We've Got That Davey Jones Fella Covered Again, Folks...

 ...and this volume is a knockout, folks, uncle OBG is promising you that. Listening back to it, I was like 'damn, if all volume threes or second sequels are good like this...'. Oooh, did I jinx it with too much self congratulating? Ilet you be the judge! Seriously, though, this has excellent flow and probably the broadest array of styles of any of the first three volumes, somehat befitting its subject matter. If David Bowie could hop from style to style, sometimes with no warning or precedent, then so can the people covering his songs!

And so we have some hair metal courtesy of, uh, Baby Snakes with kick-ass album opener "Cat People (Puttin' Out Fire)", some electro-pop (Billie MacKenzie's excellent take on "The Secret Life Of Arabia"), a hard swerve into reggae thanks to the improbable tem of  cover experts The Easy All-Stars and Macy Gray on "Rock'n'Roll Suicide", a groovy, almost alternative disco-ish take on "Young Americans" from The Cure, the electronica-meets-guitar work of Stevie Salas' "Always Crashing In The Same Car", befitting the electric pow-wow he titled one of his albums, and not one but two bosssa nova tracks: first the slightly jazzy "The Man Who Sold The World" by Mimi Aida, turned into a sophisticated cocktail bar song and then Seu Jorge's Portuguese-language cover of "Starman", which you might or might not remember from Wes Anderson's typically idiosyncratic The Life Aquatic With Steve Zizou. 

Gail Ann Dorsey's heartfelt homage to her former boss via a wonderfully unadorned (and short) take on "A Space Odyssey", only backed by Matthieu 'M' Chedid - a big star here in France in his own right - on acoustic guitar. But it might not even be the best acoustic track here, as it has really strong competitio: Pickyour favorite acoustic Bowie cover here: In the coner to my right, wily vet Steve Harley and a group of acoustic guitar pro's covering and transforming "Absolute Beginners" which loses all the bombast of Bowie's top-notch version. In the corner to my left Aussie Alt Popstar Paul Dempsey with an appropriately harrowing, forlorn take on "Ashes To Ashes". 

And there's so much more! Roger McGuinn covering "Soul Love"! The Cowboy Junkies taking on "Five Years"! The reformed Luna covering little-known early number "Letter To Hermione"! Lorette Velvette bringing the rock'n'roll with a brash cover of "Boys Keep Swinging"! A great folk-pop take on "Changes" from Hozier! Camilla Fascina's art-pop take on "I'm Deranged" which I largely prefer to Bowie's industrial rock original! And more!

All delivered with, again without any false modesty, a killer sequencing. It might have less big hitters than the first two volumes but that's maybe for the better. We've Got You Covered: David Bowie (Volume 3) is all killer, no filler. Time to dive head first into that Davey Jones songbook again, folks...

EDIT: While rummaging around in the We've Got You Covered - David Bowie folder I realized that the numbering on Volume One was hopelessly messed up, so I fixed that. And while I was at it, I also threw of the weird little (often completely random) art that incrusts itself like parasites in the folder, but which I can only see on one of my computers, so I threw that shit off volumes one and two as well. New links have been set if you want cleaner versions of those comps. Volume One is here and Volume Two is here. 

Chalk One Up For Inner Values...

Hooray for truth in advertising! When I picked up the original version of today's One Buck Record, I knew exactly what it was, thanks to Glitterhouse's honest ad in their catalogue. Yes, Glitterhouse is most known as a label, notably giving Neal Casal a home, as well as folks like The Walkabouts, Johnny Dowd, 16 Horsepower, Lou Ford or Terry Lee Hale. But before that they were, and stayed, a mail order company, that at a time I used to procure my music, notably getting a bunch of my Beach Boys and The Band remastered albums from them. And, uh, this. The refreshing thing about Glitterhouse advertising this budget item was their honesty. They more or less openly said that the conceit of this album as 'a tribute to the spirit of Eva Cassidy' - whatever the fuck that means - was poor taste bullshit and the packaging chintzy. I mean seriously, just look at the horrendous cover art (which I couldn't see in the catalogue, so it was the, uh, nice 'goes with the package' surprise). Yikes!

