Cover Albums

 

The March 2022 issue of Classic Rock Magazine has its cover story on … covers.  “Covers” are when one musician plays a song by another musician.  Oddly, although Garage, Inc. (Metallica’s double covers album) is mentioned, there’s really no discussion of cover albums per se.  And as I can show you below, there are now plenty of them to talk about.

Morning and Evening.  When bands are starting out, they have to rely on covers until they hone the skills necessary to write acceptable quality material of their own, obviously drawing upon the inspiration of those covers.  The Beatles had gone to 100% originals by the third album, A Hard Day’s Night, but even Please Please Me (#1) and With The Beatles (#2) were less than 50% covers.  The Stones didn’t make it to 100% originals until Aftermath, their fourth album, and the first album had only one original.

Likewise, when the bands get older and run out of gas, rather than put out an album of substandard originals, it’s much easier just to do an album of covers.  Of course, it’s intriguing to hear how they put their mark on other bands’ music.  What I noticed, though, was most of these covers predate the band’s own material and – as Saxon explicitly acknowledge with the album title – were their inspirations.  What I rarely hear are any of these bands playing covers of their own peers and competitors.  Thus no Beatles covers on Blue & Lonesome, no Black Sabbath (and just a snippet of “Dazed and Confused” in a medley) on Turning to Crime, no Megadeth, Slayer or Anthrax on Garage, Inc. 

Here they are, listing the songs and the original artists.

Deep Purple, Turning To Crime.  The most recent of these.  Half are fairly obscure 50s tunes, the rest are more famous 60s tunes.

7 and 7 Is (Love); Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu (Huey “Piano” Smith); Oh Well (Fleetwood Mac); Jenny Take A Ride (Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels); Watching The River Flow (Bob Dylan); Let The Good Times Roll (Louis Jordan & the Tympany Five); Dixie Chicken (Little Feat); Shapes of Things (Yardbirds); The Battle of New Orleans (Johnny Horton); Lucifer (Bob Seger); White Room (Cream); Caught in the Act (medley including “Dazed and Confused” (Led Zeppelin), “Hot ‘Lanta” (Allman Brothers))

Ace Frehley, Origins Vols 1 & 2.  The original lead guitarist for KISS.  These were released separately in 2016 and 2020.  He claims he’ll do a Vol. 3, but the story quoting him saying so isn’t dated.

Vol #1.  White Room (Cream); Street Fighting Man (Rolling Stones); Spanish Castle Magic (Jimi Hendrix); Fire And Water (Free); Emerald (Thin Lizzy); Bring It On Home (Led Zeppelin); Wild Thing (Troggs); Parasite (KISS – really a cover?); Magic Carpet Ride (Steppenwolf); Cold Gin (KISS); Till The End of the Day (Kinks); Rock and Roll Hell (KISS)

Vol #2.  Good Times Bad Times (Led Zeppelin); Never In My Life (Mountain); Space Truckin’ (Deep Purple); I’m Down (Beatles); Jumpin’ Jack Flash (Rolling Stones); Politician (Cream); Lola (Kinks); 30 Days In The Hole (Humble Pie); Manic Depression (Jimi Hendrix); Kicks (Paul Revere & the Raiders); We’ve Gotta Get Out of This Place (Animals); She (KISS)

Fu Manchu, The Covers.  I have this on vinyl, and have never seen it on CD.  It doesn’t show up on Amazon or eBay in either format, nor does their Wikipedia discography even mention it.  Apparently it was a limited release of 700 copies by the band itself.  As stoner rock bands go, FM have shorter, snappier, high tempo songs, often about skateboarding, so the punk influence is definitely front center, as the cover choices make clear. 

Who Are You (Void); Nothing Done (SSD); D.O.A. (Van Halen, not Bloodrock); When The Shit Hits The Fan (The Circle Jerks); Moving in Stereo (The Cars); Beach Blanket Bongout (JFA); Freedom of Choice (Devo); Godzilla (Blue Oyster Cult); Things Start Moving (Adolescents); Ride To Live (Live To Ride) (Twisted Sister); Six Pack (Black Flag); Words To Live By (Penance); Jailbreak (Thin Lizzy); Chevy Van (Sammy Johns).

