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The Hot Rats - Turn Ons
Is there anybody on the planet who doesn’t like Supergrass? Always the beardy tramps with big coats (and I suspect,a hidden bottle of Bulmers cider) at the Britpop family party who, unlike their contemporaries never lost the ability to surprise and delight and, unlike Liam and Damon,were consistantly dependable and…let’s not foget this…bags of ‘fun’ (remember that concept kids…fun?)
Top tunes with great catchy choruses and a daft video on Top Of The Pops, yep, the quality control-o-meter very rarely dipped into the ‘red alert this is a pile of pants’ sector. They were a social sounding board, you could stand at the bar and if you asked a complete stranger,’do you like Supergrass?’, if they said yes, you could proceed with the conversation, if they said no, well, ‘you sir are an arse and i’m off to get legless with that bird over there’.
Gaz Coombes and Danny Goffey (50% of Supergrass) have created another side project, this time the two of them have gone for the cover version option, remodelling and remaking some of their favourite tunes, unfortunately there’s no radical makeovers, no seventeen minute free jazz version of ‘Paranoid Android’ (although they have used the sevices of Nigel Godrich as producer), no folk acid dubstep version of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, no hard house country and western version of ‘Smack My Bitch Up’...no these twelve tracks stick pretty close to their original forms, but now with added hot ratness.
The collection gets off to a cracking start with ‘I Can’t Stand It’, a dirty rollicking version of one of Lou Reeds throwaway songs as found on the Velvet Undergrounds ‘V U’ album, the band capture the sheer gonzo thrill of a simple primitive rock n roll tune with fuzzed up guitars to the fore and a moronic singalong chorus, love it to bits!!
‘Big Sky’ by The Kinks on the other hand is merely ok. The Doors ‘Crystal Ship’ is a lot better and captures the cool trippy ambience of the original. The strangest version here is ‘Fight For Your Rights’ by The Beasties, it’s been stripped bare and sounds completely different to the original, robbed of its machismo it sounds almost poignant.
- The Hot Rats
- Turn Ons (2010)
- Category: Album
- Label: G & D
- Reviewed by: john haylock
- Published on: 09 Feb 2010
- Comments: 0
- Beat Surrender Rating:
Weblinks
Add to favouritesThe most disappointing track is ‘Damaged Goods’ from the Gang Of Four,(the best thing to come out of Leeds since the southbound M1) the original was a taut subversive rant, unfortunately this version lacks the tension and sheer ecxitement of the 1977 original. Fear not, the remaining tracks all hit the spot and even Bryan Ferrys ‘Love Is The Drug’ sounds cool, they bravely take on Syd Barrets ‘Bike’ and win convincingly.
Elvis Costellos ‘Pump It Up’ is fabulous and along with ‘I Cant Stand It’ is my favourite track on here. ‘The Love Cats’ by The Cure is a curious choice as it’s not one of their better numbers but it’s covered with dignity almost intact. Bowies ‘Queen Bitch from the classic Hunky Dory album is a rockin killer tune that suits the rough and ready approach perfectly, not so their version of the Pistols ‘EMI’ which lacks bollocks (geddit?) and conviction, if you’re gonna do a Pistols number you’ve got to be pissed off, Gaz merely sounds slightly peeved.
The album finishes with a lovely rendition of the old Squeeze classic ‘Up The Junction’. All in all a fun album, perhaps not the greatest thing since sliced bread but it is on a par with a Kingsmill thick white sliced loaf.
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