......Four, Five, SIx......

  This first song might throw off frequent visitors to this blog but my first musical idol was Ernest Tubb.   As a preschooler my mother would play vinyl records to keep me amused while she maintained a household  that included 6 kids.  Mr Tubb's LPs were always in heavy rotation.
Four Walls - Ernest Tubb

Five Years (Bowie Cover) -Guided by Voices

Six Underground - Sneaker Pimps

Easy As ..........................

 Only One I Know - Charlatans

Two, Three Go - The Wedding Present

Only in Threes - Breeders

F#(<, Marry, Kill

Liz Phair - F#(< and Run

Alvvays - Marry Me, Archie

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Kill Bill Song (Isis)

Comet Loss

Comet Gain - Why I Try to Look So Bad

Comet Gain - She Never Understood

Comet Gain - Just One More Summer

Songs for Nico

The Warlocks - Song for Nico

Mr. Elevator and the Brain Hotel - Nico

Bedouin Soundclash - Nico on the Night Train

Let It Slide

  My gnarled old fingers have been preventing me from making progress in improving my guitar skills.  Lately I found that tuning it to open-D  and using a slide on my ring finger may not improve my proficiency but it does make the resulting noise a little more listenable.

  Here are three songs that I can't play that use a slide.

Pure- Denial

Stone Roses - Love Spreads

The Faces - That's All You Need

Ty Tuesday in Detroit

    Just giving those in the Detroit Area a heads-up.  On Tuesday Ty Segall is playing the Majestic Theatre in Detroit.  I won't be able to attend because I'm scheduled to work that night and I live 240 miles from there.

From his 2010 LP Melted 

Mrs 

From the 2011 LP Goodbye Bread

I Can't Feel It

 The prolific Mr. Segall has put out an album of original material each year since 2008, except in 2015 when he released an album of Marc Bolan covers aptly titled Ty Rex.

  Fist Heart Mighty Dawn Dart

Ty Rex album cover

Songs in the Key of Life

Autolux-Plant Life

Social Distortion - Story of My Life

Catherne Wheel - Idle Life

Bad(?) Covers

  These three songs came from a list of the 35 worst covers in Rock-n-roll history according to an article in the August 1990 issue of Spin magazine. That issue celebrated the 35th  anniversary of the music genre and included several top 35 lists. I actually have the first two of these songs in my collection.  

   The first is a stripped down acoustic version of the spandex-driven culmination of 1980's excess......Van Halen's  Jump.

Aztec Camera- Jump

   Next Nick Cave pays tribute to Elvis with his take on a Mac Davis penned song that is way more Nick Cave than Elvis.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - In the Ghetto

  Then there's this

Sex Pistols - Roadrunner

   Here is a link to the Spin -August 1990 issue.  I stumbled across it as a result of a suggested YouTube documentary about unsung rock pioneer Sister Rosetta.  Which set off a free association that had me looking up the Sister Rosa mentioned in the Big Audio Dynamite song Esquerita .  Turns out that issue of Spin had an article on S.Q. Reeder (pg39)and I found the list of bad(?) covers deeper in the issue (pg 62).

Earth Angels From Montgomery Wanna Wear My Red Shoes

Clinic - Earth Angel

   Next is the song that inspired this post.  Last night I was listening to a Marc Maron WTF podcast interview with Don Was.  Halfway through the interview Don starts reminiscing about working with Bonnie Raitt. At that point Marc mentions what he aptly describes as Bonnie's heartbreaking cover of John Prine's Angel From Montgomery. I was familiar with the song but not her version. The cover that I knew by Toronto natives the Leslie Spit Treeo received moderate airplay on CIMX in the 90's.  I would describe their version as less heartbreaking and more 'I'm going to stab you in the throat before I cut your balls off so I won't have to listen to you scream'. 

Leslie Spit Treeo - Angel From Montgomery

 Fun Facts :

           1) Although the band hails from Toronto most of the video was shot outside a pizza place in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario.

           

Google street view of video location 

           2) The vocalist is Laura Hubert not Leslie Spit. The Leslie Street Spit is the spit of land created with fill dirt that contained the park where the band practiced under the direction of their four-legged manager Tag (seen in the video)  The spit is also a birding hotspot.

           3)  The band broke up in 2000 when Tag died.

Elvis Costello - The Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes