In the Spotlight showcases a cross-section of an artist’s cover work. View past installments, then post suggestions for future picks in the comments!
I volunteered to write this piece a few years ago, but never got around to it. When I offered to actually finish it, our features editor reminded me that he had written a Spotlight piece on The Feelies back in February. But he was game to let me write this, if there was no overlap. Remarkably, no overlap was actually planned. So, here we go, with a second Spotlight piece in a year about a band of, at best, limited popularity. Or, if you prefer, a cult favorite.
Coming out of Haledon, New Jersey, The Feelies formed in 1976 around guitarist/songwriters Bill Million and Glenn Mercer, reportedly after Million, tripping on acid, passed Mercer’s house and heard his band playing the Stooges “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” They soon gained a reputation as a live band. Ultimately, the group also included Keith Clayton on bass and Anton Fier on drums.
The Feelies’ remarkable first album, Crazy Rhythms, came out in 1980, during my WPRB days, and I remember thinking that it was unlike anything I had ever heard before. If you took the early Talking Heads’ quirkiness and twitchiness, Television’s intertwined guitars with strumming that would be made more famous in a few years by R.E.M. (who were influenced by The Feelies), add a touch of Dick Dale surf guitar, a bit of Phillip Glass/Steve Reich minimalism, some Eno drones, a heaping spoonful of Velvet Underground and back it with what is almost always referred to as “nervous drumming,” you might come close to understanding what they sounded like. And yet, it was something totally original. The Village Voice ranked it as the 17th best album of 1980, just behind X’s Los Angeles and ahead of David Bowie’s Scary Monsters, The Rolling Stones’ Emotional Rescue, Joy Division’s Closer, and Argybargy by Squeeze, to name a few. Rolling Stone has ranked it as the 49th best album of the Eighties.
The album is many tracks deep, and I played the crap out of it. That year, the band performed at a party in a campus gym, and while their energy was evident, the muddy sound and acoustics made it frustrating, because it was impossible to really appreciate the precision with which they played. Those of us who were familiar with the album enjoyed it, if with some disappointment at the sound, but I suspect that the performance failed to make many converts.
For various reasons, The Feelies splintered after Crazy Rhythms, with members leaving, starting side projects and pretty much dropping out of sight until 1986, when Mercer and Million, with bass player Brenda Sauter, percussionist Dave Weckerman and drummer Stanley Demeski released the folkier The Good Earth, produced by Peter Buck of R.E.M. They also appeared in Jonathan Demme’s movie Something Wild. 1988’s Only Life was the Feelies major label debut, and it was followed in 1991 by the somewhat harder rocking Time For A Witness.
And that was it, it seemed, for The Feelies. But Million’s Princeton student son had been jamming with Mercer, who lived nearby, and that led to a reunion and a new album in 2011, Here Before, which simply sounds like it hadn’t been a decade since they had been together. In 2017, they released another fine collection, In Between, and Patrick’s piece discussed, in part, their 2023 live album of Velvet Underground covers. We’ll stay away from VU today.
The Feelies – Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey (Beatles cover)
Confession: I’ve never been a Beatles obsessive, and I admit that when I first heard the Feelies cover of this song (which, BTW, has the longest title of any Beatles song) on their debut album, I did not know it was a Beatles song. But it is, and it turns out that most of the lyrics are actually phrases that the Maharishi often repeated to the band during their 1968 stay in India. Except, it seems, for the monkey part, which Lennon said was “About me and Yoko. Everybody seemed to be paranoid except for us two, who were in the glow of love.” And, it seems, Lennon had recently seen a cartoon that (racistly?) depicted Ono as a monkey clinging to his back. (There’s some question among actual Beatles obsessives if John remembered this correctly or came up with this explanation later). It is also probably about heroin, for which “monkey” was a common reference, and which both Lennon and Ono were using at the time. It is one of the harder rocking songs on the White Album, and there’s a bit of jangly guitar at the end that I have to believe influenced the Feelies version, which jangles all the way through, and has more propulsive percussion than the original. It’s a great track, and I liked it even before I knew it was a cover.
The Feelies – Paint It Black (Rolling Stones cover)
Speaking of India, “Paint it Black,” a 1966 Rolling Stones single (included on the US release of Aftermath), has an Indian feel, emphasized by Brian Jones’ sitar and what sounds like Indian drums, and led to accusations that the Stones were copying the Beatles. Which was strongly denied. It’s one of the Stones’ greatest songs and is much covered (Wikipedia says there are almost four hundred), including one by The Feelies, who recorded a version in 1990 and included it on the reissue of Crazy Rhythms. Although the personnel was different, the Feelies version fits right in with the earlier album, with its driving percussion and strumming guitars. They did add some Indian flourishes, but there’s also a little surf music feel to it.
The Feelies – Sedan Delivery (Neil Young cover)
Neil Young originally wrote “Sedan Delivery” in 1975, about a drug dealer making his deliveries, but it wasn’t released until 1979’s great Rust Never Sleeps album. According to Young, the fast tempo of the song was influenced by Devo, but the song alternates fast segments with slower,
spacier interludes. Maybe to mimic the fast and slow speed of traffic? You try and get inside Neil Young’s head. The Feelies included their cover on 1987’s No One Knows EP (it’s now a digital download bonus track included with the 2009 reissue of 1986’s The Good Earth), and it’s pretty similar to the original, if a little less nasal.
The Feelies – Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars) (R.E.M. cover)
When I first heard R.E.M.’s debut EP Chronic Town, I knew that I was hearing something special, and the song that first jumped out at me was “Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars),” although it probably wasn’t the most popular at the time (and is only the third most played song off the EP, according to setlist.com). It’s a song that the Feelies have been covering since, apparently, 2009, when they performed it at an R.E.M. tribute show at Carnegie Hall. And they’ve trotted it out another couple dozen times over the years. Based on the versions that I’ve heard, they pretty much play it straight, with “yelpier” vocals than the original, but you can definitely hear how each band has influenced the other.
Yung Wu – Big Day (Phil Manzanera cover)
After covers by the Beatles, Stones, Young and R.E.M., we need something a little more obscure. I’m a big Phil Manzanera fan, more than I am of Roxy Music, the band that he played guitar in for years. (I sometimes find Bryan Ferry’s vocals too smarmy). Manzanera is a brilliant guitarist, but he’s rarely on the mainstream lists of top players. Which is wrong. He’s released a bunch of solo albums, and his first, Diamond Head, is one of his best, and it features lots of interesting guest appearances from Roxy members, and others, like John Wetton. “Big Day” is an upbeat, fun pop song co-written and sung by Eno, and while it might not be the last thing that I’d expect to hear a cover of, it’s pretty low on the list. But Yung Wu, a Feelies remix (basically the band, but with percussionist Dave Weckerman on lead vocals) which released one album, 1987’s Shore Leave, gave it a go. It’s enjoyable and has a similar pop feel to the original, and Weckerman’s vocals aren’t too far removed from Eno’s affectless style, but I miss Manzanera’s guitar solo.
