Spoon Covers The Cramps, Oh The Lack Of Horror

The Cramps: Rock & Roll Spook Show

The Cramps came on to the music scene with songs that obviously and unapologetically ripped off riffs from classic gems of the 50's/60's era garage rock, surf rock and rockabilly. This has been well documented with the 3 volume compilation set "Songs The Cramp Taught Us," which brings the original songs together. What distinguished the songs The Cramps put to tape from the original source material is lyrics that came from the pits of hell and describe scenes of horror. While The Misfits did something similar, Danzig would scream and croon many of his lyrics while Jerry Only played his guitar at the speed of punk rock. Not striking as deeply into the punk sound as The Misfits, The Cramps kept a toe-tapping rhythm under lyrics that were spoken/sung with Lux Interior's performative vibrato in a way that exaggerated the elements of paranoia and creepiness of the lyrics in songs like "I Was A Teenage Werewolf," "Human Fly," "Green Door," and "Voodoo Idol." These songs don't only narrate spooky tales, but attempt to make the audience just as unsettled as the characters in them. It wasn't just the effects on the guitar, but the way Lux Interior sang that gave The Cramps a distinct sound and made the horror movie aspects of their music work so well. 

If you've never heard of The Cramps, you may not alone. They were nowhere near mainstream and probably make a few people uncomfortable. When songs like "TV Set," describe homicide and dismemberment, The Cramps weren't exactly radio friendly. Since the movie Poltergeist is being remade, it makes sense that the soundtrack could use a cover or two. One cover that will be on it is Spoon's version of The Cramps classic "TV Set." While Spoon's cover of The Cramps is actually very good, it is absent of the creepiness that makes the original unsettling. Spoon's version is so clean that it comes off as The Cramps if they were produced by Phil Spector. Britt Daniel does a great job of transcribing the jittery cadence Lux Interior first performed it with, but the frightening tones present in Lux's voice is not in Daniel's. While the cover is well worth listening to, it only make me wonder how great it would be to watch a scene in a horror movie where the original version plays as people are running scared.

Rethinking Music with Beck's Record Club

You wish... and so do I, to be honest

Imagine taking a group of musician with styles that only the most bizarre venn diagram would show overlapping traits. Then, put them in a room and have them cover another band's record. This is the goal of The Record Club, and the mission statement of the project goes a little something like this: 

Record Club is an informal meeting of various musicians to record an album in a day. The album chosen to be reinterpreted is used as a framework. Nothing is rehearsed or arranged ahead of time. A track is put up here once a week. The songs are rough renditions, often first takes that document what happens over the course of a day as opposed to a polished rendering.There is no intention to 'add to' the original work or attempt to recreate the power of the original recording. Only to play music and document what happens.

Beck started Record Club in June of 2009, but I didn't find out about it until recently. After watching some of Beck's old music videos online,  I let youtube cycle through videos on its own while I opened another tab on my browser to research for an upcoming article. At some point, a song that  I was unfamiliar with came on. Beginning with part of the original INXS song, "Gun in the Sky," the video goes into a reworking the song, beginning with a drum beat that could belong to an industrial band before Angus Andrew, of The Liars, starts singing. Scratchy guitar comes in to flesh out moments and is followed by a clumsy keyboard line that could be coming from a child's casio piano or melodica.

Joined by members of The Liars, Os Mutantes, Keyboardist Brian LeBarton, and St. Vincent, Beck would go into the studio to cover Kick, by INXS. While those musicians may all share influences like Talking Heads, Beatles and random jazz figures, they record with very different styles and unique approaches to melody and rhythm which sometimes result in the abandonment of them, as with Liars. With "New Sensation," reverbed violins and flirting background vocals come in to produce what tonaly sounds like it could have been a b-side from the Sea Change sessions. This aesthetic would carry over to the group's version of "Devil Inside," to remove all of the attitude INXS put into the song and replace it with a haunted sound.

Abandoning the others, Beck takes over all roles for a three track version of "The Loved One." Structurally, his version is close to the original, with electric guitar substituted for acoustic to end up with a song that reflects his "Mellow Gold" era.

It's not just Beck taking control through the whole experiment. "Never Tear Us Apart" is a nice collaboration that follows the original song closely and shows off Annie Clark's singing. With "Mystify," The group moves through upbeat to calm moments. The cover stays in the calm area, breaking it down and reworking it as a country song, with emotional violin, pensive guitar and thoughtful vocal delivery to make probably the best song from the session, except maybe for it's closer.

Ending the session and record is "Tiny Daggers." For this track, members of The Liars take control of the creative direction to make the song sound nothing like its original. Where other songs make it obvious that Record Club is Beck's pet project, "Tiny Daggers" sound like a Liars song, not a cover. With menacing drums, noisy electric guitars and a reworking of the vocals, something that doesn't at all resemble the source material comes out of the experiment to produce an angry song nine minutes longer than the original.

Beck and friends have done four other sessions, covering Velvet Underground and Nice, The Songs of Leonard Cohen, Yanni's Live At The Acropolis and Oar, by Skip Spencer. Videos are available on youtube and tracks are available on Beck's website. They're all worth checking out, but I think the version of Kick is the best one and hope Beck will return to do more sessions.