Yngwie Malmsteen, Inspiration.  A few years back before the Saxon album.  YM plays large headstock Stratocasters with scalloped fretboards and took classical music into overdrive, blending it with obvious influences of Ritchie Blackmore, Uli Roth, and Jimi Hendrix, which makes their inclusion on this covers album a no-brainer.  Although he’s obviously talented and practiced those oddball scales rigorously, somehow he doesn’t seem to pull off more bluesier solos that well.  My recollection is that I got the UK album after hearing this one, the only track on the album I wasn’t already familiar with. That’s a prog super group with Allan Holdsworth (guitar), John Wetton (bass & vocals), Bill Bruford (drums), and Eddie Jobson (keyboards).

Carry On Wayward Son (Kansas); Pictures of Home (Deep Purple); Gates of Babylon (Rainbow); Manic Depression (Jimi Hendrix); In the Dead of Night (UK); Mistreated (Deep Purple); The Sails of Charon (Scorpions); Demon’s Eye (Deep Purple); Anthem (Rush); Child in Time (Deep Purple); Spanish Castle Magic (Jimi Hendrix)

Metallica, Garage, Inc.  Before this, they had “broken in” Jason Newsted with the $5.98 EP, Garage Days Re-Revisited (1987), before his bass was ignored on …And Justice For All.  Fast forward to 1998, when the band released Garage, Inc., which included the EP on disc 2 along with other previously released covers – including “Am I Evil” (Diamond Head) and “Blitzkrieg” (Blitzkrieg) which had been the b-sides of “Creeping Death” and tacked on to the Elektra version of their first album, Kill ‘Em All.  Then they went into the studio and recorded a whole CD worth of new covers, for a two disc set.  I like that they pick more obscure tunes instead of big hits.

Disc 1 (Freshly recorded):  Free Speech For the Deaf (Discharge); It’s Electric (Diamond Head); Sabbra Cadabra (Black Sabbath); Turn The Page (Bob Seger); Die, Die My Darling (Misfits); Loverman (Nick Cave); Mercyful Fate (Mercyful Fate); Astronomy (Blue Oyster Cult); Whiskey In the Jar (traditional, played by Thin Lizzy); Tuesday’s Gone (Lynyrd Skynyrd); The More I See (Discharge)

Disc 2 (previously released):  Helpless (Diamond Head); The Small Hours (Holocaust); The Wait (Killing Joke); Crash Course in Brain Surgery (Budgie); Last Caress/Green Hell (Misfits); Am I Evil? (Diamond Head); Blitzkrieg (Blitzkrieg); Breadfan (Budgie); The Prince (Diamond Head); Stone Cold Crazy (Queen); So What (Anti-Nowhere League); Killing Time (Sweet Savage); Overkill (Motorhead); Damage Case (Motorhead); Stone Dead Forever (Motorhead); Too Late Too Late (Motorhead) 

Monster Magnet, A Better Dystopia.  New Jersey's premiere stoner rock band.  Dave Wyndorf gave us this collection of mostly obscure tunes.  I would have preferred an entire album of Hawkwind covers – or least add in their earlier covers of “Brainstorm” and “The Right Stuff” – but at least he gives us the distinction of the only Hawkwind cover on any of these albums.

The Diamond Mine (spoken word intro); Born To Go (Hawkwind); Epitaph For A Head (Blackfoot); Solid Gold Hell (Scientists); Be Forwarned (Pentagram); Mr. Destroyer (Poobah); When The Wolf Sits (Jerusalem); Death (Pretty Things); Situation (Josefus); It’s Trash (Cavemen); Motorcycle (Straight To Hell) (Table Scraps); Learning To Die (Dust); Welcome To The Void (Morgen)

Motorhead, Under Cover.  Given that the man himself, Lemmy, already did “Motorhead”, “Lost Johnny” and “The Watcher” on both On Parole and Motorhead, I suppose Hawkwind songs weren’t going to show up here, though “Silver Machine” would have been cool. 

