Duck and covers
It’s one of my days where I’m feeling incredibly lazy so you know what that means: a post loaded with cover versions!
MP3 Belle & Sebastian – Whiskey In The Jar (expired) (Thin Lizzy)
Some may consider this to be close to blasphemy. Others will think that it’s awesome. I’m in the latter camp, largely because I love what Belle and Sebastian can do with just about anything, and also because I don’t really like the older versions of this song all that much. I can appreciate it, but I don’t particularly like it. It’s not the kind of thing that suits B&S particularly well, and I could never imagine an original B&S song sounding anything even remotely like this, but that does help make it all the more enjoyable. One of the best things about covers is when a band can take a song that doesn’t suit them in the least and make it work for them, and that’s what we have here.
MP3 Trip Shakespeare – Dead Set On Destruction (expired) (Husker Du)
I’m a huge fan of Trip Shakespeare, and honestly believe they were one of the greatest bands that never became huge. For those unaware of their brilliance, Trip Shakespeare were an experimental-pop-rock band from Minneapolis who put out a number of albums in the late 80s and early 90s before being dropped by their label and splitting up. Their members went on to form Semisonic, The Flops, and a bunch of other solo releases. While all of these were also good, nothing ever came close to the material Trip Shakespeare were putting out. In fact, I might actually do a full post on them in the near future. Anyways, this is a cover of a Husker Du song, but I can’t tell you how it compares to the original as I don’t really know it. I’m only a casual Husker Du listener, so don’t really know anything about this song other than this song is pretty rocking, which works well enough for me.
MP3 Ben Folds – In Between Days (expired) (The Cure)
We can’t have a covers post without an entry from Mr Folds, can we? Ben Folds’ cover of The Cure’s ‘In Between Days’ is carried out perfectly, in that if I didn’t already know that this was a cover, I wouldn’t question for a second that it was an original Folds song. He takes an already excellent song and makes it his own. It’s an energetic, pounding piano tour de force that suits Folds so well.
MP3 Of Montreal – Know Your Onion! (expired) (The Shins)
Oh how these “cool” indie bands like to cover each other. It’s certainly not a bad thing, although if I’m honest, this isn’t the greatest example of it. Of Montreal and The Shins are both great bands, but this cover lacks something. I’m not sure what it is, maybe it’s how close it stays to the original. I kind of expect Of Montreal to do something daring or make it more manic or something else to give it something of a hook, but this is a pretty by the numbers cover. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still very good, but could have done with that little extra to make it unique.
And that’s it for today. I’ve noticed quite an upsurge in traffic today, which is pretty cool. So a big hello to all of the new readers I seem to have picked up in the past 24 hours, and I hope you enjoy what you find here. I guess this is it for today, although there’s a certain irony that these “lazy” posts seem to end up taking longer to put together than the regular ones. Oh, and before I go, I’d just like to share this: Last night I ordered just what might be the greatest t-shirt ever created – The Communist Party. You get where the title came from now? Communists.. Cold War.. duck and cover.. cover songs.. I’m far too dorky for my own good at times.
Wow. Those Trip Shakespeare guys manage to make an iconic song sound like bad 80s Hair-Metal…
Cheers, Netzhaut.
i totally agree with you about trip shakespeare, especially lulu a unique and staggering classic like no other. i met dan wilson and john munson when semisonic first played in london. i’d dont a very positive rewiew of their second album for mojo so they were very pleased to meet me. i told them both how much i adored the trips, which they were both chuffed about and john told me trip shakespeare never really broke up but just seemed to drift apart at the time. Matt wilson played with semisonic on their last tour and a couple of years ago they did play together in minneapolis so theres always a chance they’ll play again. a few weeks after i met them dan sent me a copy of the live trips ep and john sent me a mixing board of trip shakespeare. live the band are tremendous and they do lots of unreleased tracks that never made it onto albums.
the band definately deserve a full post by you i think.
“Whiskey in the Jar” is a traditional Irish song.
It is Thin Lizzy’s version that does something radical with the original. The B&S version is closer in spirit to the folk version.
PS Thank you for the mp3s. Big love and all that.
PPS Pulp’s version of “WITJ” is also good.
The original of Dead Set on Destruction was off of Husker Du’s 1985 release and 1st on the WarnerBros. label; Candy Apple Grey. This was one of Grant Hart’s songs and he takes vocal leads on the original version. This Trip Shakespeare version is not even close to the strength of the original.
Right on. Trip Shakespeare was quite a band. Great live shows, and I was fortunate enough to see many in Chicago during the 80’s.
Does anyone know where I could find downloads of any live TS shows?