Cover Versions and why ska music DOESN'T suck

So faffing around with itunes I noticed that my covers playlist is now over 140 songs long and pretty well reflects my tastes given it is all ska, ska punk, pop punk and punk with a smattering of "other". And it appears the metal, punk and ska are pretty well the three biggest culprits when it comes to covers... At least in the covers I know. The Short Fast Loud cover show is my favourite of the year.

Before I get deeper into this post time to address the most commonly touted opinion I get from people after they hear I like ska (after "what is ska?") is "Ska sucks, Propagandhi said so"... now the first counter I've seen to this arguement is "Ska bands never make any money compared to most other bands due to their size" or "of course they're in it for the money, all bands are". But I'm much prouder of my counter arguement which is simply, "yes believe everything you hear unquestioningly and let someone else make up your mind for you... that's clearly the central message that Propagandhi are trying to get across in their songs"

Anyway, cover versions are good so I thought I'd post some here... So I thought I'd post some of my favs here, but that was harder than it seems given I couldn't work out and easy way to upload the songs here for people to see. So there will be just a list with links to youtube vids if I can find them.
(incidentally this is the default video I link to when I got to youtube... semi related)

So here's not the exhaustive list of covers I have, just the more amusing ones (and I'm not bothering with any of the Me First and the Gimme Gimmes or Reel Big Fish stuff... that would make the list far to long)

• Baby One More Time- August Burns Red
  
• Hazy Shade of Winter- Bodyjar (I have the live version though)
  
• Black Betty- Spiderbait
• Baby Got Back- Throwdown
• Men in Black- Forever the Sickest Kids
• I Kissed A Girl- Machine Gun Fellatio
• Gummi Bears- The Suburban Legends
• Fight for Your Right- The Deadwalk
• Surf City- The Ramones

plus given the you tube searching I did, I found a bunch of other covers on there

• The Xmen Cartoon Theme (this was always begging to be covered)
• Spiderman- The Ramones (I couldn't miss this one)
• TMNT Cartoon (surprised this isn't covered more)
• Tetris (which was interestingly a copy of a Russian tune)
• James Bond Theme- The Skatalites
• YMCA- Skandalous
• Ghostbusters (Of course)
• The Roadrunner show (The theme is actually a country song
• I hate Spongebob but there are a distressing number of bands covering that theme
• The Less than Jake TV covers album (that I don't have) also needs a mention...

Oh well, punk/ska is good and so are covers

Love, Hugs and Kisses
ANt

Ninja Turtles, Disney Rip Offs and etc

Went to the the Royals last night, good show as normal... They did a cover of the Lion King soundtrack (much to the crowd's delight) and I've got to say I think I was born without the "disney" gene... Fantasia is kinda cool... everything else coming out of there is shit... Preachy, fluffy storeies stolen from fairy tales... The Lion King isn't original either... it's essentially just hamlet. Walt Disney was a massive dick and any studio that sues preschools for painting their characters on the walls is just asking for contempt.
True the Warner Bros where dicks too, but at least their cartoons were good... And Chuck Jones was a freaking genius.

Anyway, below is a XKCD I found years ago that was really kick ass and we where talking about last night.


This diagram is far to true... I did a ninja turtle stury at the British art museum when I was 18 and found all but donatello stuff, same as my look seeing at the Lourve and in Italy... What the hell did the Renaissance Donatello even do... I think he was an architect/sculpture, he definitely didn't paint or make anything "famous" (compared to Dave and Ms Lisa).

ANYWAY

So I had my standard ninja turtles discussion AGAIN last night... It was something I noticed back in High School and has held true from then on... The ninja turtle you liked when you where 8-9 years old is still the one that you think is the best. If anything your views have hardened to the point you're willing to fight to the death over your favourite Turtle.

So to end matters here is the official turtle ranking system
1) Donatello- The best, hands down... One of the Funny turtles (win), Rides a single kick skateboard in the original movie (win), smarter than the others (win), voiced by Corey Feldman (win), half of the best line in the movie "You're a Claustrophobic!" "You want a fist in the mouth? I've never even looked at another guy" and not to mention the best character in any of the computer games based on his range... Good range and bad clipping meant that in the amiga game Donatello could actually attack THROUGH THE FLOOR OF THE STORY ABOVE... killing everyone before he even got there


2) Michelangelo- One of the funny ones (win) and clearly the "coolest" but definitely trying a little to hard... Bit of a dumbass too, but can be single handedly blamed for the nunchuck popularity that still exists in the world today...

3) Raphael- Tries so hard it hurts, one of the unfunny turtles, constantly running off alone to get the shit kicked out of himself and then be used to trap the others. Crap at being in the team and an all round annoying guy... Worst choice in any of the computer games due to having absolutely no range too. Oh and he got beaten up by Casey Jones in the movie...

4) Leonardo- Unfunny and douchey but whilst better than Raphael in most respects Leonardo comes last for two reasons. One as a leader he spends his whole time waiting for orders/instructions rather than leading and Two he had the most deadly weapon of the lot (with the 2nd best range in the games) and he spends his whole time not being allowed to use it. So not only does he effectively have no weapon, he doesn't even use his hands because they're occupied holding a sword he's not allowed to use... plus he's kinda a pussy


I really did like the amiga 500 game if you hadn't noticed... Interestingly the pics I found are for the UK version, you can tell because they're the hero turtles not the ninja turtles...


Oh well

Love, Hugs and Kisses
ANt