Hokey Karaoke

Volume 1 of a CD-R of cover versions recorded for my friend Stuart on 19th August 2008.

 

I love a cover version and my forays into cassette compilations included many made up of people singing other people's songs. Many of the songs featured here have cropped up on previous mixtapes but I quite like the flow of this CD-R that I made for my friend's birthday a decade and a half ago. Always one for overdoing things, this was the first of three volumes that I gifted him at the time.

My Bloody Valentine start off with their version of the key song from the sixth James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service, originally recorded by Louis Armstrong in 1969. If you're expecting a typical MBV wall of noise, you'll be disappointed; unexpectedly, it's a faithful and rather lovely cover version.

A few cover versions go acoustic. Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly deliver an urgent Northern take on Gallic dance duo Justice. Devine & Statton aka Ian Devine (nee Pinchcombe) from Ludus and Alison Statton from Young Marble Giants and Weekend team up for a beautifully stripped down version of a New Order classic. I remember hearing this on the John Peel show back in 1989. Australian band Frente! were clearly paying attention. Deacon Blue aren't particular favourites of mine but anyone willing to have a stab at a Julian Cope song gets a thumbs up from me. 

Several versions take the song in interesting directions. Whilst not surpassing the originals, they've come up with a different approach that makes the song their own. Primal Scream are the first in line, with an amped up, dirty version of The Clash's Know Your Rights. Tunng go all folky with club classic Naked In The Rain by Blue Pearl, whilst Locust offer up an almost jazz lounge duet on Depeche Mode's Master And Servant. 

 

I'm also a big fan of Mark Eitzel's uptempo but downbeat run through Move On Up by Curtis Mayfield. Associates' bold debut in 1979, covering Boys Keep Swinging weeks after the original was released, is every bit as good as David Bowie. If I had to choose between the two, Anita Lane's unique take on Sexual Healing, ably assisted by Mick Harvey and Barry Adamson, surpasses Marvin Gaye's original.

Ciccone Youth aka Sonic Youth take things to the natural and extreme end with a version of Robert Palmer recorded in a karaoke booth. The video - recorded in the same booth for $25 - is a striking send up of the overblown original, Kim Gordon's deadpan singing and lacklustre dancing against a backdrop of images from the Vietnam War. I vaguely recall watching this on a late night TV show and the studio guests ripping the song and video to shreds, but they were woefully missing the point.

Speaking of overblown, sometimes the only way to do a cover is go even bigger and louder. Stairway To Heaven is one of those songs indelibly etched in the memory of my childhood listening to music on the radio and has been covered countless times over the last half-century. I remember being subjected to a version during a school assembly in the 1980s by a 'supergroup' made up of my Biology, Geography and P.E. teachers. It wasn't pretty.

Like many, seeing Aki Kaurismäki's 1989 road movie Leningrad Cowboys Go America was my first introduction to the titular Finnish band. Leningrad Cowboys continued to release records up to 2013 but they appear to have disbanded some time after. Their version of the Led Zeppelin song came from a collaborative album with The Alexandrov Red Army Ensemble aka The Alexandrov Ensemble aka The Red Army Choir, the official choir of the Russian armed forces. Tragically, on Christmas Day in 2016, 64 members of the Ensemble were killed when their plane crashed into the Black Sea.

The world has changed dramatically this year and collaborating with the official choir of the Russian armed forces is unlikely to be on anyone's wish list, now or any time in the foreseeable future. How different things were in 2008 when I compiled this collection.

 

1) We Have All The Time In The World: My Bloody Valentine sing Louis Armstrong (1993)

2) Know Your Rights (Full Length Version): Primal Scream sing The Clash (1994)

3) There's A Ghost In My House: The Fall sing R. Dean Taylor (1987)

4) Naked In The Rain (Rob Da Bank Session): Tunng sing Blue Pearl (2007)

5) D.A.N.C.E.: Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly sing Justice (2008)

6) Move On Up: Mark Eitzel sings Curtis Mayfield (2002)

7) Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime: Beck sings The Korgis (2004)

8) Bizarre Love Triangle: Devine & Statton sing New Order (1989)

9) Addicted To Love: Ciccone Youth sing Robert Palmer (1988)

10) Making Plans For Nigel: Datassette sing XTC (2006)

11) Boys Keep Swinging: Associates sing David Bowie (1979)

12) Master And Servant: Locust sing Depeche Mode (1998)

13) It's A Man's Man's Man's World: Natacha Atlas sings James Brown (2003)

14) Some Velvet Morning: Slowdive sing Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood (1993)

15) If You're Lookin' For A Way Out (Album Version): Tindersticks sing Odyssey (1999)

16) Sexual Healing: Anita Lane ft. Mick Harvey & Barry Adamson sings Marvin Gaye (1993)

17) Trampolene: Deacon Blue sing Julian Cope (1989)

18) Stairway To Heaven: The Leningrad Cowboys & The Alexandrov Red Army Ensemble sing Led Zeppelin (1994)

Volume One (1:19:43)