Category: Cover Versions

Cover Versions, Sampled

Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that gun in your hand?

Craig McAllister

Don’t point it at wee Chris Martin. He didnae mean it! I see gazillion-selling guitar virtuoso and purveyor of a thousand beedly-beedly-beedlies Joe Satriani is wanting to take Coldplay to court. He thinks that their track ‘Viva La Vida’ has “copied and incorporated substantial original portions” from his track ‘If I Could Fly’, released in 2004. Satriani’s lawsuit demands damages and “any and all profits” related to the alleged copyright infringement. Of course. You be judge and jury. Take a listen…..

Joe. Coldplay. See? A wee bit samey. In much the same way that the Red Hot Chili Peppers “borrowed” some of Tom Petty’s ‘Mary Jane’s Last Dance’ for their own ‘Dani California’. “Borrowed” mmm hmmm, or indeed “totally ripped-off“. To these ears, the sock-jocks had much more of a case to answer than Coldplay, but old hippy-spirited Tom Petty let them off, saying that this kind of thing happens all the time. Of course it does. Led Zeppelin were absolute masters at it. Like the Viking warriors they holler about with great bluster on ‘Immigrant Song‘, they raped, pillaged and plundered the whole of the Mississippi Delta for much of their output. And they even had the cheek to put ‘Page and Plant’ in the brackets after the song. I’ve written about this a couple of times before, if you’re really interested. There’s tons of cases of musical plagiarism. There are probably whole blogs dedicated to this subject. At the very least, Wikipedia is a good first stop.

Interestingly, Joe Satriani used to be a poodle-haired rock God. Now he looks a bit like an extra from The Matrix.

joe-satriani-hairjoe-satriani1

And only a couple of years ago, Chris Martin was a poodle-haired rock God who’d even managed to snare his own Hollywood wife. In more recent snaps, it looks like he’s heading down the same extra-from-The-Matrix road as Satriani.

chris_martinchris-martin-guitar

Joe. Coldplay. See? A wee bit samey. Round our way, Satriani is rhyming slang. In much the same way as Shereen Nanjiani, Giorgio Armani or chicken biryani. I think you know what I mean.

Bonus track. Here‘s the bleepy, slightly ambient wahp remix of ‘Viva La Vida’. It’s no’ very good. Nothing like chicken biryani at all.

Cover Versions, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find

Strummertime blues

Craig McAllister

Last night’s excellent BBC4 scheduling of The Clash documentary ‘Westway To The World’ and the hour’s worth of live footage that followed it had me going all misty eyed and regretful. To paraphrase Kevin Keegan, I would have LOVED to have seen The Clash live in action on stage. LOVED it. Sadly, age decrees that this was never to be, although I did once see yer actual Clash in the flesh in the strangest of situations.

clash

Woo oo oo oo! Can you feel the force?

Clashophiles will no doubt correct me here regarding accuracy of the dates, but my story concerns the summer of 1982 (I think) when I would have been 11. John Menzies in Irvine Mall had a huge ‘Combat Rock’ display in the window and The Clash were playing at the Magnum Leisure Centre, 20 minutes walk away. It was a roasting hot day and my brother and I were wandering up the mall. Right across from John Menzies there was a huge something going on. 4 or 5 guys dressed head to toe in denim, leather, shades and the coolest haircuts this 11 year old had ever seen were surrounded by some of Irvine’s finest ambassadors. I recognised someone who was in 6th year at my school amongst it all. He seemed quite excited. “It’s the fuckin’ Clash! The fuckin’ Clash! For fuck sakes, it’s the fuckin’ Clash!” I looked at the Combat Rock display. I looked at the guys in leather and denim. So it was. It was The Fuckin’ Clash. Being 11, it didn’t have the same seismic effect on me, but I still remember it well. I mentioned this story to my brother about a month ago. He remembers nothing about it at all. But then, he was 9 years old.

