It’s hard to pull off a tribute song well. Probably the best approach is the one favoured by the artists on this podcast: don’t try to sound anything like the objects of your affection.
Said objects would form a formidable festival line up. Who wouldn’t sleep in a $20 tent from Ray’s Outdoors and suffer the slings and arrows of festival toilets for this line up:
- 2pm. The Beach Boys
- 3pm. The Carpenters
- 4pm. Nick Drake
- 5pm. Billie Holliday
- 6pm. Amy Winehouse
- 7pm. Can
- 8pm. Jay Reatard
- 9pm. The Meat Puppets
- 10pm. Nirvana
- 12am. The Fall
- 2am. The Velvet Underground
There’ll be plenty who’d like to see the Beach Boys headlining, but as I said on the show there’s something about their harmonising that makes me feel queasy. And everyone would need to stay very quiet for Nick Drake, only occasional shouts of “We love you, Nick” and “Now’s your time!” would be permitted.
On another note, and also as mentioned on the programme, this is the debut of a few bands, not least the Jazz Butcher. They remain the only significant band that the Gloom Brothers in their brief glorious incarnation, supported. And The Gloom Brothers, to pre-empt your query, being the band of which I was the ‘singer’ from 1982-84.
All I can say is we were better than Tony Blair’s Ugly Rumours. I mean I haven’t heard Ugly Rumours, nobody has, but we were certainly better.
