20TH ANNIVERSARY
Covers of Covers
Inside Under the Radar’s First Album
W
hen hatching plans to celebrate Under the Radar’s 20th anniversary I knew I wanted to go beyond just producing a special 20th anniversary issue. Despite two decades of writing about albums, one thing we’d never done is actually put one out ourselves. Thus I came upon the idea for Covers of Covers. The concept was so perfect and simple that I’m surprised we hadn’t thought of it before. We approached some of our favorite musicians and asked them to cover any song by any artist who had been on the front or back cover of our print issue over the years, including artists that had appeared in group cover shots. I sent each musician a list of the cover artists to choose from.
To pull all this off we have partnered with Joe Spadaro and his Connecticut-based record label American Laundromat. As well as releasing albums by Juliana Hatfield and Tanya Donelly, American Laundromat have a long history of producing amazing covers albums, including their tributes to Elliott Smith, The Cure, Neil Young, The Smiths, and the music of Wes Anderson films. They even put together a track-bytrack tribute to the soundtrack to Alex Cox’s cult classic 1984 movie Repo Man. Without Joe’s help, Covers of Covers would still just be an idea in my head. He has the know-how to get an album mastered and manufactured, not to mention how to handle all the legal stuff. My Co-Publisher/wife Wendy Lynch Redfern then photographed and designed the album cover, which features a tower of all our print issues. It was fascinating to see which musicians agreed to take part and which artists and songs they wanted to cover. Cassandra Jenkins was the first to say yes. We were also elated that Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle readily agreed to take part, considering Grandaddy were on the cover of our very first issue. We tried to have a wide variety of artists covered, but there was some doubling up, with two covers each of songs by HAIM and Metric. Each artist recorded the songs themselves and there was much excitement when each track was turned in. We asked all the artists involved to provide a quote on why they took part in the project, why they picked each song, and how they approached their covers. Below are all the quotes in the order of the album’s tracklist. Covers of Covers will be available on CD and digitally, with cassette tape and vinyl releases in the works too. Visit www.alr-music.com for more details or to preorder. We are also donating $1.00 from every physical album sold and every full album download purchased to Sweet Relief Musicians Fund (www.sweetrelief.org), which “provides financial assistance to all types of career musicians and music industry workers who are struggling to make ends meet while facing illness, disability, or age-related problems.” 44
1. Grandaddy: “Blindness” (Metric) “Apparently my band Grandaddy was on the cover of issue #1 of Under the Radar and continued a cozy relationship with the mag so it seemed a no brainer to be involved with this Covers of Covers project. I thought it was a good idea in general too. “I’m a big Metric fan. One time I drove from Bozeman, Montana to Salt Lake City, Utah (nine-hour drive) to see them play live. I don’t even like going to shows. That says a lot. I chose to cover the song ‘Blindness’ as it has been one of my favorite songs of theirs since I first heard it in 2009. I recorded and mixed it all in my garage and enjoyed treading that line of trying to emulate some of the original sounds and ‘feels’ but also make it mine for a bit and have a little fun with it.” – Jason Lytle of Grandaddy
Words by Mark Redfern
3. Peter Bjorn and John: “Songs of Love” (The Divine Comedy)
“We made it to the studio (for the first time in one-anda-half years in the same room all together) still not sure what to do exactly from the long list of potential artists to cover. We tried a song by Devendra Banhart (we booked his first ever Swedish show, so there’s a connection), we also dipped our toes into some Super Furry Animals and Feist material. Nothing really seemed to click. Elliott Smith we had covered before at our third show or something but he was already taken… Ah well... Suddenly I realized that Divine Comedy/Neil Hannon wrote the theme tune for the Irish-British sitcom-classic Father Ted, a perennial favorite of mine. This madcap mid-’90s series about three bonkers Catholic priests on a remote fictitious island called Craggy Island, hit me hard when it ran on late night TV in Sweden sometime early noughties. Apparently it’s been banned in the States and voted second best British comedy after Fawlty Towers by 2. Piroshka: “The Crystal some poll in 2019. Either way it might be an acquired Lake” (Grandaddy) taste but it’s my taste. On a tour of (you guessed it) Ireland I got the DVD box-set and pained the rest of Piroshka is fronted by former Lush singer Miki Berenyi the band with it on the bus TV (though the British crew (vocals/guitar) and also includes former Moose guitarist got it). Long story but I thought we might as well have a go at it. Bingo! A few jammed out slightly psychedelic KJ “Moose” McKillop, Modern English bassist Mick PBJ-angled takes with some added vibraphone and Conroy, and former Elastica drummer Justin Welch. tape-echo and there you have it! We then thought... “When Mark sent me a heavily passive well the song DOES have a lyric, looked it up and aggressive email reminding me of the many times sang it. Cause why not? A good set of words too... Under the Radar has plugged Lush and Piroshka, I nothing whatsoever to do with Mrs. Doyle or had to admit he had a point and resigned myself to ecumenical matters. It’s called ‘Songs of Love.’ complying with his demand to provide a track for the Thanks Neil for writing it and thanks Under the magazine’s 20th anniversary. “Scanning the unimaginably long list of possibilities, Radar for the opportunity!” – Peter Morén of Peter I clocked with rising panic the number of bands I have Bjorn and John never heard of, musing how very old and out of touch I have become. 4. Cults: “Bourgeois” (Phoenix) “As luck would have it, I’d seen The Horrors supporting Suede when I took my daughter along to the “We’re very happy to be included in celebrating Under Hammersmith Apollo, but despite finding at least three the Radar magazine as we’ve been big fans for over a tracks that would have made terrific source material for decade now. I’m looking back, UTR might have been a cover, Mick beat me to the vote and his suggestion of our first time our music was ever printed about in a Grandaddy’s ‘Crystal Lake’ won the day. magazine, which was an amazing and bizarre out of “Justin had just moved to a new studio space in body moment. St Leonard’s and did a masterful job of recording the “When we saw the list of bands that had been on drums. Moose noodled his usual 20+ tracks of guitar the covers over the years our first thought was, ‘Wow, effects and I unbelievably managed to record my that’s a lot of great bands.’ Our second thought was, vocals myself with a minimum of howling bum notes. ‘Let’s do that Phoenix song.’ Our favorite studio bod Iggy B was thankfully free and “We’ve had ‘Bourgeois’ on our tour playlist for two available, so we enjoyed a convivial day in the studio album cycles now, meaning we’ve heard it in clubs adding bass and yet more guitar while drinking endless hundreds of times. It always stands out amongst all the cups of tea. other tunes with its extended intro, mellow verses, and “Having mixed the track, we are all in celebratory bright and punchy instrumentation. We also love its mode and, as I write, I am on my second espresso lyrics as a critique of social structures that the French martini—and it’s not even 6 p.m.! So cheers for the do better than anyone. opportunity. It went unexpectedly smoothly and we had “We tried a few different ways of approaching the so much fun we may even include ‘Crystal Lake’ in our cover before we gave up and just dove in, playing the set when we head off on tour next month. song as we would if it was a Cults song. We hope you “Lots of love, Miki” – Miki Berenyi of Piroshka enjoy!” – Madeline Follin and Brian Oblivion of Cults