Round about 1989 I started playing in bands and one of Irvine’s elder statesmen of rock told me how Mick Jones had given him a mohican in the dressing room after the Magnum show. Call me shallow, but I’m still dead impressed when I hear stories like that. By this point in my life I was a seasoned gig goer. The Pogues at The Barrowlands in December 1989 was one that sticks in mind for a number of reasons. Kirsty MacColl came on to sing Fairytale of New York. Joe Strummer played London Calling and I Fought The Law with the band during the encores.

strummer-shane

The Barrowlands was jumping so much that night that I almost fainted. I sat on the floor at the end with my pal until the place had just about emptied. We went to the front of the stage where the roadies were dismantling the equipment. Strummer’s guitar was right there, in front of me. “S’cuse me mate. Can I have that plectrum?” I pointed to Strummer’s famous Telecaster. “‘Koff“. I didn’t give up. “C’mon!” He chose to ignore me. “Pleeeeease? Thanks!” This time, the roadie looked at me with total contempt, turned his back on me and pulled the plectrum out of the scratch plate. Fuck! He pulled the plectrum out of the scratch plate!!! “‘Koff” he grunted as he handed it to me. Joe Strummer’s plectrum! In keeping with his down to earth image, this was no gold-plated custom-made job with his name engraved in it. Just a simple white Jim Dunlop USA Nylon .48 plectrum. I’m looking at it right now. Looks like any other plectrum. But it once belonged to Joe Strummer. My own wee piece of rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia.

joe_strummer-tele

But yeah, I’d have loved to have seen The Clash live. Here’s some Clash covers for you…

The Strokes do ‘Clampdown’, live from Alexandra Palace. I’ve taken this from a good quality FM broadcast bootleg that I’ve had for a while, although it may also have been a b-side to one of their singles. In keeping with later-period Clash it sounds less cheesegrater thin, more widescreen and wide-eyed thanks to the heavily delayed guitars. I like it.

Primal Scream do ‘Know Your Rights’. If The Clash original was a speed-induced rockabilly knee-trembler in an alleyway, this version is a downer-heavy, dirty blues riffathon that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on the Scream’s ‘Give Out But Don’t Give Up’ album. It’s taken from the obscure ‘Repetitive Beats’ ep which I’ve written about before.

Of course, The Clash were no strangers to covering other folk’s material. Amongst others, ‘I Fought The Law’ by The Bobby Fuller Four, LLoyd Price‘s ‘Stagger Lee’ and ‘Brand New Cadillac’ by Vince Taylor And His Playboys have all been given the Clash City Rockers treatment. But you knew that already. Happy listening.

Cover Versions, Double Nugget, Hard-to-find

It’s The Aptly-Named Billy Fury!

Craig McAllister

Billy Fury. Your granny knows him from such staple Hit Parade fodder as ‘Halfway To Paradise’, ‘Wondrous Place’, ‘Last Night Was Made For Love’….. do I need to go on? Billy and Cliff Richard battled it out for the dubious tag of ‘British Elvis’, but the more sussed among us really knew that Elvis was in fact the ‘American Billy’.

billy-fury

Upturned collar? Check. Lip curl? Check. Half-collapsed quiff? Check. Forget the songs listed above and instead listen to this. ‘Ain’t Nothin’ Shakin’ But The Leaves On The Trees‘ is a hand clappin’ enhanced primal rocker that could’ve sat neatly on any Nuggets-type compilation you care to mention. How Fury got from garage band howling blues to slush like ‘Colette‘ is anyone’s guess but, wow, when he was on form there was clearly no-one like him. His manager obviously gave him his stage moniker round about this time, otherwise he’d have been forever known to the world as Billy Ballad. Incidentally, The Beatles version of ‘Nothin’ Shakin’…‘ can be found on their ‘At The BBC’ album. It sounds pish.

Morrissey was a big fan, so much so that he nicked half his look from Fury. Look here.  As too are those talented wee fuckers in The Last Shadow Puppets. They stuck their own version of ‘Wondrous Place’ on the b-side of their ‘The Age Of The Understatement‘ single. Understated indeed – a churchy organ, some brooding bass, a top vocal and some Duane Eddy twang halfway through. What I like about this lot is that they all look similar, they even sound similar when they sing and they are clearly very talented. A bit like The Beatles. But then, obviously nothing like The Beatles. I’ve already posted their version of Bowie‘s ‘In The Heat Of The Morning’ (here) and if they keep up their high standards of self-imposed quality control I think these two youngsters could be around for years to come. A bit like The Beatles. But then, obviously as I’ve already said, nothing like The Beatles as well.