Breaking The Law (Judas Priest); God Save The Queen (Sex Pistols); Heroes (Bowie & Fripp); Starstruck (Rainbow); Cat Scratch Fever (Ted Nugent); Jumpin’ Jack Flash (Rolling Stones); Sympathy For The Devil (Rolling Stones); Hellraiser (Ozzy Osbourne); Rockaway Beach (Ramones); Shoot ‘Em Down (Twisted Sister); Whiplash (Metallica)

Ozzy Osbourne, Under Cover.  Yes, the same title as Lemmy’s.  Instead of Zakk Wylde, his guitarist on this is Jerry Cantrell of Alice In Chains.  Mike Bordin of Faith No More (who also played drums with Ozzy’s solo band, and Black Sabbath on the 1997 Ozzfest tour) is here on drums.  Ozzy gives us lots of hits from left field: a Beatles song, two John Lennon songs, King Crimson, and the hit the Moody Blues had before Justin Hayward and John Lodge joined and they became a prog band with Days of Future Passed, “Go Now”. 

Rocky Mountain Way (Joe Walsh); In My Life (Beatles); Mississippi Queen (Mountain); Go Now (The Moody Blues); Woman (John Lennon); 21^st Century Schizoid Man (King Crimson); All The Young Dudes (Mott the Hoople); For What It’s Worth (Buffalo Springfield); Good Times (The Animals); Sunshine of Your Love (Cream); Fire (Arthur Brown); Working Class Hero (John Lennon); Sympathy For The Devil (Rolling Stones); Changes (Black Sabbath – yes, like Ace, covering a song he was originally on)

The Rolling Stones, Blue & Lonesome.  Eleven years after their last album of original material, A Bigger Bang (9/5/05), the Stones come back with an album of exclusively blues covers.

Just Your Fool (Little Walter); Commit A Crime (Howlin’ Wolf); Blue and Lonesome (Little Walter); All of Your Love (Magic Sam); I Gotta Go (Little Walter); Everybody Knows About My Good Thing (Miles Grayson & Lermon Horton); Ride ‘Em On Down (Eddie Taylor); Hate To See You Go (Little Walter); Hoo Doo Blues (Otis Hicks & Jerry West); Little Rain (Ewart G. Abner Jr & Jimmy Reed); Just Like It Treat You (Willie Dixon); I Can’t Quit You Baby (Willie Dixon)

Rush, Feedback.  Back in 2007, fairly short – just an EP.  They did a tour for this album, which we saw, and for which some of the concert t-shirts were tie-dyes, with the 2112 Naked Man (who may or may not be the same naked guy from the Hemispheres cover) is now afraid of a peace symbol instead of a red star.

Summertime Blues (Eddie Cochran, but homage to The Who version, not the Blue Cheer version); Heart Full of Soul (Yardbirds); For What It’s Worth (Buffalo Springfield); The Seeker (The Who); Mr Soul (Buffalo Springfield); Seven and Seven Is (Love); Shapes of Things (Yardbirds); Crossroads (Robert Johnson/Cream).

Saxon, Inspirations.  Along with Iron Maiden and Def Leppard, among the trio of most successful New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) bands to emerge from the early 1980s and not merely survive but prosper, even if they aren't quite as famous or successful as the other two.  Biff & his comrades came out with this relatively recently.

Paint It Black (Rolling Stones); Immigrant Song (Led Zeppelin); Paperback Writer (Beatles); Evil Woman (Crow); Stone Free (Jimi Hendrix); Bomber (Motorhead); Speed King (Deep Purple); The Rocker (Thin Lizzy); Hold The Line (Toto); Problem Child (AC/DC); See My Friends (Kinks)

Tesla, Real to Reel (Discs 1 & 2).  Often lumped together with Motley Crue and Skid Row as a "hair metal" band, Tesla were less about image than about the music itself, with a sincerity that was sometimes borderline naive.  Disc 1 was sold outright in CD packaging allowing for two.  The second disc was given at the shows for that tour, which I saw at the Ram’s Head Live in Baltimore.  Frank Hannon himself was at the merch booth and give me the disc – and signed the insert.

