Burl Veneer’s Music Blog

Steely Dan covers

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:14:02 -0700

My second favorite online game, after "finding new music to listen to", is "finding music I used to have but don't anymore that I would nevertheless like to hear again." Often a simple Google Blog Search will turn up what I'm looking for right away; sometimes nothing will turn it up, and I have to keep trying over a period of weeks, months, or even years. In the "months" category is a song that I finally uncovered today, Nash Kato's 2000 cover of Steely Dan's "Dirty Work" from his first, and so far only, solo album, Debutante:

07 Dirty Work

Nash Kato

Kato also recorded a version of another classic song from Steely Dan's first album, "Midnite Cruiser", which I am still seeking. It was used in Me, Myself, and Irene, but didn't make it onto the soundtrack album. It was also a free download from Kato's website, but that is long gone. (I posted Steely Dan's original last year.)

We never had any Steely Dan records in the household when I was growing up, but we did have a righteous version of "Do It Again" by Herbie Mann:

Herbiemann_doitagain

Herbie Mann

Then in the 80s, "Slingshot" amused with their mashup of "Do It Again" and Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean":

Slingshot+-+Do+It+Again+12'

Slingshot

My copy of the record is on the Quality label; I seem to recall another mashup they put out, a woman (Claudia?) speaking AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long" over... a Kraftwerk song, maybe? Must keep digging... I think Will To Power rang the death knell for mashups for years to come with their heinous "Free Baby." I can't bring myself to actually put that on the blog, but here's a YouTube link if you want to torture yourself.

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Deferred listening: 1979 AOR trifecta

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 19:21:23 -0700

It's 1979: I'm in the eighth grade, I've finally figured out how to listen to popular music, settling into my own niche at DC AOR powerhouse WAVA; I've started buying records but I don't have enough money to make a habit of it; how do I collect all the songs I want, twenty years before instant downloads? Tape 'em off the radio, baby! I had persuaded my parents to get me a TEAC cassette deck for [my birthday/Christmas], so I plugged it into Dad's receiver, tuned in WAVA FM 105, and waited with my finger on the pause button until I recognized the opening chord of one of my must-have songs. Those tapes disappeared long ago, and I've spent the intervening years (not including the 80s, when I was too cool to listen to AOR) seeking those songs again. I think I got them all on the original Napster; I got six hundred of my favorite oldies on Napster, stored them online on myplay.com (back when that's what the site was for), then lost my account due to inactivity! AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!! And by that time, of course, Napster was shut down. But today I have finally completed my trifecta of most-wanted 1979 AOR (now known as "melodic hard rock") songs; I'll start with the most elusive, "I Do Believe In You" by Pages:

01 - I Do Believe in You

Pages

Pages were formed by Richard Page and Steve George, who would go on to form... Mr. Mister! (Whose drummer, Pat Mastelotto, would later join... King Crimson! A natural progression from Mr. Mister, yes?) (8/28: Listening to this again, it strikes me that it has an extremely proggy guitar solo for such a mainstream song; you never know where prog is going to turn up.)

Then there was "All Us Boys" from Toto's second album, Hydra, chock-full of great riffs and leads:

05 All Us Boys

Toto

At the time I had no way of knowing that lyrics like "Mothers tell your daughters to stay away from rock and roll" were (a) ridiculous, and (b) especially ridiculous coming from Toto. (There are some live clips of Toto performing this song on YouTube, but actually seeing them kind of ruins it for me.)

Back in March I alluded to a future return of keyboardist Michael Fonfara to these pages; well, the future is now! After backing up Lou Reed for a few albums, Fonfara joined AOR band Tycoon, whose minor hit "Such A Woman" (Billboard #26) was one of my sought-after songs that I didn't manage to capture. Tycoon's sound has been much maligned (sample comment from Adamannapolis: "This is unintentionally funny studio rock. Very intense in its pussytude."), but I am powerless to resist that hook in the chorus:

such a woman

So that wraps up the trifecta, and no matter what you think of these songs I'm sure you will agree that they all belong together. (And so do several other songs I've posted, accessible via the handy-dandy AOR tag.)

Now, on to the footnotes: Michael Fonfara's history is even more colorful than playing with Lou Reed and an also-ran AOR band: manning the organ for Rhinoceros, he was one of the purveyors of one of the all-time great rock instrumentals, 1968's "Apricot Brandy"--

Rhinoceros "Apricot Brandy" (1968)

"I Do Believe In You" did not make superstars of Pages, but it was good enough for America, who covered it on their 1980 album Alibi:

06-america_-_i_do_believe_in_you

America

That's pretty lame, I think; they stripped from the song the little bit of bite the Pages gave it, and it just doesn't make it. As for that album cover: WTF?

