Seuras Og, Author at Cover Me

Seuras Og

Seuras Og is an old enough to know better family Dr in Birmingham, UK, having taken the easy option of medicine upon failure to get work in a record store. By now drowning in recorded music, he has thought it about time to waste the time of others in his passion here, as well as a few other places dotted about the web.

Review: The Dandy Warhols’ ‘Pin Ups’

Posted by Seuras Og at 12:00 pm No Responses »

Mar 242026

You sort of know where you are with Portland’s Dandy Warhols. Their grungy fug of elemental electronica and gritty guitars rarely disappoints, nor does it stray far from their narrowly defined template. Applying a sheen of intelligent and informed dumb to everything they touch, cover versions have always proven sure ground for the quartet, making Pin Ups, their second set devoted thereto, something to relish. Given, too, the influences in their original songs are never that hard to spot, they nail more personality into the songs of others than you might reasonably expect, making this so much more than swoozy re-runs.

It is easy to imagine the discussions leading to this set of 17 songs were as much fun as the making of it. Some songs and some bands were just screaming out for inclusion–witness the Cramps and the Runaways–but I can’t say Dylan and the Beatles were expected to be featured, let alone the particular songs chosen. Of course, this isn’t the first airing for all of these songs, some collated and curated from previous forays into tribute discs and similar. Overall, there is also a stronger UK goth presence than might have been expected, with a song from the Cure and two by the Cult. Any obtusely perceived debt to UK punk is likewise mined through assaults on the songbooks of both the Clash and the Damned. Intrigued? I am.
Continue reading »

Review: The Damned’s ‘Not Like Everybody Else’

Posted by Seuras Og at 10:00 am No Responses »

Jan 282026

That the Damned should still be around, still plugging the same level of 2-D technicolor bombast, should be no surprise. Cartoon characters don’t age, so why should the Archies of Punk? But these are grown men, all approaching 70 from one direction or another, and nobody lives forever. Which is sort of the point and the purpose of Not Like Everybody Else.

This is a true tribute album, a celebration both of the band’s influences and of their bandmate Brian James, who died last March. James was the catalyst who pulled this motley crew of reprobates together, back in the dim and distant 1970s, writing the vast bulk of songs on their first two albums, cementing their name and reputation as trailblazers in the emergent punk scene. With chaotic and rabid live performances their calling card, this first iteration of the band burned at both ends, lasting barely a couple of years.

In the fifty years since, there have been innumerable variations and versions of the band, stumbling from lineup to lineup, label to label, yet always guaranteed to kick up a skirmish live, with a slow and steady trickle of singles to keep them in the public eye. With, as always, Dave Vanian at the helm, on vocals and Dracula impersonations, there have been upward of 20 members, yet it is that earliest line up that is inked in most indelibly: Vanian, James, Rat Scabies on drums, and Captain Sensible on bass and then guitar. So much so that, in 2024, that lineup convened for a sellout tour. With James already ill, that was as much as anything a means to give him a financial leg up, but it was nonetheless triumphant.

Now, with his death, the band celebrate his life with this set of covers, the sort of songs that inspired them back in the day, and probably still do. Possibly a surprising selection, but then, they were never really hardwired for punk, with always a love of psychedelic garage rock coursing through their veins, and a good touch of goth for good measure. The omnipresent Vanian leads from the front, with Captain Sensible on guitar. Having patched up their differences on the re-union tour, Rat Scabies has stayed on behind the drum kit. Paul Gray, on and off bassist since 1980, makes up the quartet, abetted by Monty Oxymoron, a permanent fixture since 1986, if curiously always absent from publicity shots, on keyboards.
Continue reading »

Review: ‘Keep Me In Your Heart: The Songs of Warren Zevon’

Posted by Seuras Og at 12:00 pm No Responses »

Jan 262026

Were he still alive, Warren Zevon would be on a roll, scarcely able to believe the belated acclaim coming his way. Of course, plaudits came his way in life, but Zevon was the epitome of a cult artist, beloved more by critics and other musicians than necessarily a buying public. It’s fair to say his songs tended more to niche listeners, with a taste for the left field. That sure describes a lot of us here at Cover Me, and we have endeavored to keep his flame alight, in our own small way.

“Mr. Zevon had a pulp-fiction imagination,” said the New York Times, and they weren’t wrong. If his most celebrated song was about werewolves, that was not unique, as other songs were to celebrate, if that is the right word, child serial killers and headless mercenaries. With a penchant for the dark side, Zevon was unafraid to tackle the most unusual of inspirations, while at the same time being able to pen some of the tenderest and gentlest of love songs. Truly a paradox.

