Category: Cover Versions

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….

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

My Bloody Frustrating Valentine

Craig McAllister

My Bloody Valentine are back on a brief tour and the reviews have been a wee bit mixed. Some people claim they can’t hear the vocals. Some people say the show they’ve attended is the best thing ever. Some people say the noisy bit in ‘You Made Me Realise’ isn’t noisy enough. Some people say the shows are too loud. Too loud! It’s My Bloody Valentine not James Blunt. Jeez. Lets hope they get some sort of new material together soon. It’s been too long. Anyway, until then…

In anticipation of their Barrowlands shows this Wednesday and Thursday I thought I’d post these obscurities and curios. First up, My Bloody Valentine do their version of Louis Armstrong’s ‘We Have All The Time In The World’. This is taken from a 1993 Island Records charity CD called ‘Peace Together’ which set out to get young people from both sides of the religious divide in Northern Ireland working together. There’s a fair amount of Irish artists on there (U2, Fatima Mansions, Therapy?, Sinead O’Connor etc etc, you know the rest) but the My Bloody Valentine track is easily the best thing on it. Hear for yourself.

In 1998, Kevin Shields produced a one-off, released-for-a-day-then-deleted Primal Scream single. ‘If They Move Kill ‘Em’ was taken from the ‘Vanishing Point’ album, but Shields buckled and bent and twisted and distorted it inside out. It sounds backwards in places, it sounds under water in other places, it sounds other-wordly in the rest of the places. It sounds as good as the cover (below) looks. It. Is. Fantastic. Even better, there are two mixes! The My Bloody Valentine Arkestra mix and the 12″ Disco MIx (my favourite – it has a bit in it that sounds an awful lot like Jimi Hendrix‘s ‘Crosstown Traffic’). The ep also featured 2 mixes of Primal Scream covering the Jesus & Mary Chain‘s ‘Darklands‘. What the hell – here’s Darklands and here’s Badlands. Happy listening.

‘If They Move Kill ‘Em’ sleeve

*Bonus Track. Andrew Weatherall‘s seminal, yes, seminal remix of MBV‘s ‘Soon‘. It’s My Bloody Valentine, but you can dance to it! It’s a belter! If you’re reading Mr Shields, many of us would like a new album or single or chord or anything.

Kevin Shields – bloody frustrating

Cover Versions, entire show, Hard-to-find

Hang On! Acoustic Fanclub!

Craig McAllister

Last weekend was Teenage Fanclub weekend. A triple treat, a trio of tip-top turns, a heroes welcome for a hatrick of homecoming shows. And any other number of alliterative delights. Each show was different and each show was great for any number of reasons. I’ve mentioned the ‘Electric Chestnuts’ show below, so we’ll focus on the other 2 for now.

Sunday night’s setlist

Sunday night was the ‘Acoustic Chestnuts’ night and it was fantastic. Instruments were swapped, harmonies were finely honed (especially Francis- who knew drummers could sing?) and there were big smiles all round. In contrast to the sound problems of Saturday night, at some points the vocals were so good it was like listening to the Everly Brothers. Personal highlights were the songs from the Grand Prix era- ‘Don’t Look Back’, ‘Going Places’ and ‘Some People Try To Fuck With You’, which sounded like Astrud Gilberto on Buckfast.

