This was a collaboration with Robert Galeta for The Fold ezine:
Todd Rundgren’s side one of ‘Faithful’ (1976) was assessed as a ‘somewhat pointlessly-clever exercise’ in the ‘NME Book of Rock 2’ (1977). The covers are all of elaborate or experimental songs, including ‘Happenings Ten Years Time Ago’and ‘If Six Were Nine’. The instrumentation is matched almost identically, whilst Rundgren generally lets his vocal tone play naturally, but not in the final, partly cancelled-out vocals on the Hendrix song, which he tries to emulate. If the NME book had been published a few months later, side one of ‘Faithful’ might have been dismissed with the term ‘postmodern’ Interestingly, the first use of the term post-rock regarded Rundgren. Perhaps likewise with the other notable covers albums of the time: Bowie’s ‘Pinups’ (1973), Laura Nyro’s ‘Gonna Take a Miracle’ (1972), the Bunch’s/Fairport’s ‘Rock On’ (1972), Bonnie Bramlett’s ‘Ladies Choice’ (1976), even Lonnie Donegan re-doing ‘Puttin’ on the Style’ (1978) with guests Jim Keltner, Zoot Money, et al. But neither ‘postmodern’or simply ‘retro’ seem adequate for evaluating the nature of those records which have been joined more recently, by, for example, Robert Palmer’s ‘Drive’ (2003) and Boz Scaggs’ ‘But Beautiful’ (2006) in an arguably growing market of self-reflexive pop, re-visiting its roots back into folk, blues and jazz.
More recent cultural traditions, such as the loop sample, have enabled direct audio quotations to be used, the ‘make it new’ being the recurring groove where there once was a flow, yet the augmentation of this loop with other narratives creates a new open whole. There is a parallel, now-accepted phenomenon in tribute bands, as well as Tin Pan Alley’s frequently used option of a ‘standards’ album from a successful act. We can all think of regrettable examples from the last two categories of re-visiting. But how might we understand genuine approaches to covering the ephemeral pop-song? This raises a wider question of the cultural and commercial phenomenon of ‘make it new’, crucial to our image of modernity, and of our puzzlement, even embarrassment, when a contemporary cultural product looks backwards. Two terms which seem useful here are ‘homage’ and ‘repertoire’. We have touched upon ‘homage’ already. Perhaps ‘repertoire’ might include the increasing archive of digitised recordings, iTunes, download culture. But in cycles of making new there can be a pause for recalling, as part of what eventually becomes experienced as a larger process of establishing or filtering a repertoire.
Metallica’s ‘Garage Days Re-Revisited’ (1987) was a budget-priced EP (subtitled the $5.98 EP) consisting of Diamond Head, Budgie, Misfits, Holocaust and Killing Joke covers, which the band later bolstered by further cover versions on singles and 12”s. This mix of influences, the former two acts, hard rock emerging from the late 1970s, with the latter three of punk, hardcore and new wave tributes, seemed, not long after, to be a prelude to grunge’s re-scattering of rock’s toys across its playroom. Previously, these cultural items were often perceived to be locked in separate cupboards. Yet really, this scattering was occuring on the ground all along, for which this event was just a sign on the media landscape, a prelude to later mainstream investments in similar kinds of street-level remixing. In certain strands of linguistic theory, the signifier always rises. Similarly, the use-value or context is always important. At a certain distance it may be tempting to conclude that groups fetishised by mods (Small Faces, The Who) were little different to those fetishised by rockers (Gene Vincent, Chuck Berry, later bands such as AC/DC and of course the crossroads of Humble Pie). They are all drum/bass/guitar outfits influenced by soul and r’n’b, who utilise differing quantities of overdrive. Yet the aesthetic hairlines between these bands, to be seen in the minutiae and sartorial styles of their members, split apart, yawn into chasms for whichever subcultural group is in question. Put more plainly, the enthusiasm for two-wheeled forms of motorised transport shared by both groups is perhaps less the point than HOW.