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The Planet Doesn't Mind

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 04:23:52 -0700

The term "blast from the past" is overused, but on some occasions it fits exactly: when your attention is drawn to something and you realize, wow, I used to like that long ago, and I forgot all about it, but here it is again years later and isn't it great! That's the blast! That's what I got a few weeks ago when I happened upon "The Planet Doesn't Mind" by the X-Visitors on the Timecapsule blog:

X-Visitors"The Planet Doesn't Mind''(Vocal)1982 ElectroFunk

Back in my college radio days I'd go through a pile of new records every week, pick out a few to play on my show, and often never listen to them again. Many of them came in a plain sleeve with no band information at all. The X-Visitors 12" was one of those, but I think I played it more than once, or maybe I just listened to a tape of the show I played it on a few times, because as soon as I heard it again the whole song stretched out in front of me in my head as if I knew it by heart. Thanks to Web 2.0, I finally know something about the band from some of the comments left on the song's YouTube page:

Buckeyecat2002 writes, "The X Visitors were the legendary Rojas Brothers, San Jose, CA. My boys. Their familiy goes back to Mariachi big bands in Mexico."

blackwaxjh writes, "Great record!! Classic slice of early 80's(1983 to be exact) electro funk. Produced by Diane Dragon, the former owner of Star Records here in the Bay Area. Diane told me several years ago someone had approached her about doing a remix of this cut. But unfortunately the original mulitrack tape to this song is missing and may be permanently lost. :("

Most surprising of all, though, was learning that the song is actually a cover, the original being by UK band New Musik from their 1982 album, Warp:

13-The Planet Doesn't Mind (Single Version)

New Musik

New Musik was the band of Tony Mansfield, who became better known as a producer for Naked Eyes, a-ha, and the like. I never listened to New Musik when they were a going concern; based on their cover art I assumed they played cliched "new wave," which I was no longer interested in by the time I found out about them. Listening to them for the first time over two decades later, I realize that I wasn't far off. The X-Visitors sure did a great job with that one song, though!

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Luxuriously lacerating locomotion (continued)

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 19:12:07 -0700

Having finally followed up on Platters That Matter Records's post of Dr. John's "I Walk On Gilded Splinters" with The Flowerpot Men's cover version, PTMR tells me that Humble Pie did a version of it too. Sure enough, there it is on YouTube, from their Performance - Rockin' the Fillmore album. It's quite a slog; I've put it at the bottom of this entry in case you want to test your willpower. More interesting are the other versions that YouTube turned up, with the best being by Paul Weller--

Paul Weller playing 'I Walk On Gilded Splinters' live

and the most novel being by Cher--

Cher I Walk On Guilded Splinters

She doesn't have the voice, the soul, or the accent to pull off the song, but that arrangement is a bit of all right. Now, can you stare at that despairingly utilitarian album cover below for 9+ minutes of Peter Frampton's guitar noodling and stop-start rhythms that never go beyond a crawl? Click "play" if you dare:

I Walk On Gilded Splinters - Humble Pie

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The Flowerpot Men meet Dr. John

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:04:02 -0700

Continuing the perusal of my own vinyl vault, I turned up my Flowerpot Men collection: not the 60s psychedelic band, but the vaguely gothic 80s synthbeat duo of Ben Watkins and Adam Peters. Watkins started out as the singer for new wave band The Hitmen; Peters was a cellist and string arranger, arranging the strings on Echo & the Bunnymen's Ocean Rain album among other projects. They recorded four EPs together (three studio, one live) and one album (as Sunsonic) before going their separate ways. Watkins found fame through his Juno Reactor project; Peters went on to be a member of Family of God and, most recently, Neulander. The Flowerpot Men's crowning achievement was their epic cover of Dr. John's "Walk On Gilded Splinters" (hear his original version here), with a cameo appearance by the Dr. himself:

01 Walk On Gilded Splinters

The Flowerpot Men

The Flowerpot Men have a trademark sound you won't hear anywhere else: the broad, whooshing notes of Adam Peters' electric cello, better than any synth patch.