Monday night’s setlist

Monday night was the one I was looking most forward to – the b-sides and hardly-ever-played night. Teenage Fanclub did not disappoint. The show was heavy on ‘A Catholic Education’ -era Fanclub (‘Heavy Metal’! ”Every Picture I Paint’! Eternal Light’!) and the much-neglected ‘Thirteen’ album – ‘Escher‘! ‘Gene Clark’!, ‘Ret Live Dead’!, which meant lots of distortion pedals, fewer backing vocals and the odd cocked-up start (poke about on YouTube for Norman 3). It was like a Fannies gig from way back in the day and it was extra magic, the best of the three without a doubt. Brendan O’Hare got plucked Springsteen-style from the crowd to sing ‘The Ballad Of John & Yoko’ and no-one’s mentioned this yet, but Norman’s McCartney backing vocals were pretty immense. Raymond’s frazzled playing on ‘Born Under A Good Sign’ made it sound like Love, circa 1967. They even played ‘Broken’, before coming back on for the genuinely not-planned double-whammy of ‘Sparky’s Dream’ and ‘Alcoholiday’, although had they also played ‘God Knows It’s True’ and/or ‘Everybody’s Fool’ (and given the albums they were drawing from I think they could’ve) and maybe even ‘I Heard You Looking’, if that’s not being too greedy, this gig would have been gig of the decade. Still, Best Gig of 2008 is good enough for now.  

Norman 3 (nights)

Anyway, lots of talk over at the Teenage Fanclub Message Boards about how the band should release an acoustic album, or a b-sides album, or a live album, or indeed, any kind of album at all. But an Acoustic Fanclub album would be an excellent idea. In the meantime, you could do worse than make do with these wee beauties. Firstly, recorded for ‘The White Sessions’ on French radio on the 11th April 1995….

Don’t Look Back
Say No
Star Sign
I’ll Make It Clear
Sparky’s Dream
Have You Ever Seen The Rain
Mellow Doubt

(click here to download as one complete session)

‘The White Sessions’ is a long running French radio show where bands go in and record acoustic sessions. Teenage Fanclub used their time to promote Grand Prix. The same radio station also do ‘The Black Sessions’ where the band play a longer, usually electric set in front of a small invited audience. Teenage Fanclub also did a Black Session in 1993 but I’ve never heard it. It may be that some of the tracks below are taken from it, I don’t know. An official-looking CD from the show was on sale up until yesterday on eBay and I was quite excited. But when the bidding started approaching £30 I got scared off. I couldn’t justify that sort of money for something which will probably turn up online soon. Fingers crossed. If you were the lucky bidder, how about sending me a copy?!

Also taken from my personal vaults (!) of badly-labelled Teenage Fanclub radio sessions, curios and oddities, here’s a random selection of acoustic-based Teenage Fanclub. I’m unclear as to where most of these came from. Radio sessions? I don’t know. But not b-sides. No siree. Rare Fanclub. Cos the Teenage Fanclub are a rare band, a rare band indeed. Download and enjoy!

a piano-led Hang On

Four Strong Winds

He’d Be A Diamond

Sparky’s Dream

Tears Are Cool

The Shadows (Mark Radcliffe session)

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

A right couple of Fannies

Craig McAllister

You might know this already, but I don’t follow a very successful football team, so whilst many of my friends have recently been shelling out literally thousands of pounds to follow either half of Glasgow’s Ugly Sisters on their European exploits, I justified my decision to buy tickets for 3 nights of Teenage Fanclub shows as my equivalent of the Champions League. Three nights at Oran Mor in the West End of Glasgow. ‘Electric Chestnuts’, ‘Acoustic Chestnuts’ and the one I’m looking forward to most, the ‘B-Sides and Rarities’ night.

Last night was the first of the 3 and we were treated to what was essentially a Teenage Fanclub Greatest Hits set. With Norman as Bill Gates on vocals. No kiddin’. He looks like Bill Gates these days! The sound was a bit muddy. I hope it’s sorted out for tonight, but anyway, it was of course a cracker of a show.

Where’s my axe?

You can find the setlist for last night’s ‘Electric Chestnuts’ below (muchos gracias, John S.) As they always do, the band finished with ‘Everything Flows’, their first single. No thanks to the couple of Fannys stood next to me who talked about going to ‘the Sellic gemmes’ with Brendan and Pat and Big Mick all the way through it. I bought ‘Everything Flows’  on 7″ the day after I saw Teenage Fanclub for the first time. They were supporting the Soup Dragons in the Garage. Anyway, I digress.

