All The Covers (And More) – Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs (Heavy Medication/Ghost Highway/Take The City)
Cover songs may be the realm of both the rogue exploiting the stupid and the jobbing musician. They're not one and the same and sometimes you can’t begrudge someone for making a dollar. But covers also serve a practical purpose - especially for bands starting out.
Covers give players and their audiences something familiar to cut their teeth on before original compositions take over. They're a reference point that indicates where a band is coming from. And in the olden (pre-Internet) days, they educated the unitiated about music they may not have heard.
So went the earliest days of the Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs, who launched into a hair band dominated, spandex-wearing Los Angeles in 19995 with a set-full of obscure songs by people whose work they admired. Some of those people would be the Stooges, Radio Birdman, The Runaways and The Dictators, among others.
Little wonder the Cheetahs ended up as backing band for Wayne Kramer for a time. You would have too if he you had the chops.
The Cheetahs made a habit of putting their favourites onto tape when in a studio, even as they developed their own formidable songcraft, and the recordings surfaced as occasional singles. Eventually, Rum Bar Records issued “All The Covers”, a compilation of them over two CDs, and this vinyl edition of selected highlights is a natural follow-up.
Fifteen songs with a fair proportion featuring guests like Cherie Curie, Brother Wayne, Deniz Tek, Sylvain Sylvain and Jimmy Zero, it’s a wild romp through everybody else’s back pages.
Excuse the jingoism but there’s sneaking Antipodean pride in hearing an American band rip through a song by The Saints and Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs absolutely own “Know Your Product”. Aerosmith aren’t obscure but “Draw The Line” is one of their palatable mid- ‘70s songs and Bryan Small from The Hangmen adds vocal bite behind some stinging slide.
“Do The Pop” and “Faster and Louder” are straight readings but there are no reasons to fuck with the originals. “Tutti Fruitti”, on the other hand, sounds unhinged once Kramer and fellow guest, Jeff Dahl, have their way with it. Frank Meyer’s hyperactive vocal is the iceing on that crunchy cake.
Is there an irony in the Cheetahs’ covering “Catholic School Girls Rule” by Red Hot Chilli Peppers given that band’s singer's now obvious predilection for squeezes who resemble one? If the song (or the image on your Facebook feed) is too much to stomach, there’s a previously unreleased GG Allin cover (“Occupation”) that dates from his powerpop days. Now, that should bring a shit-eating grin (sorry) to your face.
Most of these songs might have been originally played for kicks but there's nothing off-handed about their delivery. Some of the inevitable uneveness of the CD release has been smoothed out for the abridged version, too. Formidable and fun.
