G-L-O-R-I-A

Cut-Out Bin

Tom Watson at newcritics calls Patti Smith’s cover of Van Morrison’s Gloria “the greatest rock cover performance (studio release) of all time.” Love how he doesn’t attempt to qualify or temper the statement by prefacing with the usual “All top ten lists are silly, but here I go anyway.” Just comes out and says it.

And onward it goes, every second fiery, living-breathing rock-and-roll. It feels incredibly live, with Jay Dee Daugherty’s singer-focused cymbals and fills and Lenny Kaye’s understated but omnipresent guitar. This song feels like it could only have been released in this performance, in this actual cut, in the recording that was made on that one day with this one band in this one studio. And to me, that’s what great covers are about: building on somebody else’s song, putting your own meat on the bones, creating a singular performance.

Damn straight. Follows up with his own top 10:

Gloria – Patti Smith (Horses, 1975)
Just My Imagination – The Rolling Stones (Some Girls, 1978)
Respect – Aretha Franklin (1967)
Satisfaction – Devo (Are We Not Men?, 1978)
Jolene – The White Stripes (2003)
I Won’t Back Down – Johnny Cash (Solitary Man, 2000)
I Fought The Law – The Clash (The Clash, 1979)
Oops I Did it Again – Richard Thompson (A Thousand Years of Music, 2003)
Stand By Me – John Lennon (Rock-n-Roll, 1975)
Don’t Start Me Talkin’ – New York Dolls (Too Much, Too Soon, 1974)

Timing couldn’t be better, since Patti is about to release Twelve, an all-covers record that’s already got my sandals in a lather. Her cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” may well be more moving than the Gregorian chant version of the same song. You do have to question her choice to cover Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants To Rule the World,” or Stevie Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise,” neither of which rise to the occasion (or maybe it’s Patti not rising) though the missteps are more than compensated for by the inclusion of a floating, haunted cover of The Doors’ “Soul Kitchen.” And her take on “Are You Experienced” is transformed into a mountainous alt-rock dirge.

Smith, interviewed at Salon.com:

That’s why [pioneering New York punk-rock club] CBGB was so important. CBGB was like a mecca. It was just a shit hole, but it was our shit hole. For the new guard, the Internet is their CBGB and their territory is global. … I was an apprentice of some very great people — Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs and Gregory Corso — and we talked endlessly of the duty of the poet. My goal was to infuse more blood into poetry, to bring rock ‘n’ roll into poetry. Not so much to bring poetry into rock ‘n’ roll — Jim Morrison had done that, Bob Dylan had done that. For me, it was the opposite.

So… what covers have made you twitch and moan?

About Scot Hacker

Scot Hacker is a web developer, teacher, and blogger living in Northern California. He is the author of Can You Get to That? The Cosmology of P-Funk and Understanding Liberace: Grooving With The Fey Heckler. He works by day as webmaster at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and Knight Digital Media Center, and runs Birdhouse Web and Mail Hosting on the side. Hacker is the author of The BeOS Bible and MP3: The Definitive Guide, and posts near-daily on random stuff at Scot Hacker's foobar blog. He's ecstatic that we're sitting on 100 years of recorded music history. How I Got Stuck When was the last time you bought a record because of the cover? 25 years before MP3s, I used to make a weekly pilgrimage to Cheap Thrills in San Luis Obispo with friends, where we'd surf through dusty wooden bins, de-flowering ourselves in a mist of vinyl, grabbing piles of cut-outs about which we knew virtually nothing. Junior Samples, Temple City Kazoo Orchestra, The Buggles, Paul Desmond, Instant Chic, Smithsonian collections, Robert Moog, Dream Syndicate... didn't matter. If the cover was cool, we assumed there was a good chance the music would turn us on. And we were often right. In that humongous wooden warehouse, between around 1977 and 1984, my musical universe bloomed. There were also duds - dumptruck loads of duds. The lesson that a great cover doesn't tell you jack about the music inside was a long time coming (the inverse correlation - that great music was often hidden behind terrible artwork - came much later). But it didn't matter, because cut-outs never cost more than a couple-three bucks, and all the good shit we uncovered made it worthwhile. In high school, I (for the most part) ignored the music going on around me. The jocks and aggies could keep their Rick Springfield and their Jefferson Starship - we were folding papers after school to The Roches and Zappa and Talking Heads and PiL. But inevitably, some of the spirit of that time stuck with me. ELO and McCartney wormed their way (perhaps undeservedly) into my heart. No one escapes high school without an indelible tattoo on their soul describing the music of that time. When I went away to college, the alt/grunge scene was being born, and getting chicks required familiarity with The Pixies and Porno for Pyros. I couldn't quite figure how these bands were supposed to be as interesting as Meat Puppets or Cecil Taylor or Syd Barrett, but I went along for the ride for a while, best I could. But I never quite "got" alt-rock. Never understood why The Pixies were elevated in the public imagination over a thousand bands I thought were so much more inventive / rocking / interesting. What exactly was Frank Black offering the world that Lou Reed had not? In general, I like music carved in bold strokes - extremely rockin', or extremely beautiful, or extremely weird... I like artists that have a unique sound, something I can hang my hat on. I love Mission of Burma and The Slits and The American Anthology of Folk Music and Devendra Banhart and Bowie and Nick Drake and Eric Dolphy and Ali Farka Toure and Marvin Pontiac. If you were to ask me who was the last great rock and roll band, I'd be likely to answer "The Minutemen." I know it's not true, but I'd say it anyway. And yet, in a weird way, I totally believe it. Today while jogging, I listened to a long interpretation by the Unknown Instructors: "Punk Is Whatever We Made It To Be" - half-spoken / half-sung sonic collage of some of D. Boon's best stanzas. Boon's powerful words rained like hammers and I felt like I was back in 1980, careening down the highway in a green VW bug with The Stooges blasting. It was that spirit of amazement that I used to live for - the one I never got from the 90s indie scene. And then, just as quickly, I thought "God, I'm living in the past. I suck." I'm stuck. I have vast collections of LPs, CDs, and MP3s. I listen to music for hours each day, and yet I'm completely out of it, musically speaking. I confess -- I've never listened to Guns-n-Roses or Pearl Jam or Prince, and I've only recently heard "Nevermind" in its entirety. If it weren't for Twitter, I wouldn't even know Lady Gaga existed. I'm oblivious to the stuff that supposedly matters to "music people." It's not like I'm totally unaware of pop music. I just have a finely tuned ability to tune out whatever doesn't interest me. I don't quite know how to explain it. I can only say that my friends register shock when they learn that I've never heard of Elliot Smith. And yet I do not feel thirsty. I'm always open to being turned on. But I learned long ago that, unfortunately, you can't trust beautiful cover art to promise great music, and you can't always trust your friends to push your music buttons. I'm happy to listen to damn near anything. And every now and then, that "anything" will turn into something that will become important to me over time. Something that will last. I like music with staying power. Belle and Sebastien have a certain appeal, but I don't think they're going to occupy even the tiniest slot in my consciousness in 20 years. But the power and inventiveness of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, John Fahey, Robert Wyatt, Can, The Carter Family, The Clash, will never dissipate. I have little interest in the "new" factor. I could not care less whether this year's model is the baddest thing going on in Atlanta or a rare gem rescued from 78 rpm oblivion by Robert Crumb. It's all the same to me. Just squeeze my lemon / 'till the juice runs down my leg. Please. A friend once said that he felt lucky to have been born so late in history, because the later you're born, the more history you have to work with. I don't think I really understood what he was saying until I was about 40. It's not about being born late, it's about this massive archive we're sitting on - the entire history of recorded music under our butts, which we can either choose to ignore or to mine for all it's worth. Every hour I spend checking out the flavor of the month is an hour I haven't spent with David Thomas or Richard Hell or Shuggie Otis. Life's too short. I'm going to use this site to drift back and forth through musical history, modernity be damned. You turn me on, I'm a radio. Let me know what I'm missing. shacker's station at last.fm