dave-berry

2 more decent UK garage band rockers to follow. These days, Dave Berry may be more comfortable touring the country in those terrible 60s nostalgia shows alongside such 3rd divison outfits as The Swinging Blue Jeans and The Tremeloes. Back in the day he was equally comfortable blasting out tough R&B tunes as he was crooning pop ballads. One such record was July 1964’s‘The Crying Game’ (number 5, fact fans), much later also a hit for Boy George. The A-side was the pop ballad. The B-side was something else entirely. Along with his backing band The Cruisers, he came up with this proto-punk snarling rabid dog of a record. ‘Don’t Give Me No Lip Child’ is a belter, and given that the Sex Pistols strangled and choked it into something resembling a cover version, John Lydon thought so too.

lip-child-label

Before they became The Who, The High Numbers released ‘I’m The Face’. The sound of Swinging London, it was written by Peter Meaden, their amphetamine-fuelled manager stroke publicist. This tune is essentially Slim Harpo‘s ‘Got Love If You Want It’ with new lyrics designed to reflect the culture of the times – a classic mod-stomper of a record that was a paen to all things Modern (not modern). Of course, as is more often than not the way with fantastic records, the single was a flop. According to some sources, the only copies that were actually sold were bought by Meaden himself, in a crap attempt at chart rigging. Ivy League jackets. Buck skin shoes. I’m the face baby, is that clear? Clear as crystal, little Roger!

high-numbers

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

I don’t think I wanna dance just now.

Craig McAllister

Welcome to request corner! His name is Prince and he is funky. What follows are 3 decidedly unfunky covers of Prince tracks. If you were being cruel you might say they’re workmanlike in their approach. Sloppy, too slow (hello My Morning Jacket) and devoid of any soul at all. If you were being a bit more generous, you’d say they were trying to do the tracks in their own style (howdy Foo Fighters). If you were a bit less cynical, you might even say The Jesus And Mary Chain‘s version of ‘Alphabet Street’ was pretty good. Cos it is. Thanks to Gerald for the suggestion.

My JAMC version of ‘Alphabet Street’ comes from one of the CD single versions of ‘Come On’ (it’s also got a Pogues and a Cramps cover on it), but it’s available from round about now on the sexy looking box set above. What I like about this version is that the JAMC have gone out of their way to make it as easy as possible to play. Stripped it back to 3 simple chords, added some fuzz bass, some doo-wop vocals, some feedback (naturally) and made it sound like any other of their records. Prince’s Alphabet Street sounds like the kind of place where supermodels are handing out free E’s and sex on tap, but The JAMC make Alphabet Street sound like the kind of place where even Lou Reed would be scared of going to score. I think Glasvegas could do a really good version of The JAMC covering Prince. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

The Foo Fighters track comes from the B-Side of their ‘Have It All’ single, and in the best traditions of the radio, many DJs started playing the ‘Darling Nikki’ cover instead of the rather obvious and plodding A-Side. The Foo Fighters version reached number 15 in the American charts, much to Prince’s disgust. He wouldn’t let them release it as a single, they stuck it on the b-side instead, and voila, the rest is filthy-lyriced history.

First things first now. I like My Morning Jacket. As far as blue-collar rocking guitar bands go I think they’re possibly my favourite. I prefer them to the Hold Steady, if that means anything. I really liked the ‘Z’ album. I’m sure they’re a decent live proposition. They’re famed for long and loud live sets, and they often do covers during encores, which is where their version of ‘I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man’ comes from. I found this version whilst poking about the blogosphere, but I can’t find any info on where it was recorded. It’s live and sounds like it’s from the mixing desk but other than that I can’t tell you much else about it. Except that it must’ve been one hell of a long show that night, cos MMJ have stripped all the bounce, all the fun and all the soul out of a great wee song. Compare and contrast with this Prince ‘Sign O’ The Times’ tour soundcheck rehearsal. Even allowing for a cheesy brass section near the end, the funk is back. Listen to Prince’s guitar playing during the solo! Jeez-oh! I think I wanna dance now!

*More Prince ‘SOTT‘ soundcheck stuff is available here. And Prince doing Radiohead‘s ‘Creep‘ is still available via this link!

Cover Versions, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find, Studio master tapes

Psssst! I heard through the grapevine that…..

Craig McAllister

…there were some Motown studio master tapes floating around on the internet. It took me by surprise, I must say. I mean, who’d have thought these things would ever surface? And guess what? After a bit of poking about in all the right places I found them. I have right here in my sweaty wee hands the master tapes for Marvin Gaye‘s ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’. That’s right. The master tapes for Marvin Gaye‘s ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’. 10 tracks of pure 60s soul. It’s no wonder the musicians who played on the track were known as the Funk Brothers, as the funk drips from every bit of bassline, every hiss of the hi-hat and every falsetto’d note from Marvin’s sweet voice. “Drums in my ear….just what I need!” he says, and off he goes….

