Various Artists - Great Jewish Music : Marc Bolan
One of the things i wanted to do in this pitiful attempt at a journal was at some point to review a tribute album. I've always enjoyed listening to tribute albums because they're such a mixed bag. Usually the first thing you look for is your favourite songs and usually when you end up hearing them they're nearly always disappointing and it's usually the obscure gems done by artists you're not familiar with that end up grabbing your attention the most.
My first choice album for doing this was originally going to be Hard To Believe : A Compilation Of Kiss Covers, The Kiss covers album that came out in the early 90s that's most well known for featuring Nirvana's cover of Do You Love Me? But after listening to it I decided against it given that all the songs on it are pretty much covered by grunge bands and although I enjoy the album it's not really interesting or diverse enough for me to muster the energy to write about it.
Then on my online travels I came across this album. Released in 1998 it's a part of a series released by John Zorn's Tzadik label that also includes tribute albums to people such as Burt Bacharach & Serge Gainsbourg. Having looked at the weird & wonderful list of artists that appear on the album I decided this had been the album I had been looking for to write about and so here we are.
Arto Lindsay & Marc Ribot - Childern Of The Revolution
Both Arto Lindsay & Marc Ribot are artists who although I wouldn't exactly call myself a fan of I do see their names popping up with alarming regularity on records I enjoy. Also this was one of the first T Rex songs I had ever heard so I was hoping this would start the album off with a bang. I wasn't disappointed, this rocks.
It's pretty much a straight 'rock' cover but Lindsay & Ribot turn it into a bombastic monster that someone like Motorhead would be proud of. Towards the last couple of minutes of the song it just turns into a wall of noise but the base of the song is so firm that it never descends into chaos. Basically this is a pretty awesome cover and a great way to open the album.
Rebecca Moore - Telegram Sam
I didn't know who Rebecca Moore was so I looked her up.
"Rebecca Moore is a musician and actress. Known mostly for being the lover and onetime muse of Jeff Buckley as well as her participation in experimental theater productions and experimental music. She is the daughter of noted art photographer, Peter Moore and his wife, Barbara, an art historian."
So, I thought to myself. This is going to be a really slow version of the song with a load of electronic effects going on in the background.
I started listening to the song
It's a a really slow version of the song with a load of electronic effects going on in the background.
I beginning to think that for every tribute album planned it says in the contract that there must be at least one rock song performed by a female artist who will slow it down & turn it into some kind of ballad. And it get's on my bloody nerves every time. Any swagger that the original song had has been turning to some monotonous dirge.
Horrible.
Kramer - Get It On
The Smurfs do dance music.
It actually rather works.
I enjoyed it anyway.
Melvins - Buick MacCain
If you've ever heard the original song and you've ever heard the Melvins you pretty much know what you're going to get.
It's slow, it's heavy, it's noisy it's the Melvins.
This is the Ronseal track of the album
Medeski, Martin & Wood - Groove A Little
I'm a little familiar with Medeski, Martin & Wood. I heard one of thier albums last year sometime and although it didn't exactly blow me away it sustained my interest till the end. Their take on this is similar to one of those kind of 'Joe Smith plays the hits of the day on his hammond organ' type albums that i'm sure people over the age of 30 will remember their parents owning in their childhood. Thankfully they decided to keep the riff of the song and make it sound dirty as hell which keep things ticking over nicely to the end of the song.
Lo Galluccio - Cosmic Dancer
Another female jazz / avant garde singer so you know exactly where this song is going.
Yep .... Dronesville
zzzzzzzzzz
Fantômas - Chariot Choogle
Although Mike Patton gets on my tits this is a welcome break after the last song. I don't remember the original song sounding anything like this but it's loud, it's fast, it's weird and it's over before you get bored of it.
Exactly the kind of thing the album needs at this point.
Tall Dwarves - Ride A White Swan
I would say that it was this song that I held out the most hope for before I listened to the album, and thankfully I was right.
This is pretty much a straight cover of the original with a little extra bounce & energy and all the better for it. It's one of those songs that you stick on a compilation to save you the effort of having to listen to the rest of this album.
Easily the best track on the album so far.
Chris Cochrane - Rip Off
Starts off with a heavy bassline, a bunch of electronic noise & lots of guitar distortion and goes into some kind of average so-so electronica track. Then just as I am beginning to wonder if I should skip to the next track halfway through the song all this is ditched and it's just a guy singing the song playing the banjo. By the time you've adjusted to this you think perhaps you should give the song a bit longer to see how this plays out and while you're doing that the song goes back to the electronica hum-drum it started as orginally & reaches it's climax.
Bizarre.
Gary Lucas - Daboraarobed
Deborah is one of those songs thats so catchy even an idiot could cover it and it would sound good.
This is a pretty decent cover it's done acoustically (like the original) and played at about twice the speed and it's great.
However for some bizarre reason they decided to swamp the track with a droning buzzsaw type electric guitar in the background which comes to the fore at the end of the track, and it's really really irritating.
I'd love to hear a version of it without that because it would be perfect.
Ezster Balint - Mambo Sun
This was a surprise hit on the album for me. When the song started it started slowly with crackles of guitar & cheap synth sounds and i'm wondering if i'm about to hear chick snoozefest No 3. But there's just something about the same that you just know it's going to kick in at some point. Then suddenly the song explodes into a typical 90s female fronted alt-rock song. Think something like the Breeders or Throwing Muses if you want a comparison.
As i'm listening to the song i'm wondering who this Ezster Balint is. I read that she's also a violinist and as if on cue she knocks out this killer noise ridden violin solo before the song reaches it's climax.
Pretty good in all.
Vernon Reid - Jeepster
You know how at the beginning of this review I said that the songs that you look forward to before you hear the album are nearly always the most disappointing ones.
Well here it is.
The best thing about the original of the song was that it was up-tempo bouncy & catchy and it forced you to want to clap your hands along with the song.
Sadly all of this seems to have escaped Vernon who slows the song down and makes it heavier.
Basically this song now sounds like it was performed by an early 90s grunge band with Vernon showing off his guitar histrionics in the background. And once you realise that the song is going to be at this pace until the end you just want it to be put out of it's misery.
Awful
Danny Cohen - Lunacy's Back
Didn't like this one at all. It sounds kind of halfway between a country song & a lounge song.
Regardless of that it was really the vocals that turned me off. He sounded like he was going to burst into tears at any moment.
No idea who Danny Cohen is and a google search revealed nothing so i'm guessing he never really did much after this.
Elysian Fields - Life's A Gas
Life's A Gas is one of my favourite ballads of all time & if there's one song on this album that could be done justice with a female singer it's this one. The music on this is pretty minimalist, a few jazzy bits, a soft unintuitive guitar solo. The main focus on the song being Jennifer Charles's vocals, and the song is all the better for that.
Another album highlight.
Yuko Honda & Sean Lennon - Would I Be The One
I had high hopes for this one. Around the time this album was released in 1998 I bought Sean Lennon's first solo album Into The Sun (Which people here really should check out) . And I played that album to death for years.
I was hoping that this song would be in a similar vein to that album with it's kind of laid back summery pop that wowed me back in 1998 and i'm glad to say it does just that.
Apparently Lennon was unhappy with the cheap recording of this song & re-did it on his 2006 album Friendly Fire.
So now I have another album to get hold of.
This was great though.
Cake Like - Love Charm
Didn't know much about this band so I did some finding out. Apparently they're a female 3 piece who were signed to Neil Young's record label because he liked the cover of their debut album. The music itself is your typical 90s grungy alt rock. Not terrible but not mindblowingly great either.
Trey Spruance - Scenescof
Crap
Buckethead - 20th Century Boy
I was really dreading this one.
20th Century Boy is the most obvious 'Rock Anthem' on this album
And it's being covered by a 'Guitar Hero'
I also quite like this song
This can only end in tears.
I suddenly noticed that the song is over 7 minutes long and it soon became apparent why.
It starts off with a 2 minute widdly widdly guitar solo that almost sent me to sleep.
When the song finally starts you realise that this sounds like some crap (With much emphasis on the CRAP part of the description) hair metal band covering the song in the 80s with extended guitar hero histrionics
I have 80s hair metal band The Cult wannabes Bang Tango covering this song on an album somewhere.
It's a damn sight better than this awful crap.
Lloyd Cole - Romany Soup
I know of Lloyd Cole, I know he had some success in the 80s although I can't recall a single song by him. My main memory of Lloyd Cole is him being dissed by Mark E Smith at the beginning of Cruisers Creek on the Peel Sessions collection.
It's kind of inoffensive laid back electronica with even more laid back vocals. It's extremely repetitive and you never really get the impression that the song is going anywhere. Seems an odd choice of an album closer to me.
Not terrible but doesn't really set the world on fire either.
*****
An interesting collection with lots of John Zorn known associates showing up. There are more misses than hits but there is some good stuff to be found here. Which is exactly what i predicted at the beginning before I'd heard a note.
Highlights
Arto Lindsay & Marc Ribot
Tall Dwaves
Ezster Balint
Elysian Feilds
Yuko Honda & Sean Lennon
Lowlights
Rebecca Moore
Vernon Reid
Trey Spuance
Buckethead