...troubled water...

Samizdat #3: Mixtape (Side B)

MIX TAPE (SIDE B)

"It's pretty easy to do a reggae cover of a song I reckon. It doesn't take too much imagination to strum a guitar on the 2nd and 4th beats and put on a shitty Jamaican accent and pretend you're free-spirited and that you're cool with dirty hair. What takes balls is doing a reggae cover of a song and doing the original some justice, kicking some Rastafari pride into that mofo and taking it to town.
When pressed with the task of coming up with half-a-dozen or so good reggae covers, I found it difficult, to tell you the truth. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of reggae and most of its manifestations, but a good deal of reggae cover versions just don't cut the grade. Firstly, the original song has to be able to stand up to the abuse put to it by reggae's sometimes foolhardy ways and then the cover version has to bring something new to the table, something unique.
The reggae cover is a fickle creature, it can produce amazing results (reggae made me enjoy a John Denver song) but can also fall to the dank depths of yuck (UB40's 'Can't Help Falling In Love'). My co-editor and I were in a band once which recorded a reggae version of a traditional Latvian folk song; we certainly thought we were being pretty cool, but I'd recommend you listen to these instead. -MM"

The Tennors - Weather Report (cover of Simon and Garfunkel's 'The Only Living Boy in New York')




Jackie Opel - You Send Me (Sam Cooke)




Easy Star All-Stars - Exit Music (For a Film) (feat. Sugar Min-not) (Radiohead)




Toots and the Maytals - Take Me Home, Country Roads (John Denver)




The Mighty Diamonds - Lay Lady Lay (Bob Dylan)




Tony Tribe - Red, Red Wine (Neil Diamond)




Blood Sisters - Ring My Bell (Anita Ward)




Easy Star All-Stars - Money (Pink Floyd)

The only living boy in Riga

In my dreams last night there were two girls, each playing a guitar, performing for me a rendition of Simon and Garfunkel's 'The Only Living Boy in New York'. It's one of those songs which sounds so melancholy but is so sublime at the same time that it makes you smile. This quality has to some extent been transferred over into this lovely rock steady cover: