FOMM: Five more for St. Patrick

Another Friday, another mini-playlist. Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day, and here are five covers of songs by Irish Bands (northern and southern), as performed by Americans. St. Patty's Day is more of a holiday in the USA than in Ireland.

Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - Little Girl in Bloom
(from Treble in Trouble, originally by Thin Lizzy)
Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - Suspect Device
(from Sharkbite Sessions, originally by Stiff Little Fingers)

Ted Leo's new album Living With The Living is coming out next Tuesday, and initial pressings come with a bonus cover of Chumbawumba's "Rappaport's Testament", that I saw him play a couple week's ago at SF's Noise Pop festival show. Ted Leo has unique taste in cover songs, and seems to like covering Irish bands. Here are a couple of covers from previous EPs, Thin Lizzy's "Little Girl In Bloom" from 2000's Treble in Trouble (his first recording with the Pharmacists) and "Suspect Device" by Stiff Little Fingers from 2005's Sharkbite Sessions (recorded at Oakland's Sharkbite studios).

I remember the first time I heard Ted & the Pharmacists cover "Suspect Device". It was at the Great American Music Hall before the 2004 Presidential election, and would've made me want to go out and vote for anyone who wasn't George W. Bush, even if I wasn't already motivated to do that. Two years, and more than "2000 dead" later, the song is sadly still pertinent, but on the plus side, GWB is two years closer to being the ex-president.

Dale Ann Bradley - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
(from East Kentucky Morning, originally by U2)
The Coal Porters - Teenage Kicks/Old Joe Clark
(from How Dark This Earth Will Shine, originally by The Undertones)

Bluegrass has roots in Irish traditional music, so what could be more apt for St. Patrick's Day than bluegrass versions of Irish rock classics? Both these songs are from a mix disc called California Grass that I made a couple of years ago, full of bluegrass covers of rock songs.

In my quest to mark notable album anniversaries, I should mention that U2's The Joshua Tree came out twenty years ago this month. I remember buying it as a longbox cassette, a short-lived packaging phenomenon that thankfully never caught on. Some of the songs on my California Grass mix were kind of gimmicky, but Dale Ann Bradley's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" is a near-perfect match of singer and song that I find much more powerful than the U2 original.

The Coal Porters are Sid Griffin's post-Long Ryders band, who despite being based in London, are far more rootsy and Americanay than the LRs were. Their bluegrass-flavored cover of the Undertones' "Teenage Kicks" came out right before John Peel died, and I wonder if he heard it, and what he thought if he did ("Teenage Kicks" being Peel's all-time favorite song).

Patti Smith - Gloria
(from Horses, originally by Them)

This week Patti entered the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, so here's the first song from her first record, an extended version of the garage band standard "Gloria", written and originally recorded by Belfast's own Van Morrison & Them. I've just realized that most of these songs are by Northern Irish bands.. oh well! This came out on a major recording label, so it's linked from somewhere else. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, the 30th anniversary 2005 reissues of Horses and Born to Run came out on the same label (Sony/BMG of rootkit fame).

PS: Yesterday wasn't a great day for my picks, but how about that VCU over Duke selection?