BOC Covers

[Doug Pearson]

A pretty amazing list, if you ask me ... I'm familiar with a few of these ...

On Thu, 2 Dec 1999 09:07:12 -0500, FAQman "John A. Swartz"
<jswartz at MITRE.ORG> wrote:
>Here's what the BOC FAQ has for cover tunes on BOC - a few additional
>comments by me are [in brackets]:
>
>John

OK, I'll put mine {in braces}

>Bands Covering BOC
>==================
>
>
>Artist - "BOC Cover" - *Recording Title*
>
>CHOP (Mike Watt project) - "I'm On The Lamb, But I Ain't No Sheep" and
>                           "She's As Beautiful As A Foot" - single
{Watt rules!}

>Honeymoon Killers - "Godzilla" - *Let It Breed*
{I like this one, but it's totally UGLY sludge-rock so YMMV}

>L7 - "This Ain't The Summer Of Love" - *"I Know What You Did Last
>                                       Summer" Movie Soundtrack*
>[heard it on the radio and thought it sounded pretty good - others have
disagreed]
{grunge by-the-numbers; does nothing for me.  I like the Nomads/Screamin'
Dizbusters version much more}

>The Meatmen - "Hot Rails To Hell" - *Pope On A Rope*
>[Hot Rails as a punk song - I'm not into punk, but it seems to work]
{not every BOC song would sound good in a punk rendition, but "Hot Rails To
Hell" is one that definitely would!}

>Metallica - "Astronomy" - *Garage, Inc.*
>[decent, and easy to find - but Kirk Hamment is no Buck Dharma]
{Yeah, it's OK, but I think that Metallica could have picked a song
better-suited towards their sound ... there's no way a Metallica version is
going to have the atmosphere of menace and mystery that the original does
... anyone have any ideas?}

>The Minutemen - "The Red And The Black" - *3 Way Tie (For Last)*
>              - "The Red And The Black" (live) - *Tour Spiel* (7" EP)
{like I said, Watt rules!}

>The Mutton Birds - "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" - *"The Frighteners"
>                                               Movie Soundtrack*
{this version is GREAT!  Until I heard it, I would have thought that it
would be completely pointless for anyone to cover this song, but the Mutton
Birds really do something *different* with it and make it work}

>Clint Ruin & Lydia Lunch - "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" - *Don't Fear The
>                                                        Reaper* (EP)
{sort of industrial-music-ish and not particularly interesting IMO}

>Screaming Dizbusters (The Nomads) - "This Ain't The Summer Of Love" -
>                                    single
{this version rocks; highly recommended for those into garage/punk; it's
also contained on a recent Nomads double-CD compilation on Sympathy for the
Record Industry, the title of which I can't recall}

>The Screaming Tribesmen - "The Red And The Black"
{I haven't heard this version, but I think that Chris Masuak of Radio
Birdman was in this band after RB broke up}

>World of Pooh - "Dominance and Submission" - *Not All That Terrifies
>                                              Harms* (compilation)
{a band who really turned my head around when I saw them perform in SF
about 10 years ago ... never heard them play this live, though.  Some might
find this version a bit too "lo-fi" but it works for me, perhaps because
I'm a sucker for hearing a female backing voice, sometimes ... the version
of D&S that my band Dogbreath does was partially inspired by this version,
but one of our performances of the song was a cover of the 'Live 1976'
version ("Dear mr. Carter - me an' my friends, we wanna get high!  And we
don't wanna have to go to jail for it" - ouch!)}

>     Also, the magazine *Forced Exposure* published a fake review of a
>non-existent BOC tribute album.  The review appears in issue #18 (Spring
>1994).  The fake album is called "Then Came The Last Days Of May", and
>presumably features the following artists and BOC covers:

A former bandmate admitted that he had been suckered and asked around about
buying a copy ... it was, unfortunately to me, a pretty obvious prank.
More BOC covers is definitely a good thing (as long as it's not "Reaper")!

        -Doug
         ceres at sirius.com