Diatribe Cover Mix

Paper Thin: A Diatribe Cover Mix



I love covers. Anyone who's been in a band knows the drill: until you write a bunch of your own songs, you need to learn a bunch of covers to play at gigs. The most successful band (not very) I was in was Diatribe: bass, drums, guitar, organ/accordion. We did reggae, zydeco, R&B, rock, and Afro-Caribbean dance stuff; all of our covers were inflected with these, sometimes with very tuneful and hilarious results. It wasn't uncommon for me to be laughing my ass off as we played.

I talked to Steve Olson today; he works at the Elderly Instruments (referred to here as "The Store") repair shop. Talking with Steve made me think of some of the covers we used to play in Diatribe. I'm making a 14-track mix of the covers we used to play. These all came back to my memory in the 10 minutes after we talked; we played lots more.

The funny thing about this list is that most of the covers were funky re-interpretations of the songs. Some of them even got us in trouble. Some rock dudes actually got angry with us over our cover of Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love." We did a jerky, speedy, no-wave version of that tune. It was irreverent, disrespectful, and fun as hell! We did a funk version of "Trampled Under Foot" by Zeppelin (major Bootsy Collins funk bassline on that one). We also did funny medley-type mashups of pairs: we joined "She's About A Mover" and "What'd I Say"; we joined "Workin' In A Coal Mine" and "Canary In A Coal Mine." I can't remember what we mashed up with "Magic Carpet Ride," but playing that song is a highlight of musical memory for me: I used to set my rig right next to Mike's Leslie speaker and stand in front of it. I can still feel the wind rushing off the bass rotors in that Leslie on my sweaty neck! (Hamilton Street Pub in Saginaw!!!).

Playlist

1. Live Wire / The Meters
2. She's About A Mover / The Sir Douglas Quintet
3. The Cutter / Echo and the Bunnymen*
4. Mystery Dance / Elvis Costello*
5. The Weight / The Band
6. Got Me Under Pressure / ZZ Top
7. Haven't Done Nothin' / Stevie Wonder
8. Magic Carpet Ride / Steppenwolf
9. Monkey Man / The Rolling Stones
10. Paper Thin / John Haitt
11. Sunshine Of Your Love / Cream
12. Front Line / Stevie Wonder
13. Life During Wartime / Talking Heads
14. Trampled Under Foot / Led Zeppelin

*G-Fab on lead vox.