The Darkness - All the Pretty Girls

I'm planning to go see these guys when they come around again next year:

Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen In Love?

This blog has had a major shortage of the Buzzcocks. Let's fucking fix that.

Shonen Knife (少年ナイフ) - Top of the World

More Shonen Knife, because Shonen Knife is always better when there is more, or more volume.

Cover of The Carpenters from the tribute album "If I Was A Carpenter."

Hagfish - Stamp

This was the first song I heard by Hagfish, I think from seeing this video on MTV. I ended up getting "Rocks Your Lame Ass" mostly on the strength on this. Good album, but a cruddy car CD player in my old Dodge scratched it until it was unplayable.

I like how cheery and blatant the whole song is.



and Hagfish did this nice cover of Walking in L.A. by Missing Persons.

Xiu Xiu - Wondering

I was digging through AV Club covers a while back, and found this band Xiu Xiu doing Sharp Dressed Man by ZZ Top. I didn't like the cover. But I was intrigued enough to want to hear their own music.

This?

Oh, wow.



Just goes to show, sometimes an interesting cover is just a lead-in to the great originals of a band.

Paranoid - released 47 years ago today

Thanks to MK for pointing this out today - it's the 47th anniversary of the release of Paranoid.

Here it is:



and what the fuck, here is The Dickies doing it, too, because The Dickies. This is a nice live version:



I can't say I like the cover better, but I can say I like them equally well.

The Vapors - Turning Japanese

I loved, loved, loved this song the first second I heard it - probably seeing this video on MTV. I haven't stopped loving it since.

No sex, no drugs, no wine, no women, no fun, no sin, no you, no wonder it's dark.



Weird to see the video again after all of these years. I remembered it, pretty much exactly, even after a long time not seeing it.

Let's say this is for my friend K~, who a Japanese person we both know - a bona fide woman from Toh-Kay-Oh - commented had a very Japanese manner. He even said the same, "I think I'm turning Japanese."

All could say back was, "I really think so."

Not sure he caught the reference. Well, maybe he will now.

And hey, Liz Phair cover. I can't find anything wrong with the phrase "Liz Phair cover."

The Lords of the New Chuch - Holy War

Still my favorite super-group, The Lords of the New Church.

God I miss Stiv Bators.

The Undertones - Mars Bars

The second album by The Undertones started with a track called "More Songs About Chocolate and Girls." Chocolate? Mars Bars. This was on the first - and I gather it was the B-Side to "Jimmy Jimmy."

Len - Steal My Sunshine

I'm pretty sure my buddy Jeff introduced me to Len when we worked at A~.com back in 1999.

I sincerely love this song. It grabbed me right from the start. It's a song I wish more people knew, so here we go. You know it now, too. It's been on every MP3 player I've had and every assorted playlist in the car since I first heard it. Sometimes, I just need to hear it, either to cheer up or to stay cheery.



"Well, does he like butter tarts?"

The Only Ones - Another Girl, Another Planet

Just a really charming punk love song - The Only Ones - Another Girl, Another Planet. Oddly Jonathan Richman-like.



Looking that one up, I saw that Blink-182 did a nice cover, too. Pretty straightforward, just sped up a little to the faster basic speed of a Blink-182 song. And Blink-182's drummer is in The Transplants, so I've seen them live once removed, putting me, what, two steps from seeing the The Only Ones? Maybe not, but there you go.

The Replacements did a cover, too.

I'd avoid the comments sections on all of these - each one is filled with people slagging off the covers, or the originals, or the bands that cover it, or the original bands. I mean really, that's fucking nonsense. If the band you like, likes another band, you're going to slag that band off? If some band you don't like, likes a band you like, you're going to complain about that? What the hell, people.

X-Ray Spex - I Live Off You

This is my favorite X-Ray Specs song. Great tune, great lyrics:



I live off you
And you live off me
And the whole world
Lives off of everybody

See we gotta be exploited
See we gotta be exploited
By somebody, by somebody, by somebody

The cat eats the rat
While the pimp beats the whore
As she just screams out
For more and more

See we gotta be exploited
See we gotta be exploited
By somebody, by somebody, by somebody

La la la

I live off you
And you live off me
And the whole world
Lives off of everybody

See we gotta be exploited
See we gotta be exploited
By somebody, by somebody, by somebody

La la la



Just go listen to the whole album, okay?

X-Ray Spex - The Day the World Turned Day-Glo

I really needed to hear this today.



X-Ray Spex is a band I'd heard of, as Poly Styrene & X-Ray Specs, written up in a book about punk I'd read. But it took my co-worker Glen to actually pass me a copy of Germ-Free Adolescents on tape so I could hear them.

I copied the tape and then wore my copy out. Poly Styrene is one of the most punk rock people to ever live.

Enjoy.

The Undertones - Teenage Kicks

Come get your Teenage Kicks.

Galaxy Express - Oh Yeah

My new friend Eh-chan recommended this band Galaxy Express to me. I haven't listened to that much of them yet, but I do like this song:

The Ramones - The Crusher

For no reason except that I got in some good grappling today. The Crusher - written by Dee Dee, here sung by CJ.

Gary Numan - My Name is Ruin

Hurrah, new Gary Numan:



He was on Jonsey's Jukebox recently, too, talking about music, going to Katy Perry concerts with his daughters, and facing death in a plane with the engines out over the Pacific Ocean.

Steve Jones - Silly Thing (live)

I always liked this Cook/Jones track from "The Great Rock and Roll Swindle." Post-Rotten Pistols stuff isn't quite the same, but seen as a Cook/Jones solo track, it's just a good rock tune. Steve sings better in 2016 than in 1978, too.