In the fall
of 1994 (a year that figures prominently in discussions of punkrock in the Nineties), three friends and I got together and started a band called Trick or
Treat. We practiced every Saturday, played a handful of shows, and mainly just
enjoyed hanging out. One of the two or three cover songs we played was No Use
for a Name’s “Straight from the Jacket.” We recruited my brother to do the
“Tell me how it feels” part when we played it live. He held his nose when he
sang it, so that it would sound like on the CD. After all, covering a No Use
for a Name song and trying to sound like them was a way to participate in the
magic that punkrock held for all of us.
When Tony Sly
died in July 2012, I immediately thought back to our band back then. Incidentally,
“Straight from the Jacket” was also the first song I heard from The Songs of Tony Sly: A Tribute. It’s
probably my emotional connection to that song, but Alkaline Trio’s version is
one of the highlights of the album. They make it entirely their own – and its
drawn-out rhythm, instrumentation, and melancholic feel not only underline the
intensity of that song but also emphasize the great songwriting behind it. When
we covered “Straight from the Jacket,” somehow it never occurred to us that we
could play the song anything other than exactly like the original – something
we apparently have in common with Bad Religion, whose rendition of “Let it
slide” on this album is so unimaginative it feels like a semi-talented high
school band trying (and failing) to emulate their favorite band. Strung Out
also follow the original song
(“Soulmate”) pretty closely, but they do in a way that shows that they
know exactly what they’re doing – and they do it really well.
A lot of
the other bands on here take a slow song and make it fast (NOFX, Lagwagon,
Pennywise, The Flatliners, Anti-Flag, etc.), with a few doing the opposite
(Rise Against, Jon Snodgrass, Joey Cape, Brain Wahlstrom). Of course, these two
approaches more or less represent Tony Sly’s own way of doing cover songs –
just think of the punkrock versions of “Redemption Song” or “Fairytale of NewYork” or the acoustic renditions of his own songs on the split album with Joey
Cape. So whether or not these approaches are original is kind of beside
the point. And in most cases, they work pretty well. NOFX’s version of “The
Shortest Pier” is done masterfully and one of my favorites on the album. And
Rise Against’s stripped down “For Fiona” is definitely one of the emotional
highlights.
It gets
perhaps most interesting when the songs don’t really sound like the original
anymore. Karina Denike’s version of “Biggest Lie” – like Alkaline Trio’s “Straight from the Jacket” –
is just awesome. Old Man Markley’s honky
tonkification of “Feel Good Song on the Year” turns the song into something
entirely new. On the other hand, I think that Snuff’s calypso version of “On
the Outside” takes away from the emotional intensity of what is one of my
favorite No Use songs and Simple Plan’s turning of “Justified Black Eye” (a
song about domestic violence), into a radio-ready reggae song is kind of
strange – although it shows what a great song the original is.