Setlist, Oran Mor Saturday 14.6.08

Many other musicians love ‘Everything Flows’. I have a Velvet Crush version on 7″ that’s no’ bad, but I don’t have the means to convert it at present. Until then…

Redd Kross ‘Everything Flows’

(Rockin’! – from tribute album ‘What A Concept’)

Gallygows ‘Everything Flows’

(Mellow! – Duglas T Stewart likes this one)

Teenage Fanclub ‘Everything Flows’

(Live! – Malmo, 5th July 2005)

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

Peter Painter Painted Pete In Pastels

Craig McAllister

Acclaimed artist and Ayrshireman Peter Howson’s very stylised work sells for tens of thousands of pounds at a time. Many of his paintings are centered around what he has observed in life – hard working men down the mines of Ayrshire, hard drinking men in the rough-round-the-edges pubs we’ve all seen wherever we live. If you look closely enough you might also see a bit of religious imagery in there. At least, I think I can. He’s also painted The Queen, Henrik Larsson and Madonna in the nude (just Madonna, not the other two.) This weekend he has been in the headlines of most of the big papers.  He’s just unveiled 6 new works which depict Pete Doherty as dead.

It would appear that the Last of the Great Romantic Poets has a bit of a death wish. Some of you may think this is a good thing. Certainly, many would argue that his best years as a writer are behind him. Howson is no stranger to this sort of criricism himself. After a battle with drink and drugs he found God, then found himself on the frontline in Bosnia as the Governent’s Official War Artist. He says his paintings are a warning to Doherty, that he’s lived the scuzzy lifestyle himself and he fears Doherty will end up dead.

“I’ve painted Pete dead before he ends up that way. This is my warning to him. I don’t want him to die but he surely will soon unless he changes. Pete can influence a whole generation by kicking this evil habit. He could become the right kind of hero. I know what it is like to live the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. I would love to meet Pete and shake some sense into him.”

In one drawing, Doherty is wearing a Dante hat instead of his usual trilby. It’s a reference to Dante‘s poem Divine Comedy, about his trip to hell.

Pete’s people said: “I don’t believe Howson knows Peter so I don’t know where he got his inspiration from. We have not seen the drawings.”

The pictures went on show yesterday (Sunday) at ArtDeCaf, Glasgow.

Anyway, all this gives us a good excuse to get out the Libertines bootlegs and give you some stuff you may never have heard before. First up, Pete plays The La’s. This is a 28 minute studio outtake of him messing around playing ‘Son Of A Gun’, ‘Callin’ All’, ‘Timeless Melody’ and some Smiths stuff amongst a whole rake of familiar and unheard Doherty originals. Sponatneous? Certainly. Rough? Definitely. Essential? Of course! Next up, ‘Hooligans On E’, from another studio session (date unknown, sorry). I bloody love this half-baked, half-finished song. Some of the lyrics are great. Also, you can have this beauty. ‘Road To Ruin’ is different to the album version. It features a great spooky keyboard part. Mostly sung by Carl, it’s just about my favourite Libertines outtake. Finally, if you fancy a lazy Sunday hanging around art galleries looking at paintings of dead people who aren’t dead yet, this is for you. The Libertines do the Small Faces ‘Lazy Sunday’. Originally on the soundtrack to the film ‘Blackball‘, it sounds just as you’d expect. Which is half arsed and out of tune. Of course.

 

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

Creepy Prince

Craig McAllister

Shhhhhh! Listen! That sound you can hear is the sound of a million Radiohead fans tapping furiously on their iMac 4G Powerbooks as they vent their spleen on the umpteen thousand Thom Yorke Is God fansites that litter every corner of cyberspace. 

