The New York Dolls, Simon & Garfunkel, and die Kreuzen walk into a bar...

 

Taking a brief respite from the triple song titles, here are a few collections of cover songs.

The first is a set of Simon & Garfunkel covers.  Some are respectful, others irreverent.  The well-known remakes by The Lemonheads and The Bangles are not included.  "Scarborough Fair" is included (despite the fact that Simon took credit for a song that he neither wrote nor arranged).  Instead, there's a funky "Scarborough Fair" from The Coolies (the Atlanta band that made an album of S&G covers, each in a different musical style).  

Speaking of irreverence, the image of Paul and Artie is borrowed from the artist Mark Reynolds.  

Next up is a collection of New York Dolls covers.  It includes all of the original compositions from the debut album and Too Much Too Soon, plus a couple of songs from the Red Patent Leather era.  The Sweet Relief organization is currently raising funds for David Johansen's care.  You can donate here.

In his book Mutations, Sam McPheeters calls the 1984 debut album by die Kreuzen "a wormhole into an obscene universe."  It's hard to explain the impact of this record on hardcore punk.  Maximum Rock & Roll was reduced to repeating the words "This is fucking great" over and over as their review of the record.  Having remade hardcore, die Kreuzen left it behind and did their own damn thing for three albums. Some say they anticipated grunge.  20 years after the wormhole was opened, a tribute album called Lean Into It was released.  Another 20 years have passed.  Here it is... again...  this time with 8 more songs.