Reel 1.  Space Truckin’ (Deep Purple); Walk Away (James Gang); Hand Me Down World (Guess Who); Bad Reputation (Thin Lizzy); Thank You (Led Zeppelin); I’ve Got A Feeling (Beatles); Day of the Eagle (Robin Trower); Ball of Confusion (Temptations); Rock Bottom (UFO); Stealin’ (Uriah Heep); Bell Bottom Blues (Derek & the Dominos); Honky Tonk Woman (Rolling Stones); Dear Mr. Fantasy (Traffic)

Reel 2.  All The Young Dudes (Mott the Hoople); Make It Last (Montrose); Shooting Star (Bad Company); Not Fragile (BTO); Street Fighting Man (Rolling Stones); It’s My Body (Alice Cooper); I Want To Take You Higher (Sly and the Family Stone); Do You Feel Like We Do (Peter Frampton); Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers (ZZTop); Seasons of Wither (Aerosmith); Saturday Night Special (Lynyrd Skynrd); War Pigs (Black Sabbath)

UFO, The Salentino Cuts.  They started off with Mick Bolton on guitar for two space jam-type albums, then found Michael Schenker for five major seventies albums and a later trio of reunion albums; Vinnie Moore has been the guitarist for the last several albums.  The only constant member has been vocalist Phil Mogg, and they give us a rare gem: a LATER song, “River of Deceit” from Mad Season. 

Heartful of Soul (Yardbirds); Break on Through (The Doors); River of Deceit (Mad Season); The Pusher (Steppenwolf); Paper In Fire (John Mellencamp); Rock Candy (Montrose); Mississippi Queen (Mountain); Ain’t No Sunshine (Bill Withers); Honey-Bee (Tom Petty); Too Rolling Stoned (Robin Trower); Just Got Paid (ZZTop); It’s My Life (Animals).

As these are all experienced professionals, I didn’t hear any songs butchered, though I didn’t hear any where I felt they had improved on the originals.  In about 20% of the cases I was unfamiliar with the source material to make any kind of comparison anyway.  As a Monster Magnet fan, though, I was dissatisfied with Wyndorf’s choices; it seems he deliberately picked extremely obscure tracks to continue cultivating his “aren’t I cool?  I wear sunglasses at night” persona. 

Tribute Albums.  I suppose the opposite of a covers album, where one band covers all sorts of different bands’ songs, is a tribute album, in which all different bands cover one band’s songs.  The most recent was Blacklist, where Metallica’s 1991 self-titled, so-called Black Album, gets cover treatment by a host of bands outside their own genre.  The sad apart about it is that almost all of them make the original versions sound that much better.  It’s almost as if the band was thinking, “well, everyone seems to think we sold out on this album, but here are versions of our songs which are far more commercial than our own.  See how you like those.” 

Red Dawns

 

Finally something to write about which I haven’t covered before.   With Russia becoming the Bad Guys once again, thanks to their tourism extravaganza in Ukraine, revisiting this movie, and watching its 2012 remake, became appropriate and amusing again.

Red Dawn (1984).  A small town in Colorado is abruptly attacked by Communist bloc army of Russians, Afghans and Sandinistas.  The local high school students take to the hills and continue the fight.  A USAF pilot, Tanner (Powers Boothe) is shot down but manages to join their group.  Casualties are to be expected, but a few survive to make their way to US lines and freedom.  The big two here are Jed Eckert and his brother Matty (Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen – the first major role for each of them).  The female contribution is Jennifer Grey – before her hookup with Swayze in “Dirty Dancing” – and Lea Thompson, briefly before she fell in love with Marty McFly, her own son gone back in time before his parents even hooked up (Grey and Sheen "hook up" briefly in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"). Ron “Superfly” O’Neal is one of the Red leaders, evidently a former Sandinista.