But, as the Glitterhouse catalogue entry argues, you would still get some very fine music from talented singers like Pentangle's Jacqui McShee and Judie Tzuke (who didn't make it on this reworked version) for very little money. And that is true. The music herein is often beautifully done, despite being made by something called The Klone Orchestra, which sounds really bad. But you can't argue with the results. This is beautiful music, no matter the commercial intent, with some very nice musical touches: adding celtic instrumentation to "Turn!Turn!Turn!", a flute to "I Shall Be Released", instrumentation to a couple of numbers, inluding "Bridge Over Troubled Water", where Filipa Jeronimo's accent always makes me smile ("wo-tah!"), or the little jazz touches and electric guitar solo on "After The Goldrush".  The packaging may be dirt cheap, but the music production in it isn't. Yay, Glitterhouse, you were right! 

Call it high-quality karaoke maybe, but sometimes high quality-karaoke is better than mediocre original songs. You wil easily recognize all these songs, beautifully arranged and very soothing. I threw off three tracks which I thought didn't fit well - and because there's little known rule #2 of this blog, right afetr rule #1 ("No fuckin' kazoos on this blog!"), and that is "No fuckin' songs from Cats on this blog!". So you're left with only the best of this package, 11 tracks of women's voices on the wind, making your day a little sweeter...

Authenticity, Commercialism And The Big Lebowski - A Tale Of Two American Bands

"I hate the fuckin' Eagles". I hate that fuckin' quote. Sure, the scene made me chuckle when I saw The Big Lebowski during its cinematic run, but still. It's glib as fuck, and more than a little bit of shooting fish in the barrel. I get it- the Indian guy loves the Eagles, har har. He loves corporate pap more associated with Middle America Hardi-fuckin'-har. Oh, also: All those Johnny Come Latelies who love the Big Lebowski and quote the movie? Where the fuck were you when that movie ran in theatres? Not out in droves, that's for sure.Me and my buddy Alex quoted that movie right after we saw it, bot unlike all those other goofs who saw it on home video later and decided to turn it into a cult movie. But that glib "I hate the fuckin' Eagles"? Fuck that. 

Of course, the Dude not only hates the fuckin' Eagles, he loves himself some Creedence Clearwater Revival, worrying whether the cops will not only find his stolen car, but also the Creedence tapes that were in it. Eagles = bad, CCR = good, we get it, Dude. If you've been reading along on this blog, you know that in the last months I featured both the Eagles and CCR on this blog. So, I got to thinking, which then meant I got to writing which, if all goes well, means you get to reading. Sorry 'bout that. But what better way to start off the new year than with [strokes goatee, adopts Philip Seymour Hoffman-as-Lester Bangs voice from "Almost Famous"] a, ahem, a think piece. 

While the Dude didn't expand on his reasons for hating on the Eagles, there are usually three things brought up, directly or indirectly about them: that they were boring and made boring music, that they were soulless commercial merchants, interested in filling their pockets without giving a damn about the music, and that they were inauthentic, country rock fakers turned stadium rock fakers. Now, compare that to CCR: a band beloved by all, the heart of American rock'n'roll. An authentic, American original band playing authentic American music. The Dude loves them, and who wouldn't? 

Let's get the first things out of the way: Nothing to say about the boring thing. Personal taste, friendo. You find 'em boring? Your loss, or not. But it's the other two arguments, all so neatly wrapped up in the 'I hate the fuckin' Eagles, man' quote that interest me for a hot minute or two. 

You sure you guys are from Los Angeles? 

