The Song: Cover Songs

Giant Lusca has a history, a fraught relationship, with cover songs. As I developed whatever playing skills I possess, I would hear the advice time and again (from reading interviews with esteemed and established artists-- and again, the same story during desperate conversations [on my end] with equally esteemed local artists). The advice was this: that the way to improve writing/playing was through the activity of playing along to records. I could never do this. It could be some undiagnosed ADHD, a bad ear, or, and this is my primary suspicion, a self-identification as not being a so-called player (By player, what I’m talking about a musician who hogs the acoustic at the party and who is generally thought of by others as having achieved a level of mastery. A session guy. I am jealous of these people. Marty, you make me sick. Kidding!) I identify more as a songwriter and I think adopting this notion has handicapped me greatly. It’s an easy out, an excuse to avoid performance and growth. Ultimately this is a lazy excuse (and the fundamental punk ideological weakness), but looking at it more deeply, it could be a defense mechanism of sorts in the sense of apprehensions in relation to the realization of creative work. In other words, actually doing the work is scary and the dream version is always exact, appreciated, and otherwise perfect. The avoidance of realization is a big topic and I’ll save that for another post.

But I do listen to lots of music and very little of it comes from online sources (Exception: I gotta hear that new Radon!) Mostly my listening habits revolve around the CD format on a single-disk player (Hello new 2018 Onkyo! Let’s beat the 30 year Yamaha longevity record.) Yes, I still have my records, but keeping a turntable up and running is a drag. (Shuffle functions and streaming services have their place too, of course. For example, while writing a blog post.) Learning disabilities aside, listening to music greatly influences my writing. The songwriting method for me is incredibly simple (and flawed) and has something to do with cover songs. What I do is pick a song, say, Deacon Blues by Steely Dan. Then, without listening to it, I do a cover. But this is where not being a player comes in really handy. I cannot exactly (or even relatively closely) reproduce the song. So, in the Deacon Blues example, I came up with the song Dandelion Fur, a song about prostitution activity in public libraries. It’s not even close to the sad-sack sax player narrative written by the Dan. (I was also trying to write my own version of Staggolee at the time, which also heavily played into the Dandelion Fur outcome.) This creates a kind of originalishness. A kinda-sorta new thing. And Ultimate Guitar will provide some new-to-me 7th chords to throw in the mix. In other words, I do not begin with a blank page. Ever. It all starts with an almost casual self-imposed assignment and a petty larceny-- born of admiration and affection. I rely on my ineptitude for protection. Despite the claims of established artist millionaires, this is how the rock ‘n’ roll gets made. It’s how they (Metallica) did it and is the true basis of art making. A speck of theft is what makes the secret sauce. This is the Oscar Wilde defense to the Lars Ulrich attack.

Giant Lusca has done a cover. Early on in the project, I recorded a cover of Ace of Spades by Mötörhead. Lemmy was still alive and at the time it didn’t feel like I was taking a piss… More of a self-deprecation which was also meaningful in the development of a personal style. It made me think about the percentage of shit-eating grin that should be present (stylistically speaking) in my songs. But, honestly, it was a piss take which was more fun with a living Lemmy Kilmister, the embodiment of hard-rocking, confident masculinity. (Do I have to mention that I am not this? No? Okay, good.) The cover taught me a lot about what I want to do musically and I actually did use the web to get useable chords and tablature. (Which is a whole other can of worms as online tabs are all over the map in terms of accuracy.)

There are three cover songs that I would like to do live. I think that the Giant Lusca sound could be applied to each and would produce something fun. And I think there kind of is a Giant Lusca sound. Having said that, these three would take a lot of work (attention span suffering, focus) to realize. These are my top three:

• Vitamin C, by CAN

• You Wear it Well, by Rod Stewart

• Perfect Day, by Lou Reed