead, Big Star, Elvis Costello, Neil Young, and so on) acoustic versions of Buffalo Tom tunes, some requests, it's all good, all free mp3s. I wanted to post this quite a while ago, but Janovitz suffered a personal tragedy recently, and it didn't seem right for me to be pointing at him or pointing you towards him.

But now you should do yourself a favour and check his blog out. You can also buy his music or his book here, you might even be able to buy the t-shirt pictured above and support his blog (try the link on the right side).

I Ain't that Lonely Yet- Dwight Yoakam Cover (download here)



American Girl - Tom Petty cover (download here)



Hardly Getting Over It - Husker du cover (download here)





Shoulder (from Lonesome Billy)



Gaslight (from Lonesome Billy)



Girl's Club (from Lonesome Billy)



Red Balloon (from Lonesome Billy)





Buffalo Tom - Three Easy Pieces (download here)