In The Trashcan Records
GARBAGE05
"This volume contains 16 strange
sounding cover versions of (mostly) well known songs, sometimes even
translated into French, Spanish and German. Please allow a few exceptions to
my pre-1980 rule, but they're such perfect examples of bad taste that I
simply had to include them. I could easily fill a few more volumes, but this
is all I could take."
Weird indeed: Green Onions with vocals! Nina sings about I don't know what. Booker T would be appalled if he knew. But if you don't like to listen to a sung Green Onions, turn the record over! The instrumental (karaoke?) version is on the other side. The name of the band says it all: it's early 80s synth-pop.
The Flying Lizards already proved themselves a while earlier: their version of "Money" still is a club hit all over the world. So why not this James Brown killer? Perhaps because it's too bad to even talk about?
This instrumental guitar band was very popular in Europe in the mid sixties. But they did some vocal recordings as well. This Rivingtons classic hasn't seen a better cover version sung by European white boys. The flip is also a great version of Havah Nagila, but I already included a Havah Nagila cover on vol 1.
This is not a real cover, but it's like "God save the Queen" played à la Night Fever, or: The Sex Pistols killed by The Bee Gees. The Bowling Balls were a Belgian band nobody has ever heard of and still managed to release 4 singles and 1 album. This was their first and they should have stopped then.
Ronnie Angel was also known as Ronn Clay, but actually he was Ronnie Van Hoogten, son of the boss of Ronnex Records, one of Belgium's most successful labels in the 50s and 60s. His version of Mashed Potatoes is so bad it's good. Just listen to his fake rock 'n' roll attitude.
Hot Butter will be known as one of hundreds of bands that covered Kingsley's "Popcorn" in the early 70s and they even had a hit record. This cold synthesizer version of the warm exotic Tequila is so surprising I simply had to include it here. And the first two seconds are from another song: "Summer in the city".
This is a French sung version (from the mid 70s) of Three Dog Night's 1970 hit "Mama told me not to come". This Randy Newman composition was first recorded 4 years earlier by Eric Burdon
Peter Orloff was very famous in Germany in the 60s & 70s. "Ein Mädchen für immer" (=A girl for always) is a German sung version of Chris Andrews' hit ... Well, I won't tell you. Just listen and try to find out yourself what this song really is.
I have no idea who Henry Stephen was, but he was a Spanish guy and thus this Hang On Sloopy is sung in Spanish! It's so bizar yet very great. The fuzzy guitar solo outdoes the original! The flip of this 45 can be found on vol 9.
In a list of cover versions there always should be an "answer song". Ethel sings about the boy and not "The Girl From Ipanema", one of the coolest tunes ever. I wasn't able to find more info about her.
Yeehaw! Do I have bad taste or what? German disco top band Boney M have recorded lots of 60s hits (Painter man, Still I'm Sad, Sunny, ...), but few seem to remember this one: a cover of Iron Butterfly's "In a gadda da vida". And don't get fooled: it's not worse than the original
Shame of me! Here is that disco band again. Man, I must have bad taste. I already told you Boney M have recorded 60s hits in their own way. But you can't really say that The Smoke's "My friend Jack" was a chart topper. Still this late 60s mod classic managed to get under the attention of Frank Farian, the manager of Boney M. Now you must admit that they loved great songs, but that they've chosen the wrong kind of music to show it.
And now over to real German singing: This was released around 1965 right after Millie Small's hit version. The original version however was 8 years older: it's from 1956 and sung by Barbie Gaye, a lolita from New York on an American label founded by a Belgian guy: the brother of Ronnex Records boss. What a small world!
Where do they come from??? These guys must have recorded the weirdest version ever of Gene Vincent's biggest hit "Be-bop-a-lula". On the flip they destroyed Chuck Berry's "No particular place to go" just because of their inaptitude.
This sounds early 60s to me, but anyway it's a fantastic version of that 1958 hit record by The Chordettes. A few months earlier it was recorded by Ronald & Ruby. Ruby was an alias for Beverly Ross, the co-author of this great song.
And this is the most recent track of the entire series. But I had to include this. It isn't good, it isn't special, it's so common that I think it only sold about five copies. In the early 80s Coutin had a smash hit in France (and in a lesser degree in Belgium) with "J'aime regarded les filles": heavy distorted guitars, screaming vocals and the lyrics are about why he loves to look at girls. This volume is the worst case of bad taste of this series. This is real garbage!!!
