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Review: Ethan Gold, ‘Live Undead Bedroom Closet Covers’

Posted by Patrick Robbins at 9:00 am No Responses »

Apr 062018

When Ethan Gold began recording cover songs in his bedroom closet, they were more than his tributes to artists that mattered to him – they were therapy. Gold had sustained a head injury in a warehouse accident that left him unable to speak, let alone do the complex sound engineering his work required. He had also just been forced to leave the condemned residence that inspired his previous album, Songs from a Toxic Apartment. So these covers, one-take performances filmed for YouTube, were Gold’s road to recovery. Now they’ve been compiled and released as a digital-only album, Live Undead Bedroom Closet Covers, and it’s a pleasure to see that his recovery is complete.
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Cover Me Q&A: What’s your favorite cover of a Bob Dylan song?

Posted by Staff at 12:00 pm 10 Responses »

Nov 082017

Welcome to Cover Me Q&A, where we take your questions about cover songs and answer them to the best of our ability.

Here at Cover Me Q&A, we’ll be taking questions about cover songs and giving as many different answers as we can. This will give us a chance to hold forth on covers we might not otherwise get to talk about, to give Cover Me readers a chance to learn more about individual staffers’ tastes and writing styles, and to provide an opportunity for some back-and-forth, as we’ll be taking requests (learn how to do so at feature’s end).

Today’s question: What’s your favorite cover of a Bob Dylan song?
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In Memoriam: Tom Petty

Posted by Nico Hughey at 7:00 pm 1 Response »

Oct 202017

In Memoriam pays tribute to those who have left this world, and the songs they left us to remember them by.

It’s been a few weeks since we lost Tom Petty. A few weeks since one of the major music artists of my teenage years left this world. I can vividly recall so many memories of driving with my boyfriend in his old brown Toyota…listening to “Wildflowers,” “It’s Good to Be King,” “Free Fallin,” “I Won’t Back Down.” The simple chord progressions and repetitive chorus lines perfectly capturing the spirit of a wild (and internet-free) childhood. In that simplicity, Petty was able to create hit after hit that would span generations. Continue reading »

Five Good Covers: American Girl (Tom Petty)

Posted by Ray Padgett at 10:00 am 3 Responses »

Oct 092017

On Friday, we rounded up the best Tom Petty covers to come since his passing. And today, we begin to dig deeper into the archives for a series of Petty tributes featuring older covers.

Petty tended to write songs more crisp and economical than many of his peers – no Dylanesque word salad or proggy flights of weird instrumentation – which lent themselves to abundant covers. You could play any number of Petty songs within a few months of picking up a guitar (being able to solo like Mike Campbell – well, that might take a little longer).

There are many amazing Petty deep cuts to mine. Why, just in the past year we’ve heard two fantastic covers of songs from his obscure 2006 solo album Highway Companion (by Jane Kramer and The National). But we figured we’d start with a classic, a song so obvious I was frankly surprised to dig through the archives and discover we hadn’t given it the Five Good Covers treatment years ago. Well, better late than never. Rest in peace, Tom. Continue reading »

Full Albums: Bob Dylan’s ‘Bringing It All Back Home’

Posted by Ray Padgett at 11:48 am 1 Response »

Mar 222017

Full Albums features covers of every track off a classic album. Got an idea for a future pick? Leave a note in the comments!

Bob Dylan’s 1965 Newport Folk Festival concerts is one of the most famous – or infamous – performances of all time, subject to numerous books, documentaries, and debates over why Pete Seeger threatened to cut the power cable with an axe. But the fact is, by the time he stepped on that stage, Dylan had already gone electric, four months prior. The first half of his 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home – which turns 52 today – is all electric. And not the sort of light electric augmentation other folk singers were experimenting with either. The first track “Subterranean Homesick Blues” may still be the loudest, hardest track of Dylan’s entire career. He’d already drawn his line in the sand; the folk-music crowd had just chosen to ignore it.

To celebrate this landmark album’s 52nd birthday, we’re giving it the full-album treatment. Our recent tributes to Dylan albums have covered underrated works like 1978’s Street Legal and 1985’s Empire Burlesque, but today we return to the classics. Such classics, in fact, that in addition to our main cover picks we list some honorable-mention bonus covers for each song. Continue reading »

Cover Me Q&A: Patrick Robbins, What Ten Cover Songs Matter To You?

Posted by Patrick Robbins at 10:00 am 5 Responses »

Feb 232017

Welcome to Cover Me Q&A, where we take your questions about cover songs and answer them to the best of our ability.

Patrick Robbins lives in Maine. He’s been writing for Cover Me since 2011. Of all his Cover Me essays, he especially likes his John Denver tribute review and his curation of Ramones Week.

It’s been great writing and editing for Cover Me, not just because I like cover songs so much, but because it’s led me to discover so many great ones I never would have heard otherwise. My thanks to Ray for taking me on, and to all of you for reading what I have to say about my finds. Here are ten of them that I’ve made over the years, which all struck significant chords in my life for various reasons…
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