My big birthday surprise this year was being serenaded by a Mariachi band in a Japanese Mexican restaurant. A little taken aback by the uncanny cross-culturalism, the most eloquent reaction I could muster was “arigracias.” When I got home and did my pre-sleep infotainment scan, I was informed of an even clumsier public pronouncement than my Jaspanish: the Go! Team’s peculiar and ludicrous cover of Sonic Youth’s “Bull In the Heather.”
No longer simple sing-alongs to bridge the stage and the standing room, covers are more a Rorschach test for how an act wishes to be publicly portrayed. When any of Mike Patton’s various avant-metal acts bust out a Burt Bacharach number, it’s a deliberate display of technically-proficient piss-taking. Avril Lavigne’s live Clash covers, on the other hand, are begging on bended knee for artistic credibility. My guess is that the Go! Teamsters are trying to mine that demographic of particularly icy indie kids they’ve left unimpressed, if only because their music triggers flashbacks of being picked last for 6th grade dodgeball. But why waste time on an ill-advised version of a B+ song when the web is awash with innumerable interesting covers? Free-hosting sites like MySpace a fast becoming little more than depositories for whimsical musical tributes of every stripe.
Q And Not U
The last of the purebred post-harDCore bands left a stirring (if somewhat histrionic) version of Neil Young’s “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” available for download.
Mose Giganticus
One-man metalectro maestro Mose Giganticus (a.k.a. Matt Garfield) serves up a fierce, hoarse-throated rendition of that classic from the golden age of analog synths, “Mr. Roboto.”
Rapeman
For those too cheap or unwilling to accept that Big Black wasn’t Steve Albini’s best band, bite into their ZZ Top cover a see if you don’t break a few teeth.
OXES
A goldmine of odd & slightly inappropriate covers, the rowdy bovine trio from Baltimore has packed their MySpace page with four deconstRAWKtions of your favourite ‘90s guilt pleasure pop hits. Don’t miss the Sheryl Crow cover fronted by Bonnie “Prince” Billy.