Marvin at the BBC

As usual, download the tracks as one big file, open them up, insert them into Audacity and play God. Although how you can possibly improve on the finished article is beyond me. But you can have loads of fun trying. I particularly like the harmonising female backing singers track. Woop woop a shobeedowop! Here‘s Marvin’s vocal-only track for starters. Now get the whole lot.

Not many people know, but Marvin Gaye’s version was actually the 2nd time the song was a hit. Written by Motown staffers Norman Whittfield and Barrett Strong (‘Money’, ‘Papa Was a Rolling Stone’ amongst a ton of other big smash hits), it was first a hit in 1967 for Gladys Knight and the Pips. This version sounds nothing like Marvin Gaye’s. Faster and jazzier, it’s a call and response gospel-tinged belter. Think Aretha Franklin. I bet she does a great version of it somewhere. Anybody know?

Gladys and her Pips

Before Gladys and co recorded it, the writers had tried out Smokey Robinson and The Miracles doing a version. Their’s never made it outside the studio until 10 or so years ago, when an album called ‘Motown Sings Motown Treasures’ appeared. The album featured various Motown acts covering one another’s songs, with mixed results. Smokey’s version is more in keeping with Marvin’s, but is a touch faster. To be accurate, I suppose we should say that Marvin’s is more in keeping with Smokey’s, but a bit slower. It took Marvin 2 months to record his version, which is a marathon compared to how quickly records were knocked out in those days. The song was written in a key slightly too high for Gaye, a trick the producers used to ensure his voice achieved that rasp and pained sound in the high notes. The trick obviously worked – Marvin’s is of course the definitive version. Brooding, menacing and ideal music to sell jeans by. It was his first number 1 record, and Motown’s most sold single of the 60’s. It doesn’t get better than that. 

More recently, Paul Weller and Amy Winehouse had a go at it. October 25th 2006, BBC Electric Proms to be more precise. It’s not bad. But not a touch on Marvin Gaye’s.

I like to think I know tons about music. Useless facts that come in handy when writing stuff like this. After finishing this post I did a search for some information about ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’ and discovered this really indepth Wikipedia article about the song here. It repeats some of what you’ve just read but tells you way more. Have a look. And have fun with the remix, but remember, it can’t be bettered.

Cover Versions, Dylanish, Gone but not forgotten, Hard-to-find, Most downloaded tracks

Plain Or Pan-Global

Craig McAllister

A wise old man once sang “Reissue, revalue, repackage, reassess the song,” and that’s what this post aims to do. The number of people clicking on this site on a daily basis is quite astounding. In the past week alone I’ve had vistors from Brazil, China, Germany, Japan, Finland and New Zealand. I think all corners of the globe have found me. I never expected Plain Or Pan? to be as popular or as relevant as it is. I never thought people would bookmark it or that the casual browser could find it via a click or two on Google, and then want to come back again and again. Never in my mind did I imagine getting mentioned in proper music publications (see above left). In all honesty, I didn’t expect to still be here a year and a half down the line. But I am. Thanks to you. And you. And you. And you. And you. Yes, even you. And you. And…  

I know when I visit a blog I don’t read every page. I read a wee bit (or more, maybe even all of it, if it’s interesting) then scroll through to see what the downloads are. I don’t have time to read every page of every blog. No doubt I’ve missed some good stuff. And that got me thinking. If I don’t read every bit of every blog, then why should I expect anyone to read every bit of this one. Of course they don’t. So it’s logical to think that a lot of people visiting this site will have missed some of the more interesting posts. Not the ones that show up on a google click, but the ones that are buried deep inside the vaults of Plain Or Pan? Buried deep inside until now. Reissue, revalue, repackage? I’d say it’s more like recycling. Here’s some of what you may have missed (all links to the music are in the posts)…..

1. The Coca Cola advert music. Here , here and here. And here‘s an mp3 of The Carpenters 1971 easy listening Coke jingle.

2. Morrissey doing ‘Moon River’. It’s magic.

3. ‘You Really Got A Hold On Me’  by The Jackson 5 and The Zombies. Oh, and look what I’ve found. It’s only The Small Faces doing the same track. Here. Equal measures distortion + soulful vocals = a belter.

