CoverMania

Whew, it's been a little while.

Another covers post for ya, with a solid dose of Neil Young and a side order of Pixies. First off, one of my favorite Neil Young tunes, "Down By The River," covered by Buddy Miles (who was the drummer in Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys). This is the version from his funktastic 1970 album Them Changes, which is only available today as a fairly expensive import CD, so this is a vinyl rip from the album I picked up for $6 recently. (vinyl lives! yeah right, what a pain.)

And for a more somnolent, nearly 10-minute take on the same song, we go next to a collaboration between Low and the Dirty Three, from their In the Fishtank session.

To continue the Neil Young thread, we go next to "Winterlong," a song I heard first as covered by the Pixies. It also appeared on Young's 1977 compilation Decade and was recorded by the Pixies for the 1989 Neil Young tribute album The Bridge.

That wouldn't be the last tribue album the Pixies contributed to. After their reunion in 2004, they recorded "Ain't That Pretty At All" for the Warren Zevon tribute album Enjoy Every Sandwich. If you know the name Warren Zevon at all (I didn't), it's probably as the man behind "Werewolves of London" (oddly enough, played by Adam Sandler on the tribute album). For the full story, see his Wikipedia page, but suffice it to say he was a highly gifted songwriter (with a fantastic dark sense of humor and a drug problem - song titles include "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner," and "Lawyers Guns and Money") and I highly recommend checking him out. "Ain't That Pretty At All" first appeared on the 1982 album The Envoy, but it's also included on the WZ compilation (I guess the term "greatest hits" wouldn't really apply) A Quiet Normal Life. Again, I highly recommend.

The Pixies have of course been around well long enough to be covered themselves, and this little gem recently came to my attention: TV On The Radio bravely covering "Mr. Grieves" a capella, on their Young Liars EP. The original of course appeared on the seminal Doolittle, and if you don't have that then I don't know, just... just go away and come back when you've had it on repeat for a week.

Well, that does it for this week. I close with "Hey Joe" because at least thematically, it brings us back around to "Down By The River," although it's not quite perfect since it's pre-Band of Gypsys and thus... no Buddy Miles! Oh well, next time we'll aim for a perfect circle of covers...