Now here is Keep Me In Your Heart, a double album containing a wide selection of his songs, covered by a large cast of peers and acolytes. Curated by Long Island record label Paradiddle Records, this set is populated more by jobbing musicians on that local circuit, rather than the bigger names that gathered for a tribute concert in L.A. last fall, or indeed, the ones on his earlier tribute album, 2004’s Enjoy Every Sandwich. As such there is allowed a greater scrutiny of the song and the performance, over any recognition of already established voices and styles. Having said, there are a few higher profiles present also, a memento of how well appreciated was Zevon as a writer, by his colleagues and contemporaries.
Continue reading »

Review: The Sam Chase’s ‘Covered’

Posted by Seuras Og at 10:00 am No Responses »

Dec 092025

I am not sure how much traction (The) Sam Chase elicits in his home state of California, but over here in Blighty, courtesy a magnificent little festival called Maverick, he is always guaranteed a welcome. He, and his band, The Untraditional, cut quite the rug with his hoarse holler, belting out songs of a country hue, a punk attitude and a sometimes chamber-folk setting. This all makes for a beguiling combination, a rich mix of sandpaper and silk. Over the years he has worked solo, as a trio and now with his a 7 piece band behind him. That’s a lot, but, with cello, violin and trumpet, augmenting the more familiar guitar, keys, bass and drums, flickering remembrances of Van Morrison’s Caledonia Soul Orchestra wouldn’t be that far off point. And, yes, all seem present for Covered:, endeavoring to both compete with and comfort his foghorn fusillade.

To be fair, Chase’s voice gets dialed down a tad across most the selections here, culled from a bevy of the usual suspects: a Dylan, a Prine, a couple of Waits, balanced with CCR, Nirvana and one from the pirate cabaret of The Crux. The overall effect is strangely chameleonic, as he affects to occupy the persona of each individual singer, in character if not always sound. The difference comes largely from the arrangements, which tend toward the dusty roadhouse of amplified acoustica with drums. This renders a fluency to the flow of Covered:, a congruency that makes for a set that is all his own, however familiar the songs may or may not be.
Continue reading »

Five Good Covers: “Get Lucky” (Daft Punk)

Posted by Seuras Og at 10:30 am No Responses »

Nov 192025

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

OK, so Cover Me has found five good covers of “Get Lucky” before, a decade-plus ago, but given it was then appended “So Far,” I felt it allowable to repeat and reprise, with all new songs.

I absolutely love “Get Lucky,” popping up forever on radio and on shop playlists. I loved it in 2013, the year Daft Punk released it, and I’ve loved it ever since. But the difficulty, for me, was always in the tracking it down. Even with good old Shazam I was suspicious. I couldn’t believe it was actually by some weird helmeted French electronic duo. Shazam must be wrong, I thought, convinced it was more akin to the sound of Nile Rogers and the extended Chic diaspora he created, courtesy the inescapable scrub of guitar that he has made his own. It took me actually buying Random Access Memory to get to grips with the truth, and to confirm that, yes, it was Rogers on guitar, along with Pharrell Williams on vocals, half of the pre-eminent music production team, the Neptunes.

A number one single across most of the world, surprisingly “Get Lucky” only ever made #2 in the US, albeit for 5 consecutive weeks (damn you, “Blurred Lines”!). Multiple awards came as a deserved matter of course, including Best Song and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, at the Grammys. Lyrical scrutiny was less a concern in those days, with the chorus so damn catchy that all were happy to sing along, whether or not there was much realization about what the “Get Lucky” may be addressed toward. Mind you, with the singer suggesting the content innocent and relating more to the good fortune of meeting with and immediately connecting to someone, who was going to argue. With the slightly changing repetitions, many may have never actually latched on to the full lyrical, if you will, thrust, only learning the truth via so many karaoke machines.
Continue reading »

Review: Willie Nelson’s “Workin’ Man: Willie Sings Merle”

Posted by Seuras Og at 8:00 am No Responses »

Nov 112025

So, here we are, another year and, not so much another Willie Nelson album, but another Willie Nelson tribute album, seeing him paying respect to another of his old buddies. This time, following discs dedicated to Ray Price, Harlan Howard and Rodney Crowell (astonishingly only six months since the Crowell set!), we have Merle Haggard in the frame.

Of course, the problem for a site like this, is that when Willie loves a song–and he loves a lot of ’em–he sings ’em again and again and again. A cover lover has to be on their guard and make sure that any earlier rendition, by or including him, wasn’t the first outing ever for that song. All but one of these songs have been covered previously by Nelson, frequently alongside Haggard, but my research suggests they had all had their original recording un-Willied, so to speak, all coming from Haggard alone, usually with his band, the Strangers.

Haggard and Nelson had history together, dating at least as far back to the early ’70s, each bit players on the Nevada Casino circuit. Haggard, four years younger, after an early life plagued by insolvency and petty larceny, had hardened his ambition to become a country singer. It was hearing Johnny Cash sing “Folsom Prison Blues,” as a twenty-year-old inmate in San Quentin, that lit his fuse. Nelson, who had already quit Nashville disappointment, was seeking alternative routes to satisfy his muse, with the two bonding and becoming part of the eventual “Outlaw Country” movement. Over the years they frequently appeared together, bolstered by a set of four shared duet albums, between 1983 and 2015, the last only a year before Haggard’s death.

Here the recordings have taken shape over the space of several years, between the myriad other projects that Nelson has forever on the boil. As such there are other old friends to respect; this record contains the last recordings of Nelson’s sister Bobbie and longtime drummer Paul English, who died in 2022 and 2020, respectively. The rest of the musicians are all also familiars of what Nelson calls the Family Band, producing the by now familiar mix of loving looseness, all helmed here by Mickey Raphael’s production, his harmonica a warm presence throughout.
Continue reading »