I mentioned this is my write-up to Desperado: The Eagles began to introduce themselves as being "from Los Angeles", but none of them were. They were implants from as far east as Detroit, and as rural as Scottsbluff, Nebraska. But you know who is from California? Namely, from El Cerrito in the Bay area? Why, CCR of course. And who wouldn't remember such classics written by John Fogerty as "Born On The Bayou" and "Proud Mary" proudly presenting himself as...from the Deep South. Imagine for a second, if you wheel, the faces of Booker T & the MG's when Fogerty, that white boy from suburban California came into Muscle Shoals. Last I checked there weren't many bayous in El Cerrito. Funny thing, though...you know who has rarely if ever being accused of cultural appropriation, or of faking it? John Fogerty and the boys, that's who. 

Let's look at that whole sell out thing for a sec. Did you ever wonder why CCR threw out an average of two albums by year - and a full three in the calendar year of 1969? John Fogerty was somewhat paranoid about the idea that the moment his band would drop out of the charts, it would be the beginning of the end, the band falling almost immediately into oblivion and being forgotten. The solution: Throw out product, product and more product: single after single, album after album. Funny thing, though: You know which band - despite flooding the market with product as if there was no tomorrow - was rarely if never accused of only being in it for the money? Why, its lil' ol' John Fogerty and his band of merry men. 

Hey, you guys sure you were born on the bayou? 

As you have seen here, I love both bands dearly, so this isn't about who's better at what they respectively do, nor about who is keeping it real or faking things, or who was in it for the money to which degree. It's about how the cultural depiction of these two bands have taken such a different turn despite things not being what they seem to be. Now, to be fair: any Eagles-related acticity from 1994 onwards deserves scorn for its mercenary, in it for the money approach: the corporate events, the pushing concert tickets first over the hundred dollar limit, the endless 'final' tours, etc. And let's not get started on the other CCR. 

But yeah, maybe the Dude didn't say it best when he elevated CCR and dismissed the Eagles in one full swoop? Maybe both bands deserve their place as some of the best music their era had to offer? Maybe the discussions about realness and fakeness in rock'n'roll are as real or fake as their subjects? Life is stranger than fiction they say, but it is also a lot more complicated, than that fiction's punch lines. So fuck that lazy-ass Big Lebowski quote, listen to the great rock'n'roll from CCR and the great country rock of early Eagles side by side peacefully...I think we can all abide...unless you are a nihilist and don't believe in anything...but that's a whole different altogether...

Groove Into The New Year Like Sexy Muthafuckas...

Alright, long-standing One Buck Heads might remember that I drafted in Prince and a very special guest star (cough*MilesDavis* cough) in 2023 to groove you guys into the new year, last year I called on the original Boston Bad Boys - the J.Geils Band - to get the party going and now we're back to Prince Rogers Nelson to head the Saint Sylvester's Eve party. We are of course more than 25 years removed from that Prince feat. Miles concert, and Prince's heyday. Then again, this isn't a New Year's bash, but a normal concert from the Motor City in 2014, where Prince is backed by his all-female group 3rd Eye Girl. This is one of the cleanest sounding sound boards you'll ever hear, to the point where you can only hear the crowd faintly in the background 

The person preparing this bootleg went to the trouble of breaking every single song into its own track, even if it's just a couple of seconds of a song, sometimes only a single line that Prince incorporated into a medley. As with the Miles concert, I left this as is, only tagging the tracks correctly and adding the cover art. One track ("Sign O'The Times") is missing from the track list, probably because I got this from the Big O website years ago, and they would notoriously have a couple of links not working, and not bother to reset them corrcctly. Any way, with such a cornucopia of funky goodness from His Princeness you won't miss it. 

Notable tracks on here include tributes to Sly & The Family Stone (totally expected) and his supposd to be bitter rival Michael Jackson (less expected), as well as Wild Cherry's one hit wonder "Play That Funky Music". I personally am a little miffed that one of my favorites of his ("The Most Beautiful Girl In The World") is done with after a single line, but as the man says right after 'how many hits I got?' before launching into the next one. Either way, there's a ton of funky goodness in here. Prince also retakes "Nothing Compares To U" and of course wheels out warhorses like "Purple Rain", "When Doves Cry" or "Kiss".

