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If You Come Back Down, You'll See
Sep. 16th, 2010 07:54 amAfter having spent years not having seen them, despite being in the same city, I went to see Captain Tractor in concert a couple of months ago. Chris Wynters, one of Captain Tractor's principal singers and songwriters, opened with a solo set, including a number of songs from his then-forthcoming album, which was going to be composed of half original songs and half covers. I'd already heard Chris's previous solo CD, "Skywriting", from the library, and so I resolved to go to his upcoming CD release party, intending to get both CDs. Which I did. Chris performed a set consisting not only of songs from his new CD, but also some other covers that he said had originally been intended for a full covers-CD release before he decided on the half-and-half format.
I should mention here, because I can, that I've known Chris for years. Well, rather say that I knew Chris years ago. My parents and his parents were both involved in the community theatre scene up in Grande Prairie, and so perforce were we--me, my brother Steve, Chris, and his brother James. At least I think James was, though I don't remember for sure. (Perhaps he was another one of the Siamese children in "The King And I" back when we were wee sprats? I'm sure there was something.) I especially remember being in "West Side Story", just before I moved to Edmonton and took a hiatus from theatre; Chris was Tony and I was, well, one of the Jets with half a dozen lines. I've been following his musical career over the years--I still have a copy of a 7" single that he released with an early band called "Six Steps Down", and I've got all the Captain Tractor albums, though I didn't spring for the full "Hoserista" boxed set. Chris is a few years older than me, and was probably a bit more indie-music focused than I was in the 80's--I was a devout MuchMusic watcher from 1985 through 1988, at least, so while I was certainly aware of a lot of the bands that weren't on the Top-40 charts, they weren't the main focus of my listening. Afterwards, I spread out a bit more, filling in as many of the gaps as I could in my musical experience.
So I was, for the most part, quite familiar with the songs Chris chose to cover, and I found his choices interesting. In most cases, if I'd chosen to cover a song by one of the artists he picked, I would not have chosen the same one. Which is fine, of course, because tastes differ, and all that. And, let's face it, I'm not particularly close to recording any cover versions myself, not having a lot of current instrumental skill or anything. Karaoke and Rock band is about the limit of it at the moment. So it's easy for me to second-guess someone who's actually putting the music together himself and making the recording. Nevertheless, I felt like making my comments on Chris's choices and how they'd differ from mine.
The Replacements: Achin' To Be. My brother got me to listen to the Replacements by lending me their album "Tim" when I was in university. Well, actually, before that he'd made up some mix tapes which included, among other songs, "Androgynous", "A Little Mascara" and "Hold My Life". I'd probably seen the video for "Bastards of Young" on MuchMusic, too. Anyway, I wasn't that much into punk back then, but I liked "Hold My Life", as well as "Waitress In The Sky" and "Swingin' Party". I later acquired "Let It Be", which, apart from a few exceptions, I considered too noisy and raucous for my tastes, as well as "Don't Tell A Soul" and "All Shook Down", which I thought were okay but didn't wow me. So if I were to do a Replacements cover, I'd probably pick "Swingin' Party".
REM: Driver 8. I confess I've always been a little mystified at the appeal of this song. I first heard of REM when MuchMusic started playing "Can't Get There From Here", which grew on me; "Driver 8", which followed, was okay, and I ended up picking up the album at some point. I've got most REM albums in my collection by this point, at least up to "Reveal" or thereabouts, with the rest still on my wishlist (with the exception of "Accelerate", which I thought was unmitigatedly horrible), but my favourites would still be "Fables of The Reconstruction", "Document" and "Automatic For The People". On "Automatic" I mostly like the singles "Drive" and "Everybody Hurts"; on "Document" I mostly like the non-singles, like "Fireplace", "King of Birds", and "Lightnin' Hopkins". On "Fables" I like "Can't Get There From Here", "Old Man Kensey", and "Feeling Gravity's Pull". I'm also fond of "Stand", and "How The West Was Won And Where It Got Us" from "New Adventures In Hi-Fi". I remember reading somewhere that out of all of the songs from "Fables", only "Driver 8" made it into their long-term setlist, which just mystified me. What would I cover, if I covered an REM song? I don't know if I could do justice to most of the actual singles, with the possible exception of "Can't Get There From Here". Or I could do one of the more obscure album tracks, like "Fireplace". It might depend on who I had doing the music.
