Well folks, as the title implies this here's the end . It pains me to no great measure to have to retire Versions Galore my little glorified hobby, but 'the man' has made it fairly untenable by, yet again, yanking all my links. The prospect of finding yet another new storage service is rather moot too, as some seem to relish playing cat and mouse as a fulltime job. For the mouse however, it's become beyond irritating and it's time to move on. A big tearful thanks to all my regular followers; Pauline, Iha, [...]
It's Flashback Friday time again. So today we're setting the Versions wayback machine for, well, really only about a year ago, when we ran a rather fat post on Human Fly by late great psychobilly pioneers The Cramps (and where I also rambled on at length about the importance of a good T-shirt). So here's a few new cuts, a few we missed and a few I was finally able to get my little black gloves on. Right off the bat was one I believe [...]
Most folks tend to know Minnie Riperton via her octave breaching signature 70s hit Loving You , and for giving us doe-eyed funny girl Maya Rudolph (her daughter with composer and husband Richard Rudolph) . However any rare groove merchant worth his or her dusty fingers will tell you it ends far far from there. Riperton started her career singing backup for her childhood idols (Check Berry, Ramsey Lewis, Etta James) before joining hippie soul collective Rotary Connection. From there it was upwards to her solo career as a staple 70s folk soul singer. Lurking behind the [...]
During it's fetid late 70s heyday the US may have had mutant disco masterminds like James Chance or Cristina, but the UK had it's own homegrown funk punk, the late Ian Dury and The Blockheads . The man himself was a triumph of adversity. Contracting polio from a swimming pool at the age of 7, Ian was left crippled. He was then relegated to a bleak British disability hospital but rather than marinate in self pity, his condition and environment would toughen him up. Something of a whiz in high school he would dropout early (with high marks) to [...]
As the title implies, I've been buried alive, under deadlines. Surfacing however for a quick post. Soulful yet enigmatic UK dubstep proudcer (the good kind) William Bevan AKA Burial with two covers. One oh-so-hot genre shakes hands with another with, ironically misnomed, Banjo Or Freakout 's neo-shoegaze version. And the other, a haunting rendition by Canadian deathfolk (look I just coined a genre!) artists Ghostly Graves . Banjo or Freakout - Archangel Ghostly Graves - [...]
"Like a bird, on the wing I just wanna be free enough to do my thing" Some days are headphone days. Headphones and a good walk. Actually make that walk a full blown head bobbing, bicep curling strut. And music to strut to today; Hercules by Aaron Neville . Hercules actually puts the 'rare' in rare groove as the original pressings of this 1973 funk 45 were all but impossible to find. Pressed on sub-standard styrene rather than [...]
Got another left of the dial 80s classic today, Infected by The The . Taken from the eponymous album, Infected saw The The's Matt Johnson taking his earlier penchant for pop, and lyrical angst during his Burning Blue Soul and Soul Mining years, and using it to file his teeth into something darker. Though the idea of concept albums were almost a decade dead and buried at that point Infected 's disparate yet extremely cohesive tracks about lust, war and "America" (as an ominous entity. A [...]
I love Blake Edwards films ;The Party , the Pink Panther series, and today's subject, Breakfast At Tiffany's . What I especially love however are his soiree scenes . The man is veritable auteur of party antics and behavior. His conducting of straight guests and bumbling pratfallers has all the precision and wit of a Rube Goldberg contraption. Not surprisingly I am also big fan of his chief composer Henry Mancini , the king of versatile cover versions. One can take any of his tunes, and all are malleable, like today's example, [...]
Strawberry Switchblade . I've always had a soft spot for this unsung 80s duo. Back when I was a wee teen dabbling in goth I came across a pic of Rose McDowall & Jill Bryson on the cover of UK new wave pin up mag Smash Hits . No need to hear them. With their Siouxsie in overdrive makeup, Victorian outfits and almost Yayoi Kusama level of fetish for polka dots, their image fluttered deep in my stomach, AKA that telling midpoint between my brain and my trousers. When I finally got my black [...]
For the most part I don't consider myself superstitious about anything; No black cats, no ghosts, no bigfoots, no ufos and no books involving talking snakes and zombie messiahs (though when put that way that last one sounds kind of rad). I do have a few borderline ones however that are probably more OCD than anything else. 'Fours' of anything are to be avoided (Japanese bad luck number), when pumping gas the final tally has to be rounded up (i.e., $60 instead of $59.82), and I've been known to get all kind of Joan Crawford-y about ball point [...]
So today's post I actually put to a vote by asking a handful of friends: When a band re-visits one of their classics in a new fashion, is it still considered a 'cover'? Instead of lenthy postmodern replies laden with nerd words like 'meta-narrative', the response was more a resounding 'Fuckit, it's like YOUR blog dude'. Hurrah for the yes-friends! Which of course means hurrah for you as I've got 2 covers of Little Fluffy Clouds by The Orb , done by The Orb . And how very Orb (AKA [...]