Prince's power might have been diminishing in the latter part of his career, but this is still a lot of fun. 3rd Eye was a sympathetic backing band to the man, and he felt rejuvenated after spending the first decade of the new millenium flaling around quite a bit. Here he is back to the kind of futuristic funk that made his reputation in the first plae. So, get the party started with Prince and 3rd Eye Girl...

I Owe You An Explanation!

Indeed I do, since I started the Secret Santa's mystery song thing, and two and a half are possibly waiting for the solution. And I admit it upfront, the game was kind of rigged. It was almost impossible for you to find song and artist in question, unless you were really motivated, fired up Audacity and sped that sucker up, cranked to eleven). Either way, I hope you enjoyed the little (ahem) piece of music either way. The friends we made along the way etc. 

So this super secret surprise song came about like Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin - a total accident. I was working on my Fully Automated Version of Trans, mucking around with "Hold On To Your Love" on Audacity, trying out different filters and effects to make the song more, uh, Trans-ier. Results proved inconclusive to unsatisfying. Just before giving up I clicked on something called 'Paulstretch' - as Marc Cohn put it once in one of his great song intros 'life is pressing a button you never pressed before' - and immeditaley went 'uh oh', when the program announced it needed about 25 minutes to finish the task (though it probably ended up finishing earlier). Being in a 'let's see what it does when it wakes up' kind of mood, I wandered off, probably for something glamorous like loading the dishwasher, and color me surprised when I came back to my PC and Paulstretch had really stretched things. "Hold On To Your Love" went from going about three and a half minutes or so to lasting more than thirty! 

Yes, the ambient piece hiding in the Secret Santa's Mystery Box is nothing other than an extremely slowed down  - er, I mean paulstretched - version of Neil Young's "Hold On To Your Love". Well at least now I know how folks on Youtube create 'ambient' or 'meditation' versions of songs - a simple press of a button will do. Lazy bastards, the dirty lot of ya! Interesting though, how in one touch you can bring out your inner Vangelis...

As a prize for everyone playing along you'll get Johnny's Island, the kinda-sorta (mini) album Young recorded in Hawaii with a band dubbed - with usual Young-ish style - The Royal Pineapples, from which "Hold On To Your Love" originated, before it got mashed up with the Trans material. The sorta title song "Johnny" is the only one not with the band, a DIY home recording with Neil on synclavier and synthesizers, still somewhat in Trans mode before sliding into a mellower mood for the Island material. Includes the original version of "Silver & Gold". 

It's A Holiday Hootenanny, y'all, with the newest edition of them Bluegrass Chartbusters...

Some of your family members still around for their annual visit for the holidays? Any of 'em from Hicksville, Somewhere? (Let's not investigate blood relations here, shall we?) They all ready to prolong the festivities with a good ol' fashioned bluegrass hoedown hootenanny? 

Or do you have very refined urban hipster guests who still have a hard time finding the door? Who just might recoil in horror at the sound of a banjo, thinking someone might soon invite them to squeal like a pig? Well, turn up this hick music to send them running towards their microbreweries and organic soy drink shops!

You see, Bluegrass Chartbusters is the right series for any occasion involving your Christmas guests! 

Beware Of Cats!

This series just keeps chugging along, providing once more 20 perfectly lovely or interesting Bluegrass versions of rock and pop classics from yesteryear. Nothing much has changed, we're looking at a line-up that includes Pickin On... stalwarts Cornbread Red, Iron Horse, The Sidekicks and Brad Davis, as well as more recent additions Town Mountain and The Grass Cats (check out those cats above...), the latter with frankly fantastic renditions of, respectively, "I"m On Fire" and "I Shot The Sheriff".

A new arrival to the series is Hit & Run Bluegrass, a group led by Rebecca Frazier, and in this case produced by her husband John. It's second guitar player Mike Mickelson doing the lead vocals on their take on "Jessie's Girl", but Hit & Run Bluegrass will assuredly be back on future volumes. The same thing is true of fellow newcomers to this series, Craig Ferguson & Band, who cover Foo Fighters' "Times Like These (One Way Motorway)", also covered by Glen Campbell back on his modern standards album Meet Glen Campbell. 

