“BERNIE RHODES KNOWS DON’T ARGUE!”
Y’know that first line of The Specials‘ (AKA The Special A.K.A.) Gangsters was always an inaudible mystery to me. For those of us in the US, the Chrysalis Records domestic was a cheaply released piece of monkey mess that didn’t bother to include the lyric sheet, so all I heard was ‘HASHJIMOJIMO DOEARGUE!’. Funny enough on the back of the record was a small line that said ‘For lyrics sheet please send a self-addressed stamped envelope to..’. So I sent one, six years after the fact and still dying to know what like 90% of what the hell they were shouting. Even funnier was that Chrysalis eventauly replied, randomly enough like 5 YEARS LATER, on a letterhead that had been re-xeroxed so many times it resembled the Magna Carta. ‘Thank you LEOPOLD STOTCH for inquiring about THE SPECIALS LYRIC SHEETS. Sorry at this time we are currently out. In the future, should more become available we will send one to you.’ I think in some tiny part of my mind, every time I go to the mailbox now Iim still secretly holding out that it will arrive, 20 something years later.
So long story made short, Bernie Rhodes was their strong armed, strong willed manager, more infamously known as the manager and unofficial 5th wheel of The Clash.
Virtually all ska bands feel the pull of doing a cover and The Specials were no different. Today’s pick Gangsters, was itself a reworking of an earlier Prince Buster track called Al Capone, but that’s a different spoon to bend. Here we have 8 covers of The Specials’ debut. Kicking off we have a cheeky country & western version by The Hyperions and an electro/ska cut by Citizen King. No one sings it quite like original lead Terry Hall, a fact not lost on either UK big beaters The Dub Pistols or pint size perky pop sensation (and daughter of cockney royalty Keith Allen) Lily Allen who invite him to guest. And lastly like a cover trapped in an echo chamber we see original lead singers Terry Hall and Neville Staple revisiting old pastures as the Fun Boy Three as well as Neville on a solo tip.

The Hyperions – Gangsters
Citizen King - Gangsters
Dub Pistols (Feat. Terry Hall) – Gangsters
Dub Pistols (Feat. Terry Hall) – Gangsters (Live At Bestival 2005)
Lily Allen (Feat. Terry Hall) - Gangsters (Live at Glastonbury 2007)
Lily Allen – Gangsters (Live In Brazil)
Fun Boy Three – Gangsters (Live on The Old Grey Whistle Test)
Neville Staple – Gangsters

Enjoy!
LS

PS Versions Galore Facebook Fanclub got some awesome and rare bonuses up on the wall for ya.

“I love Frank Sinatra and the American crooners and romantic jazz in general. I was looking for a rhyme to ‘area’ and here it came. What you don’t know, is when I said ‘He’s dead’, I really thought he was… A friend told me it was funny because he’s still alive… I couldn’t believe it and felt guilty, especially when he died three months later…”
Miss Kittin – (from pHinnWeb)

Pioneering electroclash pin-ups Miss Kittin & The Hacker, and their crack at the bourgeoise Frank Sinatra, get the cover treatment today courtesy of new electro Parisian punk hot-ness on the block, Pravda.

Pravda – Frank Sinatra

Enjoy!
LS

Here’s the song that coined the phrase ‘Word Up!’, Word Up! by Cameo (not that anybody still uses it or anything). To this day I swear I still get the ‘Cherry Coke’ commercial version of  this song stuck in my head.
And now, if it’s not painfully obvious I was a child of the 80s, I’ll press on. 19-piece strong Austrian music collective Wet Cookies takes a break from ‘soul meets jazz meets dub’ for this cheeky electro-pop cover of Cameo’s finest.

Wet Cookies – Word Up

Enjoy!
LS

Here’s a little synth-pop for your Saturday, France’s Celluloide covering
Light From A Dead Star by sadly defunct 90s shoegaze outfit Lush. Was fortunate enough to interview Miki and Emma when I used to work for a small music video show back in the day. Both sweet as hell. They had brought along a Gameboy and all three of us took turns playing Mario Brothers. Miki whooped my ass. Fun!

Celluloide - Light From A Dead Star

Enjoy!
LS

Embarrassingly enough The Jesus & Mary Chain were one of those bands that I got into as a freshman in high school based purely on their hairdos and name. I took one look at a pic of them in the NME and thought ‘Fuck me, I’m buying THAT. Whatever they are they gotta sound friggin awesome, right?’. But that’s not the embarrassing part. So I ran down to my local mom & pop record store, and managed to find a handful of various singles (as Psychocandy hadn’t yet been released). So I threw it on the turntable and immediately I was dumbstruck ‘It sounds awesome, but what the FUCK is that grinding noise in the background?’. I promptly switch out the record for one of the other singles I bought. ‘Double-fuck, there it is again.’ And popping on the last single I bought didn’t fair any better. ‘What the fuck is going on here? Those cheap limey bastards keep pressing their music on crap vinyl.’
So angrily back to the record store I stomped with ‘crap’-vinyl in tow.
“I think these records are defective, theres some sort of loud hissing sound going on”
The surly, 20-something record clerk put on the record,  looking at me somewhat nonplussed. ‘Sigh. That’s the way it’s SUPPOSED to sound, it’s called ‘feedback’.”
Seeing that he was trying his damndest not to add the word ‘idiot’ to the end of that sentence, I quickly, and quite lamely, tried to backtrack.
“Uh, no no no. I wasn’t talking about the, er, ‘feel-back’, I was, uh, talking about another noise. Er, it must be my needle. Nevermind.” And quickly away I skulked, face redder than a dingo’s derriere. I must have avoided that store for like a year after that.
So far less embarrassing,  I got some great covers of JAMC‘s You Trip Me Up, albeit minus the ‘feel-back’. Kicking off we have original C-86 alums The Shop Assistants and while on the subject of twee, we also have a couple of sweet versions from The Arrogants as well as the The Cat’s Miaow. Buddy Greenbloom turns out a fairly standard acoustic rendition and lastly we have a little bit of Argentinian punk from Yonkis.

The Shop Assistants – You Trip Me Up
The Arrogants – You Trip Me Up
The Cat’s Miaow – You Trip Me Up
Buddy Greenbloom – You Trip Me Up
Yonkis – You Trip Me Up

Enjoy!
LS

There’s plenty of reasons that Jockey Full of Bourbon, by Tom Waits, is a big favorite around the Versions household. Not the least that both Tom and Jockey were featured in perennial Versions fave film, Jim Jarmusch’s Down By Law. That goes ditto for finding out that Jockey was recorded in a basement a block from where I used to live in NYC (near Horatio & Washington). I also think it features Tom at his most delightfully dark; a New Orleans gothic complete with woodblock percussion and packed with enough dive bar references to choke Bukowski.
While I can’t vouch for all of today’s covers, one of those rare instances of quantity v. quality at Versions, I will kick off with my faves. We got four good rockabilly/big guitar covers courtesy of Jerry Williams, Carlos And The Banditos, The Blue Hawaiians and The Bottletones. Channeling their inner bad girls quite sublimely are Korean jazz expat now living in Paris, Youn Sun Nah and Meret Becker & Ars Vitali. And lastly, if for no other reason then he’s done a Polish version, Kazik‘s Bourbon Mnie Wypełnia gives gypsie rockers like Gogol Bordello a run for their ruble. As for the rest, completists, you’re on your own.

Jerry Williams – Jockey Full Of Bourbon
Carlos and The Bandidos – Jockey Full Of Bourbon
The Blue Hawaiians – Jockey Full Of Bourbon
The Bottletones – Jockey Full Of Bourbon
Meret Becker & Ars Vitalis – Jockey Full Of Bourbon
Youn Sun Nah – Jockey Full Of Bourbon
Kazik – Bourbon Mnie Wypełnia (Jockey Full Of Bourbon)
Los Lobos – Jockey Full Of Bourbon
Steve Evans Quartet – Jockey Full Of Bourbon
John Hammond – Jockey Full Of Bourbon
Billy’s Band – Jockey Full Of Bourbon
The Silver Hearts – Jockey Full Of Bourbon
Claudia Bettinaglio – Jockey Full Of Bourbon
Moxy Früvous – Jockey Full Of Bourbon
Eric McFadden – Jockey Full Of Bourbon
Joe Bonamassa – Jockey Full Of Bourbon
Fat Vinny & The Wiseguys – Jockey Full Of Bourbon

Enjoy!
LS

You name the hip-hop act, they sampled it; Nautilus by Bob James is probably the most plundered track in the history of sampling, rearing it’s head from Public Enemy to Slick Rick and from Wu-Tang to many a downtempo act like Kruder & Dorfmeister and DJ Food. So if your MPC has grown weary of pilfering James’ original, here’s some new beat fodder.
As always I’m going to play favorites, The Simonsound make a return to VG with a quirky, Arp/Moog influenced rendition and we got two reggae cuts from the likes of  The Gorgones (AKA the always awesome Taggy Matcher) and Blundetto. Also worth a mention is a great deconstructed version by the aptly named Nautilis (sic) and the rest pretty much tow the original line, but are no less funky.

The Simonsound – Nautilus
The Gorgones – Nautilus
Blundetto – Nautilus
Nautilis – Nautilus
Gramatik – New Nautilus
Nicolay – Nautilus
Nuyorican Soul – Nautilus (Mawtilus)
The Caltones – Nautilus (Live at WPRK)
Dave McMurray – Nautilus

Enjoy!
LS

PS Versions Galore Facebook Fanclub got some bonus beats for y’all, you know where to look.

A bit late to the D.A.N.C.E. I know, but here’s a couple of unplugged versions of Justice‘s finest to cut a rug to this weekend. Hawa serves hers up Northern Soul/Neo-Stax style while Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly prove that if you have an acoustic guitar, then you could say that you were, a techno singer. (Sorry bad Smiths joke thrown on the end there).

Hawa – D.A.N.C.E.
Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly - D.A.N.C.E.

Enjoy!
LS

Conquering myself

Until I see another hurdle approaching

Say we can, say we will

Not just another drop in the ocean

PS For those members of the Versions Galore Facebook Fanclub who don’t remember this song the first time round, got the original hanging on the wall for ya.