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Obscure covers: the Phenomenauts

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 18:55:20 -0700

Casting about for new music to listen to I came across the Phenomenauts, and the description sounded all right (something like "pop-punk with some synths"), and sure enough, they're pretty fun (and unlike so many pop-punk bands, they don't sound like whiny teenagers). The track list for their album, For All Mankind, lists "Make a Circuit With Me" as track 4. Could it be the Polecats' song from way back in the 80s?, I wondered. It is! The Phenomenauts have made a small change to the classic chorus of "I need a diode, cathode, electrode, overload, generator, oscillator -- Make a circuit with me": they've replaced "electrode" with "nematode" (roundworm?!) for some reason. And otherwise they've cranked up the speed, volume, and guitar distortion and made the song fit right into the musical landscape of today. Here is the Polecats' original rockabilly-robotica video, followed by a stream of the Phenomenauts' version:

The Polecats-Make a circuit with me

The Polecats, by the way, are still together! And they're playing in LA next month!

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Stealth covers of covers; or covers of stealth covers?

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:56:57 -0700

Back in December I posted Moondog's "Bird's Lament," one of those tunes that is so natural it feels like you've known it forever, even the first time you hear it:

03 Bird's Lament

Moondog

Listening to Quantic Soul Orchestra's Pushin' On this evening, "Bird's Lament" came out of the speakers, but over a deep funk breakbeat and titled "Get A Move On"--

09 - get a move on

The Quantic Soul Orchestra

A quick google shows that this is actually a cover of Mr Scruff's "Get A Move On," which is itself a cover of "Bird's Lament." Wheels within wheels...

Mr. Scruff 'Get A Move On' Music Video

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Unlikely covers 2

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 19:40:32 -0700

What could be as unlikely as a disco/southern rock cover of a Yardbirds song? How about an 80s electro cover of a Bad Company song? I've been wanting to hear Jenny Burton's cover of "Rock Steady" again since the 80s, but I've never managed to connect with a copy of the record, or even an mp3, until now. In an era when even CD reissues seem anachronistic, Wounded Bird Records of Guilderland, New York, keeps plugging away at it. Thanks to them, Jenny Burton's 1984 album In Black and White is finally available on CD, and I got me one. What I didn't know back then, because all I had by her were singles with no liner notes, is that the instrumental tracks on the album were created entirely by John Robie. Robie arguably did more than anyone else to define the electro-boogie sound of the 80s through his work as a synth programmer for several influential Tommy Boy groups: Soulsonic Force, the Jonzun Crew, and Planet Patrol. (He did a killer remix of Cabaret Voltaire's "Yashar," too, which may have had some influence on their shift to dance music.) In Black and White continues his trademark sound, dubbed together from an arsenal of electronic instruments listed in the credits: Roland TR 808, Multi-Moog, Prophet 5, Sequential Circuits Poly-Sequencer, EMU Systems Emulator Digital Synthesizer, Roland Juno 60, and Yamaha CP 70, plus Yamaha acoustic piano, Fender Stratocaster, and Gibson SG Custom. Put that all together with a powerful female singer and you get the most unique Bad Company cover ever on a major label:

01-Rock Steady

Jenny Burton

(Edited for length.) "Rock Steady" was overshadowed by the big hit from the album, "Remember What You Like." That's fitting since it's a better song for her, but "Rock Steady" has terrific novelty value. Jenny Burton is still singing, but she's left the electro style behind for a more mature R&B/gospel focus. Sigh.

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Unlikely covers

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Wed, 21 May 2008 17:30:53 -0700

A few days ago Jeff was looking for an unlikely cover of a disco song; that reminded me of something I came across last year, a disco cover of an unlikely song. Yardbirds disco, anyone? If that's not weird enough, the chorus turns into southern rock! (At around 2:20)--

Chilly - For Your Love (1978)

The recorded version is actually twelve minutes long, and it is strangely mesmerizing; I listened to all twelve minutes of it without being able to stop it. More than once, too. Solid Goldberger has the whole track here.

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The Iggy Pop-Peter Murphy connection redux

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Mon, 05 May 2008 19:35:39 -0700

Several weeks ago I wrote about Iggy Pop and Peter Murphy sounding nearly the same; just yesterday I discovered the live radio performances that Peter Murphy and Trent Reznor gave during the joint Nine Inch Nails/Bauhaus tour of 2006. Lo and behold, they did an Iggy Pop cover:

Night Clubbing - Trent Reznor, Jeordie White, Peter Murphy

And to pile on the coincidences, Trent released a new Nine Inch Nails album today (The Slip), for free!

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