Cover bands piss me off. It could be my admiration of original music that makes me so hostile towards them, but regardless of the reason, the hatred has always been there. I also live in a town where there's nothing but 50 year old men playing "Sweet Caroline" terribly outside bar patios everynight, so my bias is a bit heightened by this association. Thankfully, I still have some semblance of open-mindedness. I'm glad I did as I listened to The Lost Luvs album, Covers For Luvas.
I actually didn't know it was a cover band until I actually read the title of the album and double-checked to make sure that's that they actually were on their facebook. Shame on me for not checking out the album title, but album art often blindingly attracts me to listen to a band.
The band says they cover "Vintage rock n roll and other hidden gems", which seems pretty accurate since I didn't know any of the songs on the album. This actually increased my enjoyment of the album since knowing a song well, and having it be butchered by a cover band, can be one of the worst experiences life can throw at you (Paper Cuts and dropping your ice cream cone just after buying it being the others). Tracks like "Lucille" and "Skinny Vinny" could be played on any college radio today, and no one would be the wiser as to them being covers. They fit in perfectly with the The Raincoats and Dum Dum Girls chick-based surf rock bands that everyone (Including myself) is in to.
"One Eyed Cat", my favorite track on the album, honestly sounded like a Best Coast song, so much so that I had to check my itunes to see if it randomly playing them. That's a testament to a songs (And genres) long standing appeal. I might also add that I lied, because towards the end of the album, a song called "Blue" came on that I did recognize. Only I didn't recognize it from the radio, I was familiar with it because The 5,6,7,8's play it in the first Kill Bill film . I could see Quentin Tarantino using this band in a movie or soundtrack someday.
Covers For Luvas is nice in that it can connect with the college crowd and, for lack of a better term, geriatric crowd. I'm sure people who grew up in the fifties would know a few tracks off this album and make them yearn to drive their old roadsters in the nostalgic joy of it. And for the rest of us? Well, it's just nice being introduced to a era of music most of us know nothing about. - Shane
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