Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)

Randomly stumbled upon this cover of Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). The artist is Meg Myers, this is my first time hearing her. I'm a Kate Bush nerd but I'm not above anyone covering her. She sings my heart and she inspires. I like this cover. I like that it's so aggressive and I like this video, it's super fucking cool. Check out more Meg Myers at her official website, here.

Robot Cast #4

The return of the podcast. I bribed @chump_change into talking cover songs with me while I recorded the conversation. It's slightly less than an hour long, so give it a spin if you're so inclined.

Robot Cast #4 by Robot_Hero on Mixcloud

What's this whole world coming to, things just ain't the same

Tracey Thorn has a new album, "Out of the Woods", you can stream a few tracks on her myspace page. I've listened to it only once so far, but it sounds pretty good, like how an Everything But The Girl album might sound. If you know who she is, then you know how gorgeous her voice is. I'm basically using this as an excuse to post one of my favorite tracks. It's actually billed as "Massive Attack featuring Tracey Thorn". I think it may be available as a single (probably out of print by now) or perhaps on a compilation. I know for sure it's on the soundtrack for Batman Forever, which I think was a shitty film. I remember going to see it, but I don't remember anything about it. In any case, it's a cover of The Marvelettes' tune on Motown, "The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game". Both versions are well worth your time, check em out.

Massive Attack featuring Tracey Thorn > The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game


The Marvelettes > The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game

*EDIT*
I've been looking around and I've found this kickass version of "Hunter" by a girl called Blinky, who was on the Motown roster way back when. I don't know anything about her, but this track is awesome.

Blinky > The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game

DEATHMATCH!

In this corner, it's The Jesus and Mary Chain > Head On


And in this corner, it's the Pixies > Head On


I gotta roll with the Pixies version, even though the JAMC are the originators of this one. There's no right or wrong answer, I just feel that the Pixies version simply has more fire to it.

A friend of the devil is a friend of mine

Another one for the unlikely covers department. Ministry doing the Grateful Dead's "Friend of the Devil", live at the Bridge School Benefit in 94. If you don't know, the Bridge School "is an educational program dedicated to ensuring that children with severe speech and physical impairments achieve full participation in their communities through the use of augmentative & alternative means of communication (AAC) and assistive technology (AT) applications."

It's an annual event (usually in October), and the first benefit was held in 1986 at the Shoreline Theater, located in Mountain View, California (about 45 miles south of San Francisco). It's always organized by Neil Young and his wife, who have several children with severe learning disabilities, hence their involvment with the Bridge School. There's an abbreviated list of past performers over at Wikipedia, if you wanna see who else has played there. It's pretty much split between bands I'm into and bands I'm not so into and it seems like the lineups have been lacking these past few years.

As for this track, if you knew the music of Ministry and you heard this randomly, not knowing it, you probably wouldn't even come close to guessing it was them.

There ain't no second chance against the thing with forty eyes

Okay, sorry for posting the same artist twice in a row, but this is too good not to post. It's Petra Haden covering "Thriller", a cappella style, and I think it's amazing. She even does that hiccup thing that MJ does. Check it out...

The only thing to live for is today

Tom Waits' "I Don't Want To Grow Up", as covered by Bill Frisell and Petra Haden. Pretty much sums up how I'm feeling today. Man, her voice is perfect and pristine.

Got a bad desire...

So I recently discovered that Tori Amos is having a new album, "American Doll Posse", in May. There was once a time when I really loved her music and couldn't wait for whatever single or album was coming next, but that time is gone. I downloaded her last album, "The Beekeeper", and couldn't get past the first couple tracks. I dunno, she just doesn't do it for me anymore. So I put on some of the old skool stuff that I used to listen to constantly. This track, a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "I'm On Fire", was right around the "Boys For Pele" era, like mid 90s or so. It was on the VH1 "Crossroads" compilation, which was a collection of live performances from their archives. I'd guess that it's out of print now.

New PUFFY single!

I'm not sure what it's called but it's pretty cool. Also included are covers of The Beatles' "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" and ELO's "Don't Bring Me Down". I really like the ELO cover. "Lucy" is good but it has been done to death.

PUFFY > Don't Bring Me Down