Tori Amos – Smells Like Teen Spirit: Tori first recorded this on her 1992 EP Crucify. It’s amazing how lyrics can take on a different meaning coming from a different narrator (and when you can actually understand the performer).
Video of unknown origin:
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The Bad Plus – Smells Like Teen Spirit: The Bad Plus like to throw a rock cover onto their studio albums to keep things interesting – it works. We’ve got some video footage from NPR and if you like what you hear you should check out their release These Are The Vistas which contains their studio recording of the tune in question.
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Charlie Hunter – Come As You Are: Well, it’s done in alphabetical order, but we’re starting with the jazz guys early. Hunter recorded this song (complete with Teen Spirit intro) for his second major release (his first on the Blue Note Label), the 1995 disc Bing, Bing, Bing! Included in the playlist is a version from the Montreux jazz festival, you can hear that whole show on The Archive
And here is some video with some funny/akward banter from Hunter :
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The Disco Biscuits – Lithium: What we’ve got here is a prime example of the forgiving nature of an audience tape. This sounds AWESOME, and having not heard the SBD version, I can still guarantee you want to hear a tape that has got the sound reverberating through the room and everyone who knew the words singing along. This is the debut version so you can hear the crowd slowly start to figure it out as Brownie starts to thump his own take of the bassline. Check out the whole show on The Archive
Keller Williams – Lithium: A very Keller rendition of the tune. Some looping, mouth trumpet, singing in a funny voice, the whole deal. Grabbed this version off of bt.etree.org
moe. – All Apologies: When moe. played the EMP Sky Church in Seattle in 2003 they took the opportunity to pay homage to the local legends in their encore slot. Played once and never again. You can check out the whole show on The Archive
Phish – Smells Like Teen Spirit: We’ve got another one-off cover here and it was the encore of November 2nd, 1998 – a night where they had decided over lunch to cover Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon in it’s entirety. Not the tightest interpretation of the song, but then again neither were any of the songs from DSOTM that night (sorry). They struggle with some of the lyrics, but you know which line they get perfectly? “Our little group has always been and always will until the end”. You can download the whole show on bt.etree.org
Serialpod (Trey Anastasio, Mike Gordon & Bill Kreutzmann) – On A Plain: Another run through of a Nirvana song with the Phish guys and well, another example of a lack of polish. An especially interesting selection of a song to cover when you’ve got Trey singing…the second line in the song is, “I got so high – I scratched ’till I bled”. I left plenty of the improv in and didn’t fade it out until the very end, this one-off collaboration produced some interesting loose-jamming. You can download the whole show on bt.etree.org
Umphrey’s McGee – In Bloom: UM plays so many different covers that many of them become what I call “instant rarities”. This was first played in full 5 years ago and has been played a dozen times in total. UM fans looking for a real treat should check out 11-30-2001, a show that has many tributes and nods to George Harrison who had recently passed away. Inside of the instrumental Nothing Too Fancy, UM plays both Flying by The Beatles and Brendan Bayliss begins to sing the lyrics from In Bloom. And for the version included in the playlist, you can check out that whole on The Archive as well.
And that’s all we got, place your vote for the most deserving band or musician.
Here’s a few videos for your Tuesday:
An fun over-the-top a capella Nirvana medley:
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Smells Like Teen Spirit:
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In Bloom:
[youtube]wY3oEvaq71A[/youtube]
Lithium:
[youtube]sUUHNf0S5cA[/youtube]
3 Responses
I feel bad voting without seeing the Tori Amos vid… but after reviewing all the other options, the choice was easy.