Guest Post�

Some of you may not be aware that my dear Better Half has a bit of a problem. You see, he's an addict. An audiophile to be exact. The depths of his addiction have left him intensely jealous that he cannot participate in the CoverFest 09 that is running rampant over the blogosphere. He doesn't have his own blog and, well, I'm a bit of an enabler, so I'm granting him some space here to share with you some of his own favorite and most-terrible cover songs. (I don't have any real hope that he'll ever recover from this addiction, but hey, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.)Take it away BH:Well, I'm honoured indeed. Music has been a passion (after science of course) for some time. Like Abel Pharmboy I've even spent some time writing for a music paper (just some rag edited by a guy in knew when I lived in Chile). BTW Abel, I did feel sorry for you getting pounded on for trying to raise the bar over at Isis' blog. The phrase "hiding to nothing" springs to mind though. Never got paid for it though, was just a nice little wag for getting into gigs for free as a student.I love these meme things 'cos I makes me go back and explore my collection for things and always ends up with me listening to things I've not heard in ages. Thought I'd start with the worst, simply because I thought it'd be easier. Still not that easy though as I can still appreciate things for their ironic potential. For example, Acker Bilk doing Windmills In Your Mind is wonderful just for the cheese factor. I eventually settled on this little gem, which was brought to my attention by some Spanish friends. You'd think if you were going to cover something you'd spend the time to at least be able to pronounce the words even if you don't know what they mean:My favourite anything in music is very difficult, particularly as it could change from one hour to the next. I appreciate covers of differing kinds. They might be destructive:silly:Or even pretty faithful to the original:I've always really liked this cover by The Cramps and always thought it was quite straight, which is kind of strange for them given that they revel in the whole sleazy Betty Page/rockabilly thing. It was when I was trying to remind myself who did it originally that I found out (like many songs from the 50s) that it was originally an R & B number that was adapted for Peggy Lee. The original was sung by Little Willie John and still sounds good today:Having said all of that I think the one I'm going to go for today is Willis covering Cameo's Word Up. For the young 'uns out there here is the original:Fortunately, this was as far as the codpiece revival got. Willis' version is a complete re-imagination, not destructive per se but certainly not faithful either:This track also made a brief appearance on CSI:If only I always felt like doing a little happy dance while waiting for results like this.Finally, I'm going to leave you with something AA insisted be put in after she saw it. These people are The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain:If you can't find any amusement here then you haven't just lost touch with your inner child, you have quite clearly subjected him or her to a lingering and excruciating death using many and varied medieval instruments of torture. I'd also recommend looking up other videos, especially their version of Shaft at an English folk festival:Have funAA's BH

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