The Cure: In Between Days. This was the first Cure song I recall hearing, and it took some time to grow on me. ("Close To Me", their next song, I hated at first, but now I love it...) I'm still not the biggest Cure fan ever; the two I just mentioned are good, and I love "Lullaby", but apart from that... "Love Cats" is cute, of course, and...I'm not sure what else I'd pick. "Close To Me" could fun to do, though. I might take out some of the horns at the end, though; they bug me.
Thomas Dolby: Onr of Our Submarines. I'm also a big Dolby fan. I'm sure I heard "She Blinded Me With Science" back when it was a big hit, though I don't recall for sure. I remember "Hyperactive" and "Dissidents" from MuchMusic, from "The Flat Earth", though they did play some videos from "The Golden Age of Wireless" as well--"Science", of course, as well as "Radio Silence", "Europa & The Pirate Twins", and "One of Our Submarines". None of them particularly wowed me at the time, but I did end up getting both of those albums and listening to them a lot over the years. (That doesn't mean much--the way I tend to listen to my music, each album once before listening to any of them again, means that the number of times I've listened to it is often directly related to how long I've had it.) Those two are definitely my favourite Dolby albums; my favourite songs from the first are probably "Weightless" and "Airwaves", and from the second, "The Flat Earth", "Dissidents" and "Hyperactive". I'm also fond of the funkier "Pulp Culture" from "Aliens Ate My Buick", "Quantum Mechanic" from "The Gate To The Mind's Eye", and "I Love You Goodbye" from "Astronauts & Heretics", but those albums are much spottier. If I were to do a Dolby cover I'd probably want to do "The Flat Earth", if I could transpose down a little ways, into my vocal range.
Lloyd Cole: Rattlesnakes. Okay, I admit, this one I never really heard at all. My Lloyd Cole exposure has been minimal. I remember hearing "Brand New Friend" and taking an instant dislike to it for some reason. Eventually "Lost Weekend" and "Cut Me Down" won me over, and I was reconciled to the rest of the album "Easy Pieces", but that's really as far as I've gotten into Mr. Cole. I doubt I'd want to cover one of his songs when I have other people that I like better out there.
The Church: Under The Milky Way. I haven't listened to that much of The Church either. I remember the songs "Constant In Opal" and "Tantalized" from my MuchMusic days, and later I picked up "Starfish" and "Gold Afternoon Fix". I can't really dispute this as a good Church song to cover, but again, I'd probably skip them entirely; they're just not high enough on my list.
So what other songs would I consider covering? Let's limit it to the 80's, like Chris did, which isn't too much of a hardship. Of course, there's different reasons to cover a song. It could be just because you like it, you like singing and performing it. It could be because you think you can do it better than those frog-throated losers that made a hash of it the first time; this is, I believe, the impulse behind most Bob Dylan, Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen covers. It could be because you think it'll give you an easy hit single by invoking nostalgia in the people who liked the song the first time around, or just to save on the songwriting duties, though of course you have to share the royalties. It could be to show how cool you are to know such an obscure and yet cool song in the first place. It could be to make fun of the song, or do something genuinely funny and/or creative with it. Or whatever. Let's pretend it's the first one.
I'd have to stick Godley & Creme's "Golden Boy" in there, as my long-time favourite song of all time. Something by Depeche Mode, like "A Question of Lust" or "Never Let Me Down Again". Maybe Cock Robin's "Thought You Were On My Side", one of my favourite mainstream pop bands of the decade. Something from Crowded House's underrated first album, like "Hole In The River". I'd like to include some Bruce Cockburn, but it's kind of pushing it; I didn't really care much for his albums from my MuchMusic era, except for what I heard on "Waiting For A Miracle". I might be able to sneak in "Coldest Night of The Year" on a technicality. I don't know if I could get away with a Kate Bush or Jane Siberry cover, either. Maybe Suzanne Vega's "The Queen & The Soldier". Then there's Shriekback...I don't know if I could pull off "Malaria" or "Nemesis", but maybe "Faded Flowers". Talking Heads "Road To Nowhere" might be fun. Joe Jackson--either "Shanghai Sky", or maybe I could sneak in something from "Night & Day", like "Real Men" or "A Slow Song". I'd like to include something from The Smithereens' "Especially For You" album as well, even though I'd never cared much for their other albums--"Behind The Wall of Sleep" or "Hand of Glory" would be nice.
