a bridge too far...

Forgive me for another moment of artistic pride...

A piece I did was selected for Robert Goodin's great site, Covered, which allows artists to recreate comic book covers in interesting & unusual ways. (Get it? "Cover versions"?) The site has been wildly successful in its little-over-a-year existence & many artists I respect a great deal have done work therein, so I am quite thrilled & more than a lil' proud to say that the following piece was accepted by Mr. Goodin to be in the company of such luminaries of the field & actually posted just a few minutes ago.
Please check it out & give it some love (in the form of a comment) if yer so inclined both here & there (& everywhere!)~

The original cover to compare & contrast~

& if you've come visiting from "Covered", please feel free to wander around & see what these here "very secret monster things" are all about...

mi hermano

I jokingly refer to myself as a renaissance man, knowing full well that doodling a little bit every now & then & being able to put together a really good mixtape hardly qualifies as such, but my brother, JD, actually embodies the very concept in the truest sense of the term.
Our relationship at times has been strained but my respect for his talents has never followed suit. In his wide & varied experience & in his many travels, he has painted, sculpted, tattooed, played music, cooked & baked, repaired accordions, opened galleries & restaurants, been in more bands of so many many different genres & temperaments, elated, infuriated, raised rabble, & basically has always left any place he has been with a little more imagination & inspiration that it previously had.
Thirty years ago, he held me down, dangled his saliva over my face & made me scream in a high-pitched manner that would for some reason make our cat bite my face repeatedly. Twenty years ago, he put ink to my breast, indelibly marking me with a Native American badger symbol that signified more about our relationship that the actual meaning of the marking. Thirteen years ago, he cooked for my wedding & played guitar as my beautiful bride walked down the grassy aisle. Now he flies into town once a year to play a concert in our garage with my soon-to-be nine year old, allowing our precocious aspiring musician to act as lead singer, guitarist & overall ringmaster whilst behind the amp, JD makes sure the band stays tight & true to my boy's vision.
During this time, we have consoled each other over lost loves as well as shared joy in current ones, we have argued bitterly in cars & on street corners, we have written, drawn & painted together, traversed the country, narrowly avoiding ugly arrests down south as well as watching the sunrise over the Grand Canyon, celebrated each other, accused each other, loved & hated each other at different times & sometimes at the same time, our relationship has grown & receded in fits & starts, we have talked but perhaps never really talked...

Today is my brother's birthday, & because I have this little piece of Internet real estate, I can wish him the happiness & joy he so truly deserves in a very public way & hope that the pleasure his oh-so-many talents have brought oh-so-many people are reflected back unto him on this day & every day hereafter.

& because you, dear reader, sat thru the above (& perhaps to embarrass my darling brother), I give you a real rarity from his vast oeuvre, dating all the way back to the 80's, when he was just an insolent pup playing a mean guitar, backing up a local celebrity madman named Jigs. This track, long-forgotten but still potent, comes off of a compilation (notable at the time for its inclusion of then-red-hot band, "The Smithereens"), "East Coast 60'S Rock And Roll Experiment", a collection of local punk & otherwise inclined bands covering 60's tunes (hence the title). So, without further ado, Jigs & The Pigs lettin' us know "These Boots Are Made For Walking"~

covers 2: electric boogaloo

More cover-iffic tunes!

Following my previous post of groovy &/or wacky covers, here are some more brave boys & girls traversing the musical territory of others. Welcome back to the party, just don't spend all yer time in the kitchen thinkin' yer cool~
First up are English post-punkers, pre-gothers Echo & The Bunnymen rawkin' out on the very American "Run, Run, Run". Kudos, blokes, on a kickin' live version of the Velvet Underground classic. Seu Jorge then does his Brazilian take on Bowie's very English "Life on Mars", complete with mostly-nonsensical Portuguese lyrics. Madcon livens up the party with their Norwegian party-thumper, pumpin' mad beatz into Frankie Valli's "Beggin'". Then comes the curveball of the bunch, the tune thrown on the virtual turntable that either makes the folks wince or grin, or perhaps both- The Beautiful South, terribly underrated Brits, during their later (& somewhat unfortunate) country phase, turning "You're The One That I Want", from it seems every generation's childhood all at once, "Grease", into a country soul dirge of sorts. We finish strong with U2's wonderful Irish-country-rock take on the great Woody Guthrie's folk classic "Jesus Christ", recorded some twenty years back during their Sun Studios sessions. The song is a real rave-up & the lyrics are spot-on, eviscerating those who claim to believe in the man (&/or son of god depending on what one believes) but certainly do not follow in his proverbial footsteps. Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes about Mr. Christ, from Woody Allen's "Husbands & Wives", "If Jesus Christ came back today and saw what was being done in his name, he'd never stop throwing up."
With that, our covers party winds to a close. Looking back, it turned out to be a very international, multiculti sort of affair, full of good tunes & questionable behavior, as every decent party should be.

Hope you enjoy the soundtrack & leave hummin' a few tunes on the car ride home (or to Denny's if the soiree ended too early for yer tastes...)~

Should Jack Stay or Should He Go...

Followin' up on the extraordinary reactions to my "covers" post the other day (hey, three comments! (okay, one was my own annotation, but nonetheless...)), here's some video of the extraordinary 8 year old Jack Marley rockin' out to The Clash:

perhaps rehab would've been a good idea...

As other bloggers wait for what seems to be her imminent demise to post their goodies & newspapers have her obit at the ready, I take the less severe occasion of Amy Winehouse's collapse from dehydration (it wasn't exhaustion this time?) on the island of St. Lucia as she prepared to perform at the jazz festival there to present a few somewhat rare tunes from this delightful lil' lady.
Enjoy the talent & try to forget the destructive personality~

cover me- i'm going in...

Covering a song is a tricky wicket indeed. Be too reverential & induce boredom; stray too far & risk ugly fanboy reprisal. I enjoy covers very much when the cover-er comes to the party prepared~ knowing the host's tastes but bringing a snackity-snack that surprises & delights. A good cover is rare; a great cover is a cause for celebration. The following are covers I dig for some reason reason or other. I warn you now, dear listener, some are not very good (& some are indeed extraordinary!), but all bring something new to the soiree. Let us commence with the listening party...:
Frankie Goes To Hollywood doing Bruce, slapping the bass in lieu of the Big Man's blowin'? Blasphemy was never so much fun! (& I still wear my "Lust plus fear plus love plus faith times Frankie equals some kind of bang" sweatshirt to do yardwork.) The Violent Femmes answer Gnarls Barkley's funkafied cover of "Gone Daddy Gone" with a quintessential Gano-fied "Crazy".
Beck, as always, concocts the perfect alchemy of irreverence & reverence with his take on Dylan's "Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat". Then we rock out to 8 year old Jack Marley & his band, the J7, asking the musical question, "Should I Stay or Should I Go". The Clash would be damn proud. You always need an English chap to classy up the joint, & Mark Ronson brings Daniel Merriweather to disco-fy The Smiths "Stop Me..." Then Pharoahe Monch does the unthinkable & covers Public Enemy & even more unimaginably does it some sweet justice. "Welcome To The (goddamn) Terrodome" indeed! Finally bringin' some Latin flavor, Queen of Salsa Celia Cruz assures us that, "(She) Will Survive" & backs it up with some mighty congas.
Enjoy at your own risk...