Time to bust out your largest bangles, silk blouse and hoop earrings and prepare to cut a rug for the husband and wife team of Linda and Cecil Womack (better known simply as Womack & Womack ) who undergo the cover treatment today. We got 4 Versions heavy vetted (sorry Elton, Sugababes, and, ugh, Joss) renditions of their 80s R&B hit Teardrops . Not sure whether to laugh or dance at /with Germany's normally indie rock Hank , who turns out a fun short n' cheeky disco version. [...]
Up to my receding hairline with the day job, so today's entry is going to be pithy and brief: • Public Image Ltd ( PiL ) were a million times better than the Sex Pistols. Fact. • Got 4 leftfield/experimental/odd indie cuts of PiL's postpunk pièce de résistance Poptones ; Tropics Of Cancer ( sweet, lo-fi, bossanova-esque, Japanese-ish ), The King Of Luxembourg ( atmospheric, Eno-ish ), A Group ( weird, slow torch song-eque ) and Jared Louche ( dark cabaret-like [...]
Dubstep, at least up until the last couple years, has been defined by it's sparseness. A slow, raw plodding beat, heavy but simplistic bass line and punctuated by the occasional echoing atmosperic stabs. But despite being a big fan of both dub and electronic music, to me it always sounded half-finished rather than well measured, and that 98% of it lacked of any kind discernable soul . Fast forwarding to now, and we can see it has evolved, not without mixed results, and bloomed into it's inevitable mainstream incarnations. On one hand you have the meretricious Scrillex whose brand of [...]
So I finally joined the 21st century and got Netflix On Demand, which, btw, is total shit.There are a few gems in there however not the least which is Breaking Bad , which I'd also been sleeping on up until about two weeks ago (yeah yeah I gotta join this decade as well). Anyway watching poor Walt go down the rabbit hole, all I can hear in the back of my head is the War song Slippin' Into Darkness . I'm sure we've all had our moments, I know I [...]
Marc Mac, 1/2 of pioneering electronic neo soul/future jazz duo 4 Hero, takes a sabbatical from his outfit's always stellar tributes of 70s soul classics to cover the unexpected. Under his Visioneers moniker he refashions analog pyschedlic pop track Come And Play In The Milky Night , by Stereolab , into a head pumping downtempo urban hymm. Our favorite cover of the year by far. Visioneers - Come And Play In The Milky Night Enjoy! [...]
Happy Birthday to us! It’s the 8th and final installment of Versions Galore ’s 4th Anniversary Guest Cover Mix series... HVW8 , for the uninitiated, are an art collective made up of Gene Pendon, Tyler Gibney and Dan Buller who immoratlize their idols on canvas. Muhammad Ali, Fela, Stevie Wonder, Coxsonne Dodd, Serge Gainsbourg, Gil Scott Heron, Roy Ayers (to just scratch the surface) all get painted from a palette that is just as likely to include colors like funk, soul and afrobeat than just [...]
Today's entry is probably nepotism run amuck, but not without merit. I first mentioned my good friend Shockman last year, and how we both worked, some years ago, at a big electronic music rag . Two sarcastic Jews with an almost autistic knowledge of arcane music trivia cooped up in a tiny room 24/7 had all the trappings of a good sitcom. While during the day Shockman is still the mild mannered but prolific music scribe, he is also known quite well in the Bay Area where he is the Don Gorgon at the [...]
As I've bitched, whined, moaned and lamented many a time here on this blog, had I not decided (somewhat arbitrarily) on cover versions, Versions Galore could have easily been an electronic music site. To be specific it would have focused on all manner of Balearic; classic house/acid house, cosmic disco, Giorgio Moroder, Madchester, re-edits and pretty much everything short of the toenail clippings of great Andrew Weatherall. That was until I did a little pre-blog leg work and, lo, discovered that today's selector The Acid House had already beaten me [...]
Happy Birthday to us! It's Versions Galore's 4th anniversary and we're celebrating this month by letting some very special guests behind the cover versions controls... When people wax nostalgic about music from the 80s, the reality is is that there were really two parallel 80s. For the masses there was the pop drivel of Debbie Gibson, Phil Collins, Bon Jovi, Motley Crue, Air Supply, and yes, even Olivia Newton John. But for a smaller segment of us, those misfits in the yearbook with the black shirts and asymmetrical hair of varying colors, we moved [...]
Versions Galore
Marlon Hoffstadt - Skin And Bone (feat. HRRSN)
Euro Chart 25 maggio 2013: primi i Daft Punk con Get Lucky
R.F.T.W.E. pt.2
Louis La Roche – Say I’m Your No. 1
Stream: Meek Mill – “Levels” (Prod. Cardo)