In 2003, Rough Trade issued a compilation of covers: Their current roster of artists revisited older Rough Trade songs, as part of the label’s 25th anniversary celebrations. It was given the title of a Smiths track from 1987, ‘Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before’. One notable offering by The Fiery Furnaces telescoped both parts of The Fall’s ‘Winter’, from their 1982 Hex Enduction Hour album, into a speeded-up, clear pop song. Melbourne’s Thirty Three and a Third club released a similarly excellent CD-R of covers in 2006. Yet this refreshing circulation of air into a cultural canon seems to be shadowed by a kind of inverse phenomenon. The current trend for re-using aesthetic elements also created during the new wave period, has seen recurring refits of Gang of Four’s bodywork, without any of the political engagement, on to an FM radio rock chassis.
Perhaps this isn’t the point though. I once interviewed Hugh Hopper, who discussed the legacy of The Soft Machine, the band, as a bassist and composer, he is best known for. What did he consider the ‘classic’Soft Machine line-up? ‘I suppose you could say’, he replied, ‘that the music began to decline when: a) Daevid left, b) Kevin left, c) Robert left, d) Hugh left’. Or, he suggested, perhaps hinting at his preferred explanation, ‘you could say it was a living organism that evolved all the time until its death’.
Another example of a rather elaborate cultural message’s recycling is the late-1960s hit ‘Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)’. This track was originally written by the country music veteran Mickey Newbury, who also wrote ‘American Trilogy’ for Elvis. It was initially recorded by Jerry Lee Lewis in 1967, who then rejected it. It was picked up again by Kenny Rogers and his band The First Edition, with Glen Campbell on guitar. Rogers has claimed that ‘Just Dropped In…’was Hendrix’s favourite song. The track has been thought of as a metaphor for LSD disorientation. Lyrics such as ‘I tripped on a cloud and fell eight miles high’ also reference near-contemporary music by The Byrds. The First Edition’s arrangement seems at odds with its mental breakdown narrative. A female vocal section, albeit heavily phased, creates a lazy, pleasant, country-pop ambience. It entered the top 10 of the Billboard Charts in 1968, before vanishing, to become a fetish item for collectors of psychedelia. Kenny Rogers later covered the song during his solo career and the original First Edition cut was archived as part of the ‘Nuggets’ reissue series. Willie Nelson, Nick Cave and Supergrass have all covered the track since then, but what takes it full-circle is a cover by its original creator, Mickey Newbury. This version, undated, but thought to have been re-recorded in the 1990s, is stripped down and backed by a stark cello. The story goes that Newbury went to get his microphones fixed and exchanged a studio session for the work required. He recast the song into an acid hell, the lyrics coming to the fore: ‘I saw so much, I broke my mind’. This version is again the preserve of you-can-only-hear-it-at-my-house garage rock and psychedelia collectors, available for download, but only if you know where to look. Both the song, its arrangements and histories, are multiple smashed fragments, prisms of recent popular songs and styles, meshings of major and minor versions, of back stories and slightly grander narratives. The First Edition version, de-exclusivised once again, found its way on to a striking dream sequence in the Cohen Brothers’ film ‘Big Lebowski’(1998), which included a Saddam Hussein lookalike in a bowling alley. The DVD of the film now uses this track in a recurring loop for its title menu. This cultural artefact has taken an almost-tortuous journey, via different pitches of homage and new ways of re-housing a presumed ‘original’ artefact within a cultural repertoire. So, is cultural recycling an opening out, a re-mobilising of culture, or is it a potentially stagnant archiving exercise? Perhaps the viewing of any multi-faceted cultural artefact still depends, to some extent, on the angle of approach. If we re-visit Hugh Hopper’s comments, the sovereignty of any presumed ‘original’ perhaps begins to crumble.
‘What’s New 2’, the first song on Boz Scaggs’ new album, is a witty text on meeting up with an old flame. Nostalgia may be in play, but also dialogue and a sense of renewing for the future.
