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migraines suck. If you're here looking for the new CIF show, I'm sorry. I've got nothing. Well, that's not totally true. I have a cassette of the show a couple of weeks ago. A cassette! I don't even own anything that plays tapes anymore. So... As soon as I can get a walkman, record the tape to my computer, then track the single .wav file, I should be able to get that show up. Or maybe I'll just have to wait 'til the Pour House show. :-/ Anyway, sorry for the delay - I'm working on it. I've also been doing a LOT of work on that bootleg thing in the upper-left corner. Probably 85% done with getting everything entered. And I've been writing some new pages. Check out this page if you're bored. Currently, you have to select at least two tracks, and you can't select anything that includes and apostrophe or a comma. I'm working on that too, but not there yet. Tried watching Ziggy Stardust DVD last night. But my DVD is old, and I have the remastered CDs. So I tried to match the CD to the DVD and watch it that way. Apparently, the DVD is missing quite a bit of the show. Disappointing... Needless to say, I wasn't able to get it to work for very long. There are too many differences in the two for it to work. Had to listen to the crappy DVD soundtrack. Oh well. Still an amazing show. And he does cover a few songs... So that's got me thinking about covers. Bowie covers the Stones and the Velvet Underground; Cast Iron covers Madonna, Dan Bern, the Who, Steve Earl, the Box Tops, and a bunch that I'm sure I'd never recognize; Pearl Jam covers anything and everything under the sun... And I was thinking, last night, why isn't there a Ziggy Stardust cover band? If crappy-ass Dave Matthews gets his own cover band, then Ziggy should DEFINITELY have one. But why would a band want to get on stage to play other people's music? Three of my all-time favorite bands seem to enjoy the covers, and I'll not deny that it's fun to hear them. But how come? Unless a band can actually add something to the song with their interpretation, it's nothing more than karoke, (however you spell it) right? And is that ok? Take CIF's version of "Like a Prayer" for example. Sure, it's a crowd pleaser b/c everyone knows it, and the girls flip-out, and it's fun to sing along too, and blah blah blah... but it's got to be disappointing for a band to get the biggest response from a crowd for a cover song. But they do it well. It's a crowd-pleaser (or, at least, a me-pleaser) not just because it's some cheesy song from the 80's but also b/c CIF completely reinterprets the song, and they're able to make it their own. Same for "The Letter" and "Soky Fair." I don't know if there are tons of people who remember the originals, but the CIF versions can really stand on their own, and I think that's really important. (And their version of Soky just destroys John's version too...) Other examples of this would be Bowie's version of "Let's Spend the Night Together," as well as his "White Light, White Heat" and "Waiting For the Man" covers. To hear Bowie play the songs, you'd think they were his, and the experience is vastly different from hearing the original versions. Nirvana also did the same thing with songs like "Turnaround" and "Molly's Lips" from the Vaselines. Then there are the covers that sound more like the original than not. For Cast Iron, I think that would include things like "Baba O'Riley," "Jeruselum," "Moonshiner," and "The Weight." Pearl Jam's covers fall mostly into this category too... "Rockin' In the Free World," "Fortunate Son," "Know Your RIghts," "Throw Your Arms Around Me," and countless others often sound very similiar to the original. You can tell it's Pearl Jam, but the point of playing the covers doesn't usually seem to be to add something to the song. What's the point then? Are two of my favorite bands partially just karoke bands? maybe... Why play these songs? Well, partially, to get a crowd reaction. I think this might be more important for a smaller band like CIF than Pearl Jam, but I still don't think it's a great reason to do a cover. So, in searching for an answer that doesn't include talking smack on them, I think I've found something that makes sense. You cover a song because it MEANS something or stands for something... an ideal or a feeling or timeperiod... Some songs can evoke emotion (and possibly even action) so well that it's pointless to use one of your own songs to evoke this same emotion. As Scott pointed out to me, CCR was very anit-war (Vietnam), and that made Pearl Jam's choice of covering "Fortunate Son" as plain as day. Why would they perform their own song in an effort to move people when playing a well-known song with a meaningful history behind it would give them a head-start on getting the idea across? (except, of course, to dumb people who think that it's a "patriotic" song...) Instead of trying to get an idea across, perhaps a band also just wants its fans to take notice of another artist. That's the reason that I like to talk about things, (to get other people to take notice of them) so maybe it can carry over to music too. Maybe Pearl Jam and CIF just really like The Who and don't want people to forget. And perhaps other people should figure out who Dan Bern is the same way I did. (Thanks guys) And finally? Maybe it's just really fun to play "Baba O'Riley" and "Last Kiss" and "Moonshiner." I know, like one power chord, so I'm not really sure, but as far as I can tell, it would be an absolute blast to get up on stage and play the hell out of a song that you love. No need for deeper meaning or artistic expression here. Fun for the sake of fun, and I don't suppose there's anything wrong with that at all. And if the band is having fun, most likely, the crowd is having fun too. All-in-all, I think I've convinced myself that covers are really awesome things as long as the band isn't just trying to prove something. (oooo... look at what WE can play...) I've just got to think a little harder when I hear them these days, but that's never a bad thing either. P.S. - wouldn't it be neat if I cared about something this much that I could actually make money with? maybe next time I'll write about the importance of ESN-tracking in the wireless retail market, the proper dimensions of a logo for a Sales Receipt, and why it's imperative to follow the directions given to you by your software provider if you actually want the software to work. but probably not.