Coverville

The cover version has always been a strange Marmite moment for music fans. Tending to come down on either one side of the fence or the other, your average aficionado loves or hates them in principle, and refuses to deviate from their opinion.

I have to confess, I’m a sucker for a good CV, as long as they obey a few obvious rules. Number one, they need to deviate as widely as possible from the original. This is why St Etienne’s version of Neil Young’s ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’ is sublime, and everything on Robbie Williams; ‘Sing While Your Swinging’ is tosh of the first water. Rule number two; there are some songs that should never be attempted, as the original nailed it so completely that there’s no further room. Exhibit #1, Mick Hucknall’s take on Ella Fitzgerald’s ‘Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye’. Actually, I could write a whole book on why every attempt to try and equal the heights so effortlessly scaled by Ella should be erased from the memory of mankind, but now is neither the time or the place. So…

I mentioned I was reviewing this show to a friend, and how it was an interesting concept, a prime example of the kind of format you would never get on terrestrial UK radio. His response?

‘What if you hate cover versions?’

If you subscribe to that side of the argument, then I apologise for wasting your time so far. Because you’re really not going to like ‘Coverville’ at all.

The format is simple. Every show takes a different artist, and plays a load of covers of their tracks, both known and obscure. The presenter, Brian Ibbott, puts the podcast together three times a week from his home in Colorado. It broadcasts on KYCY 1550AM in San Francisco. Although at first a bit gratingly nerdy, obvious love of the music and a warm, relaxed and engaging style wins the listener over. His determination to cram every last morsel of information into each link is a little wearing at times, but it’s so much better than the usual info-desert that makes up most radio presenters’ blather.

But it’s the music that’s the point of these podcasts. Whether it’s looking at an artist like The Kinks, or occasionally giving a whole album the treatment – as in recent shows where Ibbott takes ‘Abbey Road’ and ‘London Calling’, and plays a cover of each track in the sequence of the original record – it’s the change in the reading of the songs that makes the show work.

It’s why Simple Minds manage to remove all trace of thuggish menace from The Stranglers ‘Get A Grip’, while Nouvelle Vague’s version works fantastically. And why the bizarre, auto phoned version of ‘You Really Got Me’ – featuring the sliced up syllables of Tom Baker, no less – is possibly the best cover version, in the world, ever.

Go on, dive under the covers. You don’t know what you’ll find.

© Matt Hall 2009

*This article was originally published at Night Listeners

We deserve Jedward ...

Hambi & The Dance, Delta 5, The Lost Loved Ones - just three of the bands I thoroughly enjoyed - and paid to see - around 25 years ago. Even at the time I was aware they were highly unlikely to enjoy mass market success of any description. Not because they lacked distinction, ability, personality or charm, but because it was so bloody hard to arrive on the higher rungs of the music industry.

The problem in the early 21st century is easily defined: we've made the game too easy. Not only will we readily accept cookie-cutter plastic soul from the likes of Leona Lewis and Mariah Carey with hushed awe, but we apply the same over estimation to modest, bouncy indie like the Arctic Monkeys, to the point where the PM sees their name as a conduit to instant cool and cred.

This goes beyond music, of course. The quite appalling witterings of Fearne Cotton have recently earned her a daily show on Radio 1. This isn't snobbery. By any measure Cotton and her ilk have gained their lofty (and incredibly well rewarded) status with abilities which are now sufficient, but in years hence would have been deemed trite and hopeless. Perhaps this is because they can deliver demographic bums on targeted seats, rather than providing insight, humour or intelligence. But, hey, they're our bums and we're grown far too happy to park them on seats for diminished and diminishing returns.

So, average is the new genius and mediocrity the new splendour. We no longer expect too much from recording artists and that's because we don't demand that much. The recent Spandau Ballet reformation (pun intended) has been so well received because it has ignited a memory of a high watermark in the middle aged. Spandau are far from being one of the rock era's finest bands, but they certainly rose to prominence at a time when originality, a striking image and inspiration were the bare minimum required to make the big time.

It is very easy to blame the televised talent shows for these reduced standards, but up until now, the performers were at least judged by public and panel alike on their technical abilities and charisma. The dullness and unimaginative state of Hip-Hop is just as illustrative of our willingness to buy into poor quality output and praise it without applying the critical faculties which were once the norm. If you're in any doubt on this matter, try playing a Public Enemy record followed by a Kanye West record.

Which brings us to John and Edward. It is ridiculous to blame these fresh-faced Dublin brothers for their position. They're probably having the time of their lives and it's what they were asking for when they auditioned. If the status of Jedward is really a cause for concern, then we should rather blame ourselves for saying 'yes' to them. And if it's our teenage offspring who have actually said 'yes' then we should have ensured they were better informed. We should have told them they are entitled to ask, no, demand better. We should have told them the bar is way too low and they have the ability to raise it. And when the bar is set high, wonderful things happen.

Like sport, high success in the field of recorded music was never meant to be easy. Indeed, that is the whole point. When absolutely anything is accepted as brilliant nothing truly is. The harder the game, the greater the prize and the more rewarding the spectacle. But unlike sport, we get to set the standard. So let's set it as high as we possibly can.