4. Norman Blake from Teenage Fanclub does Dennis Wilson from the Beach Boys ‘Only with You’. Right here. There’s tons of Teenage Fanclub stuff scattered throughout Plain Or Pan? Go and find it, lazy bones!

5. The Raconteurs BBC Sessions. Here.

6. Lee Hazlewood‘s demo of ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking‘ here. Along with some kitsch Nancy Sinatra stuff.

6. Some Super Furry Animals hard-to-find stuff. Here.

7. What goes around comes around. Elliott Smith rips off Bob Dylan, who had previoulsy ripped off someone himself. Here. There’s a similar Led Zeppelin post here. And if you don’t know any Elliott Smith, shame on you! You could do worse than click here. Demos, acoustic, rare! Wooo!

8. A potted history of The Primitives. Fantastic guitar pop from a band named after Lou Reed’s first band. Everything you need to know (and 3 of their best records) here.

9. Ronnie Spector and The Ronettes singing accapella in the studio. This is astonishing.

10. Even more astonishing, Sandie Shaw‘s breasts. And some great cover versions too. Here.

Finally, you can never have enough Trashcan Sinatras in your life. it’s a crying shame that not enough people know about them. Here‘s their version of Randy Newman‘s ‘Snow‘. Released only in Japan, it’s a hard-to-find gem.

All links should be working. Don’t hesitate to let me know if anything’s broken. Cheers.

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

Retro thrift shop fashion transvestites

Craig McAllister

Jellyfish were great. Power pop for the pre-Nirvana teeny boppers. Tunes by The Beatles. Backing vocals and guitar solos by Queen. Clothes by Hanna Barbera. Modern day insipid retro tunesmiths like The Feeling would give their stripey trousers and kerrrrazzzeee facial hair to be able to write half a tune as masterful as ‘Now She Knows She’s Wrong’. They must listen in jaw-dropping awe to ‘Bellybutton’ or cry over their copy of ‘Spilt Milk’ at least once a week.

Jellyfish-eye lens

Jellyfish only made the aforementioned 2 albums before splitting. I never got to see them live although I think they once played King Tuts. My pal’s band played a few shows with them in America and told me that for all the day-glo Californian sunshine and love image they projected, they were really a right grumpy bunch of selfish unfriendly bastards. Especially Andy Sturmer, the singing drummer. Fans of the Trashcan Sinatras may recognise the line, “There’s an anecdote about an argument with the singer from Jellyfish.” It’s a good anecdote too…

Baby’s Coming Back video shoot

Nowadays, the various musicians that made up the band can be heard on a multitude of off-shoots and side projects (including, but not exclusively Imperial Drag, The Moog Cookbook, Umajets, TV Eyes) all on a MySpace site near you. There’s actually too much music to investigate beyond Jellyfish, and I’ve never tried to (!) The 2 albums plus the 4CD Australian box set ‘Fan Club’ are all I need. The demos and live cuts below are taken from the long-deleted and hard-to-get box set. 

The Man I Used To Be

Calling Sarah (with ‘She Loves You’ “Yeah Yeah Yeah“‘s)

All I Want Is Everything

Baby’s Coming Back

Now She Knows She’s Wrong

interview on 91X, San Diego

No Matter What (Badfinger cover, live)

Jet (Wings cover, live)

(Flower) power chords

Still needing more? Can’t get enough of Jellyfish? How about this? Right click on the picture below, ‘save as…’ and print it off. Voila! Your very own official Jellyfish colouring-in page, taken from the promo coloring-in book (note American spelling) from 1990. Make them as sunny day-glo Californian or as grumpy as you want.

Cover Versions, entire show, Hard-to-find

Tan By Your Man

Craig McAllister

Man-bag wearing, perma-tanned soul/folk/rock crooning all round pie, mash ‘n’ jellied eels geezer Paul Weller played a ‘God’s Jukebox’ session recently on Mark Lamarr‘s Radio 2 show. And it was a belter.

Extremely well played (is that a mellotron?) and captured perfectly in the high quality files below, Weller and his “boys” run through a selection of tracks from his new album ’22 Dreams’, as well as a track from ‘As Is Now’ and a cover of Manfred Mann’s ‘Pretty Flamingo’. All in all a good days work at the office and a nice session to own. You could be impatient and download just the music from the links below, or you could download the entire session, interview included in high quality flac files. I’d go for the latter.