Prince is a bit creepy. Everyone knows that. But by far the biggest highlight of the recent Coachella festival seems to have been him doing a straight ahead cover of Radiohead‘s ‘Creep‘. It’s true! It’s also very good. Fairly faithful to the original, Prince manages to be both Thom Yorke with added soul and those wee yelps that he’s fond of doing and Jonny Greenwood with the kerrunk-kerrunk guitar before the chorus. His vocals get the full on Purple Rain-era treatment – slight delay, lots of reverb, the exteeeeeeeeendeeeed outro, and I actually think Prince makes this track his own. The audio is taken from this mobile phone video that YouTube won’t show. But it’s reasonably good quality. Worth the download. Click on the video link and you can download the video from there.

Radiohead fans yesterday.

Spot the one that quite likes Prince’s version.

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

No Cure For Plagiarism

Craig McAllister

For a couple of very good reasons, it’s been 2 weeks since I’ve put up anything new. Firstly, I’ve been very busy in my day job. I’ve been bringing work home at night and doing all the stuff you tell yourself you’re not going to do, which has affected my blogging. Secondly, and more crucially, I’ve had to lie in a darkened room for most of the past fortnight after hearing the latest records by 2 tribute acts being played to death on BBC 6 Music every hour of the day.

I am referring of course to the latest singles by Black Kids and the Shout Out Louds. Two perfectly acceptable, inoffensive wee indie pop bands. Well, they would be acceptable and inoffensive if they didn’t wear their Cure influences so brazenly on their cap sleeves. Talent borrows, genius steals, but this pair rip off their favourite band’s vocal style, scrubbed nylon-stringed acoustic guitar, synthetic trumpet stabs and keyboards so much it’s quite incredible Robert Smith hasn’t put on his best crumpled suit and hi-top trainers and marched them off to the local plagiarism court for a good dose of how the fuck did you think you could get away with that? Ok. Ripping off other artists is nothing new. What goes around comes around and all that, but really. Really! These records are quite incredible. Black Kids have recently been given a shiny make over by Bernard Butler but they still sound like the Cure. Here‘s the original lo-fi version of ‘Im Not Going To Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You’. It still sounds like the Cure. “You are the girl…..” the singer whines at the start and you think, “Hey! Where have I heard that before?” And by the time the chorus has kicked in it’s all too clear. The remix isn’t bad, mind. The Cure mixed by Daft Punk, but not bad.

Shout Out Louds are clearly in thrall to mid-80s Cure. ‘Tonight I Have To Leave It’ sounds like a 2 Many DJs mash-up of ‘In-Between Days’ and ‘Just Like Heaven’. Actually, I quite like this record. But don’t tell anyone. Compare and contrast with The Cure’s original (vocal-free) studio demo of ‘Just Like Heaven’ and an acoustic re-recording of ‘In-Between Days’. See what I mean?

At least J Mascis is an honest fellow. He liked ‘Just Like Heaven’ so much he recorded it and put it out on sexy green vinyl 7″. And he was honest enough to admit he didn’t know how to play the end of the record, so Dinosaur Jr‘s version just. Stops. Like that. It’s noisy and there’s a funny kind of wah-wah feedback effect playing in the background. There’s the odd scary bit too. You’ll like it. Here’s another scary bit………

If J Mascis cut his hair, he couldn’t half pass for Radio Clyde’s Billy ‘I Can Exclusively Reveal’ Sloan. No?

 

Cover Versions, Peel Sessions

Brand new, you’re retro

Craig McAllister

I’m quite enjoying The Last Shadow Puppets single just now. ‘The Age of the Understatement’ isn’t quite the lost track from ‘Scott 4’ that the band would like it to be, but it twangs in all the right places and rushes past like Morricone beating The Coral to the finish line in the 100m sprint. There’s even a nice whiff of the Electric Prunes in the string arrangements.

Even better to these ears is their cover of David Bowie‘s ‘In The Heat Of The Morning’. Originally recorded for Deram back in the 60s, this is one of the lesser-well known gems in the Bowie catalogue. All strings and weird chords, in the scheme of things it falls somewhere between ‘Space Oddity’ and ‘Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud’. You could be forgiven for thinking that The Last Shadow Puppets based their entire sound around this record, cos it sure sounds like it. But in a good way. Bowie likes it too. “That’s wonderful,” he said. “A daymaker.” Go on…make your day….