Magnus Shaw, 2010

Suburban Spaced Out Man

1974. The Bonzos had split up four years earlier and Viv Stanshall was not only at a bit of a loose end, he was broke.

One day, the agency for whom I worked, in that less than rock and roll environment of a mews in Paddington, found its rooms enveloped by a tall, eccentric looking, but immaculately dressed Stanshall. He wanted to go back on the road as a solo artist, but had neither a manager, nor any vague idea of what he would do if he found himself on stage. We took him on immediately.

Now I say he wanted to perform, but I was later to learn that it was, in fact, the very last thing on earth he wished to do. How fine it would be if this part of the story (or any part of this story) had a happy ending. It doesn’t.

After many assurances that he had a veritable barn-load of new material, Viv turned up on the opening night (Twickenham, I recall) of this series of College and University gigs, overwhelmingly stressed. He told me he wanted to cancel the whole tour, that I didn’t understand (I didn’t) and that he had ‘nothing’. Somehow he found himself (maybe I shoved him) on the small stage, and with some help from ‘Doctor Footlights’, he cobbled something together. A sort of mish-mash of stories, music hall songs, and bizarre silences where he just stared into the distance, rather in the fashion of a distracted Gussie Fink-Nottle. It was not good. The audience of, mostly, students, gave him the sort of respect one might engender for a lunatic uncle who has been allowed home for a few hours. They drifted away, in sizeable numbers, to the bar, and the gig ended with Viv ‘playing’ some sort of hosepipe contraction, which he waved above his head, generating a rather unmusical whooshing noise. No encore was requested or given. If you’re hoping the tour got better, it didn’t. The opening night set the tone for what followed, and it was with a sense of amazement that we found that we had received no demands for the return of his fee (I think it was £125.00 per gig). I was walking along the towpath of the Thames, just before Shepperton, and there, sitting on a patch of grass next to a houseboat was a familiar figure. Familiar only if someone you knew seven years before, was now looking like the Children’s TV favourite, Catweazle.

I couldn’t help show my surprise. “Viv? Bloody Hell! Bloody Hell!”

“My darling fellow, how are you?” he responded. The words were drawn out, and laboured. He was possibly ‘medicated’, definitely drunk.

We spoke for such a long time, that it began to get gloomy as the afternoon turned into evening. He drank quite a lot. I just sat, and mainly, I listened. Viv was under the devastating spell of repeated panic attacks. He told me he had been suffering terrifying spells of them when he went out on that tour in 1974.

He said he thought he was going to die every night. Literally die, not just in the theatrical sense. When I got up to go, Viv walked back with me all the way to Chertsey Bridge. He was, essentially, dressed in rags. If you had come across him as he ambled back across Chertsey Meads, you would have run the other way. Remember I told you this won’t have a happy ending.

I went back to see Viv many times over the next year or so. He was always there. He had nowhere to go. He would always greet me with a “Hie!” That is, not the familiar “Hi” that we say with a smile when greeting a friend, but a dramatic, Shakespearian, “Hie!” as if he were Caesar seeking the attention of Cicero in the Senate. Viv’s life and lifestyle had descended into chaos. He was mixing medication and drink, in copious amounts. He was obsessed with, and always wanted to talk about, Stevie Winwood’s ‘Arc Of A Diver’ album. He had been asked to contribute lyrics (he said) for the whole album, and I suspect he also saw some financial light at the end of the tunnel of royalties. It had, he said, broken his heart and spirit, when, after delivering the lyrics, he found, that with the exception of the title track, all of his lyrics had been dropped, and that he had been replaced by the American songwriter, Will Jennings. He recited some of his lyrics. They were, in general terms, very esoteric, grandiose, and probably unsuitable for a Stevie Winwood album. Every time I saw him, he returned to this subject with, it felt like, growing despair.

Each time I saw him, he was wearing ragged, not-quite-clothing. A sort of dressing gown/toga/muumuu of depression and melancholy. It got worse. The houseboat sank, and was destroyed.

He bounced back a little bit, had some moments of clarity, and undertook some work, sporadically. Then, on 6th March 1995, Viv Stanshall died in a fire, caused by faulty wiring, in his flat in Muswell Hill.

Terence Dackombe, 2010

Chamber music: songs for the soon to be executed

1. Gallows Pole – Page & Plant

Percy Plant offers the hangman his brother’s silver & the errr... charms of his sister, but still ends the day a-swinging.

2. Firing Squad – Penetration

Pauline Murray pleads guilty to a thousand crimes. This song isn’t one of them.

3. Hanging Song – Fairport Convention

“Wake up John, it’s time to go” Oh bugger. I was hoping for a lie-in.

4. Gary Gilmore’s Eyes – Adverts

Five policemen formed the firing party for US murderer, who subsequently had no further use for his eyes.

5. Dead Man Walking – Mary Chapin Carpenter

Even Mary CC’s sweet voice can’t convince Sean Penn to renounce his crime ridden past.

6. Green, Green Grass Of Home – Flying Burrito Brothers

Gram Parsons wakes up to find it was all a dream, just a dream.

7. The Mercy Seat – Johnny Cash

The Man in Black says “I didn’t do it, oh ok then, maybe I did.”

8. The Hangman’s Knee – Jeff Beck

Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood, & Nicky Hopkins’ perky piano show devil may care attitude to the hangman’s noose.

9. Hangman Hang My Shell On A Tree – Spooky Tooth

Late 60s supergroup attempt to confuse executioner by requesting he takes good care of their respective shells.

10. Strange Fruit – Billie Holiday

Lady Day’s moving view of the American South’s propensity to lynch black people little more than a lifetime ago.