Released in August 1984, we saw this when it came out.  It was right in the Reagan years, when patriotism was running high, to put it mildly.   Grenada was two years earlier, and I even managed to visit the USSR – Kiev, Moscow and Leningrad – in March 1983.  All the boxes are checked off here: AK47s, MI24 Hinds (actually French helicopters modified to look like them), and plenty of anti-communist and pro-American propaganda, either cringeworthy or amusing depending on your viewpoint.  Too bad these days, the types most likely to identify with the Wolverines tried to take over the government on January sixth and actually support Putin, because their beloved leader seems to have a tiny hard-on for the Russian dictator.  That’s the cue for the rest of us to stock up on AR15s and AK47s (plus the 5.56mm and 7.62x39mm ammunition they fire).  Oddly, some of the Comm-Bloc soldiers were actually firing FALs - not aware of any communist country which adopted it.

I like it, even if I can recognize the “check the boxes” deal of immersing in contemporary uber-patriotic propaganda which this film indulges in.  The extra features were amusing to watch.  Although the movie takes place in Colorado, it was filmed in a small town in New Mexico, with the familiar name of Las Vegas, although this one doesn’t seem to have any casinos, and its fanciest hotel is supposedly haunted.  The town is not far east from Santa Fe.  The film crew hired experts to teach the cast about weapons training, as none of them (except C. Thomas Howell) had any relevant experience.  Lea Thompson said that was immensely fun.  She also shared the common knowledge that Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey did not get along with each other.  Well, three years later they could dance together without shooting at anyone, or each other. 

Red Dawn (2012).  I suppose if you remake a movie that was never particularly popular in the first place, there’s no wonder the remake won’t be a whole lot more popular (though I suppose “The Thing” is a counterexample).  Instead of a small town in Colorado, it’s Spokane, Washington (a decent sized city).  Instead of a Comm-bloc alliance army, it’s the North Koreans (!!) with a Russian Spetsnaz advisor.  Chris “Thor” Hemsworth takes over the Patrick Swayze (Jed Eckert) role, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan takes the Colonel Tanner role, now USMC instead of USAF.  Unlike the prior Jed Eckert, who was just a former football player, this one was in Iraq with the USMC and has combat experience.  Josh Hutcherson is the only other major actor here, dwarfed by Hemsworth. 

As we’re talking about North Koreans and not Sandinistas, Colonel Bella (O’Neal’s) comment about the guerillas turning into policemen is now switched with Jed Eckert talking about “policemen who are now guerillas”.  Other plot angles are switched as well, almost as a matter of principle.  Instead of a group gradually wound down in numbers (1984) this time they have a specific target, a black box (olive drab suitcase) which contains the North Koreans' anti-EMP device.   

Part of what makes this one a little stranger, is that as implausible as the “Russians invade us through Mexico” scenario of the first movie was, an invasion by North Korea is far more implausible than that.  If they can’t even roll back into Seoul and down to Pusan, it’s unclear which navy they have which can take an invasion force to Washington State.  Same deal with having higher military technology than we do.  As an actual threat, I’d say the Russians have returned to being our most likely adversary, though the Chinese seem to be moving in that direction as well – both far more so than North Korea. 

Either way, it’s the same type of story:  high school students defend their home against a foreign invader.  Ten years later, we’re cheering the Ukrainians as they do the same thing – against Russians, for that matter. 

As Americans we love this business of, "we didn't start this war, but we'll finish it!"  Whether we're avenging Fort Sumpter, the USS Maine, the Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, the USS Maddox, or the 9/11, we love this business of fighting back.  Otto Skorzeny, the black ops specialist of Nazi Germany - who arranged Mussolini's rescue and the behind-the-lines chaos of the Battle of the Bulge, gave SS Leader Heinrich Himmler advice when asked if the Germans could fire a V1 rocket off a U-boat into Manhattan.  "Don't underestimate the Anglo-Saxon strain in the Americans; their morale jumps sky-high when directly threatened."

However, there's no plausible scenario in which we would be faced with enemy ground forces on US soil.  Far more likely, unfortunately, is for Russia, China or North Korea to land on US soil in the form of nuclear assault, and none of our weapons training is of any use against an H bomb.  

Oh, and no sign of Hugh Jackman in either film.  Too bad.