Song of the Day: Takka Takka, “In the Air Tonight” (Phil Collins cover)

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Oct 082010
 

Song of the Day posts one cool cover every morning. Catch up on past installments here.

Sometimes fiction is better than truth. Phil Collins says “In the Air Tonight” is about his divorce. Yawn. Legend, on the other hand, says it’s about Collins watching someone stand by as another man drowned. Admittedly, this begs the question, why wouldn’t Collins just help since he’s clearly standing right there? But no matter. He later invited the guilty man to a concert, then threw the spotlight on him while he sang this accusatory song. Fantastic, brutal tale. I’ll take fiction over truth.

So let’s make up a new legend! Here goes… Brooklyn quintet Takka Takka attended a Collins concert a few years back. During the encore, the band started “In the Air Tonight” with Phil at piano. About two minutes in, the drummer grabbed his chest with one hand (ever a professional, he continued playing with the other). He began to shake, eyes slowly rolling back, even as he kept ticking away. Phil’s piano faced the drum riser and the concerned look in his eyes indicated he saw this. But the band was only thirty seconds from the drum break – the break that every member of the crowd, Takka Takka included, had been waiting for all evening – and Phil was damned if he’d stop the band before they got there. Even as the drummer began to turn green, Phil pressed on. The drum break finally arrived. The drummer executed it perfectly. Then he spontaneously combusted. Continue reading »

Song of the Day: John Mellencamp, “Stones in My Passway” (Robert Johnson cover)

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Oct 072010
 

Song of the Day posts one cool cover every morning. Catch up on past installments here.

Two facts influenced today’s pick: One, last Saturday was Farm Aid 25 and two, today John Mellencamp turns 59. So what better way to celebrate both occasions than with a cover Mellencamp performed at a previous Farm Aid? As a member of the Farm Aid Board of Directors, the man has sung alongside Willie Nelson and Neil Young at almost all of them. That’s a lot of “Rain on the Scarecrow”s.

This particular video comes from Farm Aid 2003. Mellencamp had just released Trouble No More, his terrific blues covers album, and played a couple cuts from it. With some hot resonator slide from guitarist Andy York, Robert Johnson’s blues standard “Stones in My Passway” rolls along like good electric blues should. Happy birthday, John! Continue reading »

Song of the Day: Delmos Wade, “Smooth Criminal” (Michael Jackson cover)

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Oct 062010
 

Song of the Day posts one cool cover every morning. Catch up on past installments here.

The Thriller videos – “Beat It,” “Billie Jean,” and “Thriller” – get the glory, but to my mind “Smooth Criminal” rivals them all. Watching the clip taken from his Moonwalker film, Michael Jackson never looked slicker than he did in that white fedora. Apparently his urban gangster alter ego has worked his way up the ladder. The knife-fighting street tough of “Beat It” is now a cool and collected mob boss. If you need more convincing of this video’s greatness, witness the pool ball jump, the underling flip, and, of course, the legendary antigravity lean here.

A video can only go so far without a great song, though, and “Smooth Criminal” was that too. Then and now, the bass-synth riff makes the listener feel funky, seductive, and a little dangerous (though that album was still three years off). In today’s cover, Long Beach quintet Delmos Wade slow jams it without losing an ounce of sexy. Gritty guitar and mournful clapping express more concern for Annie’s actual well-being than the original. Continue reading »

Song of the Day: Red Hot Chilli Pipers, “Clocks” (Coldplay cover)

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Oct 052010
 

Song of the Day posts one cool cover every morning. Catch up on past installments here.

It’s not very cool to like bagpipes. Neither is it particularly hip to dig Coldplay (“You know how I know you’re gay…”). In some perverse way, that makes the two a perfect pairing. On their 2007 CD Bagrock to the Masses, bagpipe-rockers the Red Hot Chilli Pipers (I know, I know) blast through everything from “We Will Rock You” to “Getting Jiggy with It.” The strangest selection, though, may be Coldplay’s “Clocks.” It’s made even stranger by the fact that, well, it sort of works.

Check out a video of the band performing it live. Even if you disagree about its musical merit, it sure is fun to watch. Continue reading »

Song of the Day: Gabriel Miller-Phillips, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” (Hank Williams cover)

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Oct 042010
 

Song of the Day posts one cool cover every morning. Catch up on past installments here.

An argument could be made for “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” being the best country song ever written. Admittedly, an argument could be made for many other songs too (“Folsom Prison Blues,” “Mama Tried,” “I Can’t Stop Loving You”), but few songs sum up the country music ethos as purely as “I’m So Lonesome.” Originally released in 1949 as a B-side to the somewhat less cutting “My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It,” the song didn’t make an impact until 1966—thirteen years after Williams’ death. B.J Thomas recorded the first of many hit covers that year, prompting MGM Records to re-release the original as a single (it went to #43).

The latest in the long list of “I’m So Lonesome”s comes from Gabriel Miller-Phillips, a Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter. Phillips gives it a haunted touch: brooding cello hovering ominously above brushed country drumming. Just when you think a song has run out of reinventions… Continue reading »

Song of the Day: David Bowie, “I’m Waiting for the Man” (Velvet Underground cover)

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Oct 012010
 

Song of the Day posts one cool cover every morning. Catch up on past installments here.

With the recent re-release of David Bowie’s 1976 Station to Station, the Thin White Duke has slunk back into the spotlight. Bowie’s last great character (this is post-Ziggy Stardust, of course) may have been his strangest. Certainly his least likeable. Wikipedia collects some good descriptions from Bowie biographers: “a mad aristocrat,” “an amoral zombie,” and “an emotionless Aryan superman.”

The drug-addled anorexic – Am I talking about Bowie or the Duke? Where’s the line? – made no secret of his predilection for harder forms of recreation. As if the waifish, glazed-over demeanor wasn’t hint enough, he performed Lou Reed’s heroin anti-anthem “I’m Waiting for the Man” as the third song on the Station to Station tour. Check out this video from a tour rehearsal. Whacked-out though he may have been, the man has charisma coming out the eyeballs. Continue reading »

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