Electronica covers. Or more precisely, people covering electronica. I think I can count all of them on one, all ages wristbanded, hand. Isn’t it the future dammit!?! You think 20 years down the road musicians would be getting all soft and fuzzy about VooDoo Ray, Nude Photo, We Call It Acieeed, Belfast, Song to the Siren, and uh, Smack My Bitch Up. Isn’t that what the ‘future’ was supposed to be all about? Sigh. Instead we just keep getting cover after predicatable cover of 60′s/70′s washups like Dusty Springfield, Neil Young and Bob, for fuck’s sake not again, Dylan.
As you can tell I’m not a Dylan guy, I’m Just Not That Into Him, thank you. If there is a ‘Dylan’ to be backed here, it’s New York’s The Dylan Group. Think of them as a looser, more laid back Tortoise. With vibraphone. (courtesy of Adam Pierce who also also moonlights in another amazing post rock outfit, Mice Parade).
So here they are, wading through electronica’s seldom covered waters with their vibra-riffic take on The Orb‘s Towers of Dub. The only disappointing thing I can say about it is the absence of ‘Is that Haile Selassie?’ and ‘Hello, I’m Craig!’.

Enjoy!
LS

The Dylan Group - Towers of Dub

Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight we have for you a TRIPLE threat match!
SEE! Three contenders perform Some Velvet Morning!
HEAR! Unique spins on a psychedelic cowboy cult classic.
THRILL! As they all do there best imitations of Las Vegas on a barbiturate bender era Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood (R.I.P.).

As the ref mentions above, here are three unique stabs at Some Velvet Morning.

First out the gate , is ex-Birthday Party six finger samurai, Rowland S Howard and Lydia Lunch‘s version. Howard still sounds like he has some Birthday left in him, whereas Lunch, wisely drops her trademark snarl for child-like innocence, even if it’s of the haunted Flowers in the Attic paperback cover-variety.
(SIDE NOTE: for you P2P’ers out there, this version often floats around the net mis-attributed to Lydia Lunch and Nick Cave)

Next is criminally forgotten shoegazer band Slowdive‘s take. Rolling, lush feedback and softer than Charmin vocals make this seem the least contrived of the lot. Ironically they would drop this feedback down the road for more cowboy-like qualities when they became Mojave 3.

Lastly is Doherty arm candy Kate Moss and Primal Screamer Bobby Gillespie‘s electro-sleaze version. With all the drugs those two have absorbed over the last two decades, they make good contenders for the throne of 60′s Sin City excess.
Speaking of Gillespie, I thought this would be an opportune time to throw my favorite, but totally obscure, joke in here:

Q: How many members of Primal Scream does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: None! They just get Andrew Weatherall to do it for them.

Sorry if that one goes over your head. If it did, no worry, the only people who’d get that joke would be Brion Paul and the entire staff at the NME.

Lydia Lunch with Rowland S. Howard – Some Velvet Morning
Slowdive – Some Velvet Morning
Primal Scream with Kate Moss – Some Velvet Morning

“Wal-Mart won’t stock our album… well, ya know what? Fuck Wal-Mart!”
- Jake Shears – Scissor Sisters

Ah Controversy. Controversy. Controversy. If there’s one rule of pop-success that Malcolm Mclaren taught us, it’s that controversy sells. Look at Winehouse, Doherty, Spears, er… GG Allin!
But the other unwritten rule of success, at least according to KLF’s genius music guide The Manual:How to Have a Number One Hit the Easy Way, is by doing a cover.
Scissor Sisters had a bit of a slow start. After intially getting zero recognition in US, the UK took notice of SS when they scored a major hit in the clubs with their cover of Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb. All downhill, outside the US at least, after that. And while they’re doing just fine with their own songs now thank you, it looks like they wanted to give the covers game another whirl with their we’re-a-little-bit-country-little-bit-rock-n-roll version of Franz Ferdinand’s ‘Take Me Out’.
On a personal note, I love modern day covers. Covering classics are easy, classics are already hardwired into our head. Covering the here and now, is all about timing and hedging your bets that people will either recognize or care for your concievable upstaging.
Never mind the didactics, here’s Scissor Sisters – Take Me Out