No, OBG, no! Refrain yourself! No 'Hit & Run' jokes here, no, sir!!!

If on the last volume we could almost lament a short supply of Cornbread Red, but here you can feast on them doing Barenaked Ladies' "One Week", Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends" and Def Leppard's "Let's Get Rocked". Family band The Petersens are also back, here with a rare lead vocal performance of family friend and dobro master Emmet Franz on a slowed-down version of the Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way", as well as a sibling duet on Coldplay's "The Scientist". 

Songs covered run a large spectrum, from Brad Davis' take on 1968's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" to 2014's "Shake It Off" by the one and only Taylor Swift of course. Along the way we check in with versions of "Walk Like An Egyptian", Nirvana's "Come As You Are" and, perhaps most surprisinly, Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train", the latter two taken care of by old pros Iron Horse. I also particularly like instrumental closer "No Surprises", an instantly recognizable version of the Radiohead classic by Old School Freight Train. 

The Christmas Hootenanny is on with these twenty fun and occasionally innovative covers of beloved favorites from almost fifty years of popular music. Yeehaw and Ho-Ho-Ho!

Have You Been Naughty Or Nice? Hmmm? The One Buck Guy Is Both Naughtier And Nicer...

Ho! Ho! Ho! And by that I do mean the scantily clad women hanging around in a photogenic manner in this thread's various visual supports. It's Christmas time again, folks, and here at One Buck Records that can only mean two things: women in various state of Holiday-themed skimpy outfits and a specially compiled Christmas compilation for my very favorite readers - which is all of you, obviously. 

You might have noticed on the last two volumes (which are also re-upped, gotta keep that Christmas music comin'....) that I keep the irreverent and snotty limited. Yes, these Christmas collections are supposed to be fun and not entirely traditional, but big ol' sentimental me also enjoys a genuine take on a Christmas carol by a favorite artist, so there's also quite a bit of those from perennial OBG faves like Tift Merrit, Tracy Chapman and Shawn Colvin. This doesn't stop me, obviously, from opening proceedings with Cheap Trick kickin' down Santa's door with "Come On Christmas". Power pop fans will be served on this volume, as we also have Christmas Carols from the likes of Chris Stamey, Del Lords and Fountains Of Wayne, while genre-adjacent Marshall Crenshaw's DIY contribution is a little more subdued (dig the 80s Casio groove, friends..).

Oh, hello there, lady...is there something for me in there..?

And then there's the ones that split the difference between the genuine and...the genuinely weird. Hear Nat King Cole fight his way through a phonetic cheat sheet while wrestling the original German language version of "O Tannenbaum" to a draw! Witness the improbable once-in-a-lifetime dream team of David Bowie and Bing Crosby (or, as Bowie recalls him at his advanced senior age, looking like 'an orange sitting on a stool') with the improbably beautiful "Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy". These are unironically two of my favorite Christmas tunes! I'll leave it to the listener to judge whether the group vocals during the second half of Chris Stamey's "Christmas Song" are genuine and charming or willingly amateur and a send up. If you do want lovely group vocals, don't go further than The Wondermints doing their loveliest Beach Boys impression on "Santa's Beard"!

We also have slightly jazzy takes from the likes of Ray Charles and Don Dixon! Further vets like Jose Féliciano and John Hiatt! Wisenheimers like Nick Lowe and Sufjan Stevens! Truly a cornucopia of Holiday tunages, accompanied, as ever, by the One Buck Records Elvettes coming up right underneath..

So, have yourself a merry little Christmas, everybody...

P.S.: While uploading this comp I've just learned that Chris Rea died this week. Not a huge fan, but considering tha radio proclivities of my parents, I couldn't escape the man. Here's his Christmas classic "Driving Home For Christmas"

R.I.P. Christopher Anton Rea, 1951-2025