*The Last Shadow Puppets – ‘In The Heat Of The Morning’

*David Bowie – ‘In The Heat Of The Morning’ (Deram Records original release)

David Bowie – ‘In The Heat Of The Morning’ (John Peel’s Top Gear BBC Session, broadcast Christmas Eve, 1967, features Tony Visconti and T.Rex’s Steve Peregrine-Took on backing vocals)

Today’s blog has been half-arsed and lazy. Better quality blogging will resume as normal next week.

Cover Versions, Hard-to-find

‘Just Dropped In…’ quadruple-whammy

Craig McAllister

‘I Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)‘ was Kenny Rogers‘ second single with his group The First Edition. It made the US Billboard Top 10 in 1968 and rode the crest of the psychedelic wave that was sweeping the music world at the time – “I tripped over a cloud and fell 8 miles high, tore my mind on the jagged sky.” Like, wow, man. The intro has backwards guitars, the solo is played by Glen Campbell (is there anything he didn’t play on in the 60s?) and the drums were played by Mickey Jones, well known to Dylan afficianados as the drummer who couldnae hack it on Dylan’s 1966 world tour with the Hawks.

 kenny-rogers-first-edition.jpg

Nice trousers.

So. Great pedigree. And a great song. About as far removed from ‘Islands In The Stream’, ‘The Gambler’ or ‘Coward Of The County’ as you could possibly hope for. Indeed, Jimi Hendrix called ‘Just Dropped In…‘ his favourite song ever. I wish Jimi had done a version. You just know it it would’ve sounded brilliant. I bet Jerry lee Lewis‘ version sounds the business as well. Too bad he canned it as soon as he recorded it. Or did he? No amount of poking about cyberspace has unearthed it for me, but maybe you’ve got a version knocking about somewhere. Over to you…

sharon-jones-7.gif

No funny comment here.

In the meantime, here’s 3 covers. All different, all fantastic. Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings recorded their version as a tribute to the sounds of late 60s Stax and Motown. It sounds like Lynn Collins or one of those James Brown Funky People women singers he often produced. You can see the video for it (don’t think it’s official but it’s great) over on YouTube where the grainy, fuzzy footage is supposed to look like an old VHS taped copy of Soul Train. I thought Sharon Jones had come up with a really great idea for an original cover until I found out that Bettye Lavette had covered the self same track in 1968. I bet Bettye’s sounds just like it (I’m off to seek it out) but I do like Sharon Jones’ attempt. This version has only been released on dead-hard-to-get 7″ (try eBay), but I’ve got one. And now you do too.

 supergrass.jpg

They were young, they ran free, they grew old gracefulleee…

Supergrass put their version on the b-side of the double a sided ‘Alright/Time’ single. So lots of people will own this, but many people may not even have played it, given that anyone who bought ‘Alright’ played it on repeat for the whole summer of 1995 and then never wanted to hear it again. Which is a shame, cos ‘Time‘ is a cracker’, and ‘Condition‘ (as their version is called) sounds just like a Supergrass track from the ‘I Should Coco’ era. Which it is, funnily enough. Here it is.

 willie-nelsons-guitar.jpg

Scuffed, battered and full of character. Just like his face.

I’ve left possibly the best version till last. Like Kenny Rogers, Willie Nelson is considered a country singer, but his version of ‘…Condition…‘ is not really country per-se. It’s laid back, soulful and has an intro that is absolutely ripe for sampling. If Sharon Jones’ cover is the Saturday night version then Willie Nelson’s is the Sunday morning hangover cure. You can find it on his ‘Rainbow Connection’ album from 2001. Or get it here.

willie-nelson-rainbow.jpg