Enjoy!
LS

If Versions Galore were to have a patron saint(s), it would no doubt be Nouvelle Vague. They took the usual ‘look-how-cheeky-we-are-we-covered-an-80′s-tune!’ ten steps further with their complete bossa n’ beach ditty overhauls of the gel and mousse set, setting the bar pretty high for other would be cover stars.
While their takes on Just Can’t Get Enough and Love Will Tear Us Apart may be a little too low hanging fruit for my taste, they get a free pass over cheeky renditions of Too Drunk To Fuck and Friday Night, Saturday Morning. And if you’re like me you probably lie awake at night, like a half crazed fantasy-baseball fanatic, dreaming up songs they should cover for their next one.
While nightime prayers for TV Party, Go! and Synchronicity II have so far fallen on deaf headphones, they have been testing out “new” non-album material on the road.
So here are two sublime, unreleased takes of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s BBC banned classic, Relax.

Enjoy!
LS

Nouvelle Vague – Relax (Paris 2006)
Nouvelle Vague – Relax (Hamburg 2006)

Over the years I’ve amassed a fairly large collection of Joy Division covers (This post will be the first of many). And while I’m aware that Ceremony is technically filed in the bin marked ‘New Order‘, it was still penned and performed by the late Ian Curtis and marks the awkward transition period between JD and NO. What I find so fascinating about this track is, for a Joy Division tune, it’s an uplifting affair. For the briefest of seconds you can hear a glimpse of light in it’s guitars and a sliver of buoyancy in it’s voice; as if somehow signaling a what might have been an auspicious change in tact, but unfortunately we all know how the story ends. Ceremony also marks the ultimate baton pass; take this new direction, New Order, and run with it.

So here’s a triple header. Radiohead, Xiu Xiu and my personal version fave, Galaxie 500 who knock the pitch down to dramatic effect.

Enjoy!
LS

PS whoever stole Ian’s headstone, return that shiznit ASAP (or at least let me make an offer )

Radiohead – Ceremony
Xiu Xiu – Ceremony
Galaxie 500 – Ceremony

Confession: As a child, Joe Jackson‘s Steppin‘ Out grated on my nerves like no one’s business. It had found it’s way onto the ‘Lite’ rock station my mother listened to, played ad naseum, sandwiched between Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street and Chuck Mangione’s Feels So Good.
It’s genius wouldn’t hit me until decades later when I started djing Shibuya-Kei-pater-familia Fantastic Plastic Machine‘s version. It’s loungier than the original starting point made a nice transition into one of two possible outcomes, hyper electronic bossa nova or jazzy drum and bass.
Needless to say it grew on me and I dropped my snarky little attitude for the original.
But I digress, here is The Fantastic Plastic Machine – Stepping Out

Enjoy!
LS

What better way to kick off my spanking new blog, than with my all time favorite cover version, and quite possibly my all time favorite song: Colourbox – Baby I Love You So
This song, originally by Jacob Miller was made famous by it’s more infamous b-side, Augustus Pablo’s sublime dub version King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown (which is a whole other blogworthy article in itself).
10 years on in 1986, 4AD’s lone dance outfit, Colourbox (who would later go on to form M/A/R/R/S) took their highly stylized crack at it, conceptually-speaking, by retaining the sweet soulful vocals of the original (sung by the exquisite Lorita Grahame), the experimental dub technique of the producer and fusing it quite randomly, with samples from Escape from New York (see attached equation).
Baby I Love You So, with it’s heavy leaning on electronic basslines and other digital effects, foreshadowed the nascent electronic-dub movement by a good 5 years; try slipping this in after an Orb, Thievery Corporation or Rockers Hi Fi track and see if anyone notices.

Enjoy! (and play this one L O U D !)
LS