It does make me wish I had some instrumental ability (apart from thirty-year-old piano and clarinet lessons), or at least a backing band. Ah, well.
I should mention here, because I can, that I've known Chris for years. Well, rather say that I knew Chris years ago. My parents and his parents were both involved in the community theatre scene up in Grande Prairie, and so perforce were we--me, my brother Steve, Chris, and his brother James. At least I think James was, though I don't remember for sure. (Perhaps he was another one of the Siamese children in "The King And I" back when we were wee sprats? I'm sure there was something.) I especially remember being in "West Side Story", just before I moved to Edmonton and took a hiatus from theatre; Chris was Tony and I was, well, one of the Jets with half a dozen lines. I've been following his musical career over the years--I still have a copy of a 7" single that he released with an early band called "Six Steps Down", and I've got all the Captain Tractor albums, though I didn't spring for the full "Hoserista" boxed set. Chris is a few years older than me, and was probably a bit more indie-music focused than I was in the 80's--I was a devout MuchMusic watcher from 1985 through 1988, at least, so while I was certainly aware of a lot of the bands that weren't on the Top-40 charts, they weren't the main focus of my listening. Afterwards, I spread out a bit more, filling in as many of the gaps as I could in my musical experience.
So I was, for the most part, quite familiar with the songs Chris chose to cover, and I found his choices interesting. In most cases, if I'd chosen to cover a song by one of the artists he picked, I would not have chosen the same one. Which is fine, of course, because tastes differ, and all that. And, let's face it, I'm not particularly close to recording any cover versions myself, not having a lot of current instrumental skill or anything. Karaoke and Rock band is about the limit of it at the moment. So it's easy for me to second-guess someone who's actually putting the music together himself and making the recording. Nevertheless, I felt like making my comments on Chris's choices and how they'd differ from mine.
The Replacements: Achin' To Be. My brother got me to listen to the Replacements by lending me their album "Tim" when I was in university. Well, actually, before that he'd made up some mix tapes which included, among other songs, "Androgynous", "A Little Mascara" and "Hold My Life". I'd probably seen the video for "Bastards of Young" on MuchMusic, too. Anyway, I wasn't that much into punk back then, but I liked "Hold My Life", as well as "Waitress In The Sky" and "Swingin' Party". I later acquired "Let It Be", which, apart from a few exceptions, I considered too noisy and raucous for my tastes, as well as "Don't Tell A Soul" and "All Shook Down", which I thought were okay but didn't wow me. So if I were to do a Replacements cover, I'd probably pick "Swingin' Party".
REM: Driver 8. I confess I've always been a little mystified at the appeal of this song. I first heard of REM when MuchMusic started playing "Can't Get There From Here", which grew on me; "Driver 8", which followed, was okay, and I ended up picking up the album at some point. I've got most REM albums in my collection by this point, at least up to "Reveal" or thereabouts, with the rest still on my wishlist (with the exception of "Accelerate", which I thought was unmitigatedly horrible), but my favourites would still be "Fables of The Reconstruction", "Document" and "Automatic For The People". On "Automatic" I mostly like the singles "Drive" and "Everybody Hurts"; on "Document" I mostly like the non-singles, like "Fireplace", "King of Birds", and "Lightnin' Hopkins". On "Fables" I like "Can't Get There From Here", "Old Man Kensey", and "Feeling Gravity's Pull". I'm also fond of "Stand", and "How The West Was Won And Where It Got Us" from "New Adventures In Hi-Fi". I remember reading somewhere that out of all of the songs from "Fables", only "Driver 8" made it into their long-term setlist, which just mystified me. What would I cover, if I covered an REM song? I don't know if I could do justice to most of the actual singles, with the possible exception of "Can't Get There From Here". Or I could do one of the more obscure album tracks, like "Fireplace". It might depend on who I had doing the music.
The Cure: In Between Days. This was the first Cure song I recall hearing, and it took some time to grow on me. ("Close To Me", their next song, I hated at first, but now I love it...) I'm still not the biggest Cure fan ever; the two I just mentioned are good, and I love "Lullaby", but apart from that... "Love Cats" is cute, of course, and...I'm not sure what else I'd pick. "Close To Me" could fun to do, though. I might take out some of the horns at the end, though; they bug me.
