Friday, January 07, 2011

Cover Versions We're Not Quite Certain About (An Occasional Series)

[Weekend Listomania remains on hiatus for one more week. But it will return next Friday, swear to god. Really. We mean it. -- Ed.]

From 1995, and the alt-rock K-Tel parody/tribute album Super Fantastic Mega Smash Hits!, behold Southern Culture on the Skids' perhaps (hopefully?) inimitable rethink of Shocking Blue's often covered classic rock staple "Venus."




If truth be told, I came rather late to the Southern Culture party, which is to say I mostly ignored them until 2010's Kudzu Ranch album, which struck me as some of the most convincing more or less traditional guitar rock I've heard in ages. So when I chanced upon this earlier effort a few weeks ago I was a bit taken aback. On the one hand, their sort of beatnik rockabilly take on the tune is, in the abstract, a perfectly valid approach, and on the other the actual track has a certain overly self-conscious primitivism to it that reminds me unpleasantly of The Cramps, who I've never really been able to take.

I will stipulate, however, that it's way better than any of the remakes I've heard in TV commecials in the last couple of years, so that's something.
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7 comments:

  1. Faze1/07/2011 8:22 AM

    These guys are Vienna Philharmonic compared to the slop-a-billy stumblings of the Crammps. But you're right: too self-conscious. A Peggy Lee "Fever"-toned "Venus" done in cool earnest would be a gas.

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  2. Sal Nunziato1/07/2011 8:32 AM

    Kudzu Ranch was in my Top 10 of the year. The band has really come a long way since the early "Too Much Pork For One Fork" attack of the early days.

    Check out "Liquored Up & Lacquered Down" if you don't already know it, or their follow-up of covers, "Plays Countrypolitan Hits." Both signed me up for good.

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  3. Noam Sane1/07/2011 11:35 AM

    I've enjoyed this little number for a while now. Tried to get my ex-cover band to play it, didn't go over so well with the keyboardist...who later suggested we do "Shambala" by Three Dog Night. Asshole.

    I really like this band, they're the real thing. See also: "Banana Pudding".

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  4. steve simels1/07/2011 12:10 PM

    Hey, I like "Shambala." B.W. Stevenson rules!!!
    :-)

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  5. Elizabeth C.1/07/2011 2:13 PM

    Oh, is that a B.W. Stevenson tune?
    My Maria, I did not know that.

    The guy also didn't like my choice of the Bootsy Collins cover of "The Joker". Seriously, he was a real peckerhead.

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  6. steve simels1/07/2011 2:38 PM

    Heh.
    :-)

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  7. dave™©1/07/2011 10:17 PM

    Southern Culture does a killer version of "Merry Christmas, Baby" - completely different music, same lyrics. They ever throw in some vocals on Lennon's old filter...

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