Dig Circus was one of my favourite local bands in the 90s. I used to hungrily look for their live listings in Now every week and when I found one, I was so there. They used to play some great covers in addition to their own awesome songs, but it was their very original cover of the Sex Pistols’ God Save the Queen that always turned heads.
How can you not talk about covers without talking about Cake’s amazing cover of Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive. For me, one of the hallmarks of an awesome cover is when the band makes the song their own; a great cover doesn’t just recreate the original, it takes the original and makes it something new. And Cake does that with this cover.
Frank Turner’s cover of The Weakerthans A Plea From a Cat Named Virtute is one of those rare covers of a song by a Canadian band. I love this cover, because you can tell that the song really speaks to Frank, and he’s covering it because of how much he loves it (he has a tattoo of a cat named Virtute, after all) and his love for the song is infectious.
This week in the awesome cover files, is Ben Folds cover of The Cure’s In Between Days. While Ben Folds hits all the musical marks of the original, his use of predominantly piano and drum makes this cover a truly Ben Folds sounding song, without trying to emulate the original.
Your awesome cover this week is Culture Club’s Do You Really Want to Hurt me, covered by the Violent Femmes. You probably know the Femmes from their most famous songs, Add it Up or Blister in the Sun, but their cover of Culture Club’s first hit is really unique. They take this well known song and make it into a very Femmes sounding song, using just their three instruments (acoustic guitar, bass and drum) to great effect.