All I Wanna Do Is Be With You

Cold Moments

Push It Along

Pretty Flamingo

Misty Morning

The interview is informative, but fairly light hearted. It pokes fun at Sting, compares chord sequences to Abba’s ‘Take A Chance On Me’ and alludes to the band playing standing back-to-back à la Thin Lizzy. Which doesn’t really work on the radio, but would have you thinking that Paul Weller isn’t the next gurmudgeon due on the new series of Grumpy Old Men after all. He sounds like he’s having fun, both in his playing and his chat. Enjoy the session. (Recorded on July 5th, if you need to know these kind of things)

 Soul, man!

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

They tried to make him go to rehab…

Craig McAllister

…and he went. Poor Ronnie Wood. Making Pete Doherty look like a total lightweight, he’s been on a bit of a bender recently, going off without his wife of 23 years, instead taking with him a 20 year old Russian ‘cocktail waitress’ (and escort) to Ireland for a massive drink, drugs and how’s yer father session. And now he’s in rehab trying to save both his vital organs and his marriage. Being a Rolling Stone, surely that’s all part of the job? Just ask Keith Richards or Bill Wyman. At least Ronnie’s girlfriend was above the legal age of consent. To paraphrase Rod Stewart in his MTV Unplugged concert, “This song was written before some of you were born……….mind you, me wife was only 1!” Until he recovers, let’s remember Ronnie Wood for what he’s good at – making rock ‘n roll records (and painting – all the pictures here are his work).

Here’s a couple of lesser-known tracks from his extensive pre-Stones back catalogue. ‘You’re On My Mind’ by The Birds (with an ‘i’ not a ‘y’) was the first song he ever wrote. Released by Decca in 1964, it was apparently inspired by The Yardbirds. The b-side to the above track was a cover of Bo Diddley‘s ‘You Don’t Love Me’, a staple for many a blues-inspired garage band in the early 60s. Ronnie also played with The Creation (‘Midway Down’) before going on to play bass in the Jeff Beck Group, where he played with Rod Stewart for the first time.

‘Plynth (Water Down The Drain)’  from the ‘Beck-Ola’ album sounds like a blueprint for everything Ron ‘n’ Rod did in The Faces. It’s loose, bluesy, funky and has a great slide guitar riff and a fantastic bassline from Ronnie. You know his other work – ‘Stay With Me’, ‘Miss Judy’s Farm’, ‘Cindy Incidentally’, Gasoline Alley, ‘Maggie May’, the list is endless. Any decent Rod Stewart 70s compilation has the lot. Of course, he’s not really allowed to write for the Stones, even if he has the best haircut out the lot of them, but that surely is Mick ‘n Keith’s loss. Get well soon Ronnie!

Hard-to-find rarity alert!!! Here‘s the full-length version of ‘Maggie May’, complete with the neatly picked acoustic guitar intro that’s missing from just about every version of the song that’s ever been released. As Frank Carson used to say, it’s a cracker.

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

Skunk, Skank ‘n’ Short, Short Skirts? It must be Amy Winehouse!

Craig McAllister

It’s great to see her actually making news for all the right reasons this week. Well, she would be making the news if anyone had picked up on this, but I’m sure you get my point…Released under the radar to absolutely no fanfare whatsoever this week was a rather fetching 2 Tone-inspired 7″ ep by Amy Winehouse. The ‘Ska ep’ does exactly what it says on the tin. 4 tracks, 2 on each side, of Amy interpreting Ska classics that you may or may not have heard first from listening to The Specials. I love these versions, pointless as they ultimately are. And I love the sleeve, even if Amy hasn’t looked that voluptuous since 2006. Diana Dors in a wig…

A1. Monkey Man (Toots & The Maytals)
A2. Hey Little Rich Girl (THe Specials)
B1. You’re Wondering Now (Andy & Joe)
B2. Cupid (Sam Cooke)

The vinyl ep is currently going for funny money on eBay, but the above mp3’s are a good alternative for those of us suffering from the credit crunch. As a bonus track, here‘s the Arctic Monkeys version of Amy‘s ‘You Know I’m No Good’. It also does exactly what it says on the tin. Flat singing, wrong words, half-arsed delivery. Yep. You know it’s no good. But don’t take my word for it….