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Re: Over the Rhine Tribute
Dear Cover-Album brainstormers,
I would certainly find a tribute fun and would buy it. However, I
also think that it would be a very tall order to cover this band's
music well. Thus, if it were a very homespun, raw, and intimate kind
of thing, that would compensate for whatever may seem amateurish
about the attempt. (Of course you all who are in on this may be
master musicians, so I don't want to presume you aren't.)
About the ethics of doing covers, let me provide an interesting
parallel. In the movie The Postman, poet Pablo Neruda's postman
"covers" the writer's love poetry to woo a beautiful woman. Mr.
Neruda initially doesn't like the idea of his poems being lifted out
of his books and presented by the postman to the woman as if they
were his own. However, the postman tells Neruda sharply, in his own
defense, "These are no longer your poems anymore. They now belong to
the people who need them." His sincerity wins Neruda's respect.
Do you all feel this sort of desperate ownership of Over the Rhine's
songs? Then I can't see how they could object to the covers, so long
as they emanated that sincerity and your best shot at excellence.
However, it would still be good to have the band's implicit blessing.
But I can't imagine them in any way officially endorsing or being
involved in the creation of this album. That would ruin it, and
compromise the wonderfully transgressive spirit of doing covers of
such personal music as Over-the-Rhine's. If you just had to involve
them on a song or two, get Brian to sing some of Karin's leads or
Linford to play drums. Get the band members to do covers of each
other!
That's my two cents.
Mike
BtW: I guess none of you came to Schuba's, eh? It was a fine show! I
had the uncanny realization that I was probably wearing the same
freaking t-shirt Saturday that I wore the only other time I saw the
band in 1992! Uncanny...