5 thoughts on “G-L-O-R-I-A”

  1. For me:

    Pussy Galore — Nothing Can Break Me Down (cover of Nuggets-like band The Twilighters from Texas)

    Dwarves — Hurricane Fighter Plane (original by Red Krayola)

    Rocket From the Tombs — Raw Power (the band that would later become Pere Ubu did an instrumental take on the Stooges’ song that absolutely smokes)

    New Bomb Turks — Jivin’ Sister Jinny (Great, low-fi cover of the Stones song)

    Dinosaur Jr. — Just Like Heaven (I even like that hardcore chorus)

    Did anyone see the Smith’s performance of Rock and Roll Nigger for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Holy shit…

  2. Lemon, I’ve *got* to dig up that Smith’s performance, thanks for the tip. Funny, the Smiths covering Smith.

    Just listened to Patti’s “Birdland” from Horses in the morning sun a while ago and started to cry a little bit. Mind blowingly moving.

  3. It wasn’t “*The* Smiths”, I believe Lemon made a typo… Patti Smith performed Rock & Roll Nigger at the induction this year… It was really nice that VH1 Classic showed the entire ceremony uncut this year, I was really pissed off when Talking Heads reformed for their induction and VH1 only showed a few of the songs they performed…

    Which brings me to a great cover: “Take Me to the River” by Talking Heads….

  4. LOL – Nevermind :) I thought it was pretty weird that they would cover that song… which is why I had my heart set on finding it. But will still try to find Patti’s induction thing.

  5. Tying together two recent threads, there’s a bootleg of Patti Smith called something like Teenage Perversity.

    Iggy is on this too, and I think Smith comments about how he just woke up from being passed out on the stage at one point. I think there were some other choice comments too, and a rousing cover of Louie Louie.

    This was recorded in 1976, and according to this, the bootleg was already being closed and reissued by 1978:

    http://www.lwtua.free-online.co.uk/295.htm

    “”Patti Smith released some good albums, but any serious fan of hers will tell you that she performed most of her material better live. There are a number of fine Patti Smith bootlegs, but this one — taken from a January 1976 show at the Roxy in Los Angeles, with near-perfect fidelity — is both her best and her best-known. Besides incendiary versions of several songs from her first few LPs, it features covers of “Louie Louie,” “My Generation” (with John Cale guesting), and The Velvet Underground’s “We’re Gonna Have a Good Time Together” and “Pale Blue Eyes,” as well as entertaining between-song raps and even a brief cameo by Iggy Pop. It’s no exaggeration to claim that this may be her best album, and one of the best ’70s punk/new wave albums of all.” ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide

    I thought she had been gigging wth Cale around then. I think I may have heard that she did some shows with him before Judy Nylon stepped in for the wonderful performance on the live Cale release, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. The quality of the recording with Nylon is a bit lacking but the performance and music easily make up for it, though I think it’s agruable it’s channeling Patti.

    When I think of early Patti= Smith I still get memories of Gilda Radnor throwing herself around the stage with a bottle of booze in her SNL Patti parodies Those had to be right around when Patti was a regular at CBGB’s in her prime.

    With Patti on a Rimbaud influenced path of disorienting her senses in the name of poetry and art, Gilda was probably not far from reality. I think I saw Gilda as Patti before I ever heard Patti’s music.

    Anyway, there are lots of covers on the Teenage Perversity boot, and well worth hearing if you get a chance.

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