Thomas Dolby: Onr of Our Submarines. I'm also a big Dolby fan. I'm sure I heard "She Blinded Me With Science" back when it was a big hit, though I don't recall for sure. I remember "Hyperactive" and "Dissidents" from MuchMusic, from "The Flat Earth", though they did play some videos from "The Golden Age of Wireless" as well--"Science", of course, as well as "Radio Silence", "Europa & The Pirate Twins", and "One of Our Submarines". None of them particularly wowed me at the time, but I did end up getting both of those albums and listening to them a lot over the years. (That doesn't mean much--the way I tend to listen to my music, each album once before listening to any of them again, means that the number of times I've listened to it is often directly related to how long I've had it.) Those two are definitely my favourite Dolby albums; my favourite songs from the first are probably "Weightless" and "Airwaves", and from the second, "The Flat Earth", "Dissidents" and "Hyperactive". I'm also fond of the funkier "Pulp Culture" from "Aliens Ate My Buick", "Quantum Mechanic" from "The Gate To The Mind's Eye", and "I Love You Goodbye" from "Astronauts & Heretics", but those albums are much spottier. If I were to do a Dolby cover I'd probably want to do "The Flat Earth", if I could transpose down a little ways, into my vocal range.
Lloyd Cole: Rattlesnakes. Okay, I admit, this one I never really heard at all. My Lloyd Cole exposure has been minimal. I remember hearing "Brand New Friend" and taking an instant dislike to it for some reason. Eventually "Lost Weekend" and "Cut Me Down" won me over, and I was reconciled to the rest of the album "Easy Pieces", but that's really as far as I've gotten into Mr. Cole. I doubt I'd want to cover one of his songs when I have other people that I like better out there.
The Church: Under The Milky Way. I haven't listened to that much of The Church either. I remember the songs "Constant In Opal" and "Tantalized" from my MuchMusic days, and later I picked up "Starfish" and "Gold Afternoon Fix". I can't really dispute this as a good Church song to cover, but again, I'd probably skip them entirely; they're just not high enough on my list.
So what other songs would I consider covering? Let's limit it to the 80's, like Chris did, which isn't too much of a hardship. Of course, there's different reasons to cover a song. It could be just because you like it, you like singing and performing it. It could be because you think you can do it better than those frog-throated losers that made a hash of it the first time; this is, I believe, the impulse behind most Bob Dylan, Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen covers. It could be because you think it'll give you an easy hit single by invoking nostalgia in the people who liked the song the first time around, or just to save on the songwriting duties, though of course you have to share the royalties. It could be to show how cool you are to know such an obscure and yet cool song in the first place. It could be to make fun of the song, or do something genuinely funny and/or creative with it. Or whatever. Let's pretend it's the first one.
I'd have to stick Godley & Creme's "Golden Boy" in there, as my long-time favourite song of all time. Something by Depeche Mode, like "A Question of Lust" or "Never Let Me Down Again". Maybe Cock Robin's "Thought You Were On My Side", one of my favourite mainstream pop bands of the decade. Something from Crowded House's underrated first album, like "Hole In The River". I'd like to include some Bruce Cockburn, but it's kind of pushing it; I didn't really care much for his albums from my MuchMusic era, except for what I heard on "Waiting For A Miracle". I might be able to sneak in "Coldest Night of The Year" on a technicality. I don't know if I could get away with a Kate Bush or Jane Siberry cover, either. Maybe Suzanne Vega's "The Queen & The Soldier". Then there's Shriekback...I don't know if I could pull off "Malaria" or "Nemesis", but maybe "Faded Flowers". Talking Heads "Road To Nowhere" might be fun. Joe Jackson--either "Shanghai Sky", or maybe I could sneak in something from "Night & Day", like "Real Men" or "A Slow Song". I'd like to include something from The Smithereens' "Especially For You" album as well, even though I'd never cared much for their other albums--"Behind The Wall of Sleep" or "Hand of Glory" would be nice.
It does make me wish I had some instrumental ability (apart from thirty-year-old piano and clarinet lessons), or at least a backing band. Ah, well.
