Program 7
August 22, 2009
Ben Lee does The Small Faces – Itchycoo Park
Teenage Fanclub do The Byrds – I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better
Rolling Stones do themselves and Vashti Bunyan – Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind
Nick Lowe does Johnny Rivers – Poor Side of Town
M. Ward does David Bowie – Let’s Dance
Hindu Love Gods do Prince – Raspberry Beret
Manfred Mann’s Earth Band do Bruce Springsteen – Blinded By The Light
Saturday nights at 7 on 97-7 WEXT
See Comments for my blog entry and your feedback about the show.
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From Lion’s Head, Ontario at the top of the Bruce Peninsula, I bring you the second last week of Under The Covers.
We start with Ben Lee doing a rather lame version of The Small Faces Itchycoo Park. That’s kind of the point though. The slacker ethos of the mid-90s comes through loud and clear on Lee’s rendition of the song. Of course, the original from the late 60s, re-released to greater acclaim in the mid 70s, is considered a psychedelic classic.
One of my favourite power pop bands pays homage to jangle pop kings The Byrds, live on the BBC, with their version of a classic of a classic. Teenage Fanclub doing The Byrds doing Dylan’s I’ll Feel A Whole To Better. Very nice.
Vashti Bunyan has an interesting back-story. Once hailed as a British female sensation of the month in the mid 1960′s, Bunyan ended up dismayed by the music industry shortly thereafter, so she retreated to the Scottish Highlands in a horse drawn cart with her boyfriend and a vagabond friend. She didn’t record again until 2003 when she was coaxed out of retirement by Devandra Banhart. See Keiran Evans’ documentary called Vashti Bunyan: From Here To Yesterday for the full story. We hear one of Vashti’s first singles – a song written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards called Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind. The Rolling Stones didn’t release their own version until the mid 1970s on their album of rarities and B-sides called Metamorphosis.
I didn’t know about Johnny Rivers until Nick Lowe introduced me to his great song Poor Side of Town. At the time, I had just finished graduate school in Montreal and was a delivering newspapers for a living every morning starting at 3:30. This was not what I expected to be doing after finishing graduate school. In addition to the crappy job, I was dating a girl from a well to do family. My self-esteem was pretty much in the toilet. Of all the songs on Nick Lowe’s The Convincer, this one stood out as my favourite. Low and behold, after reading the liner notes I discovered that it was penned by a guy named Johnny Rivers. I now love the original as much as Nick Lowe’s cover.
M. Ward has a way of making his ballads sound like Peter Lorre if Peter Lorre had starred in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Unique. I think his interpretation of David Bowie’s Let’s Dance situates the song in that same weird, slightly creepy, surrealist world. If you’ve never seen Caligari, you should see it once, just so you have something to talk about if you ever find yourself in conversation with a film nerd about German expressionist filmmaking.
When REM minus Michael Stipe recorded with Warren Zevon as The Hindu Love Gods, they were nearly at the peak of their popularity. Consider this recording session with Zevon a way of reconnecting with their love of a good jam and simply playing for fun again. Rough and sloppy from start to finish, the one and only Hindu Love Gods recording is a classic. Their version of Raspberry Beret is just as good as the Prince original.
Some people have a hard time connecting Do Wa Diddy and Blinded By The Light by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band. I do too. Or maybe it’s just me that has that problem? I don’t know. What I do know is that this Manfred Mann guy ended up hitting the pop song nail on the head twice in one lifetime, albeit with a little help from Bruce Springsteen the second time around. Mann’s version of Blinded By The Light went to #1 on the Billboard chart. Many did not know that it was a Springsteen song. Some still don’t know that they can find Bruce’s version on 1972′s Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ. Both versions are forever fabulous.
Next week is the last show kids. Still no comments. This show must suck ass.
Until next time,
Wayne
Hey,
The show definitely does not “suck ass”… Sometimes it just takes time for people to catch onto things. I was really digging it when I heard this past show (first time I caught it). I remember the Hindu Love Gods cover…ah memories. That and it was amazing to hear the original Bruce track as the Manfred Mann track is so deep in my head. I can see why it was a bigger hit with the Earth Band, but Bruce’s version is actually a lot more intelligible.
I actually went to seek out your site as I was shuffling through my iPod and found an early Genesis cover (Dusk) that an old band of mine did. Of course we double-timed the original and turned it from a pastoral folk song into a Pavement inspired indie-pop-slop track.
In any case, I’m looking forward to catching your last show. Are you stopping because you’re running out of material or because of lack of response. If it’s the latter, I hope you can stick it out a little longer. It’s a great concept that I could see being syndicated to other public radio outlets in other cities. Unfortunately, those kinds of things take time.