Cover to Cover Part 3

What makes a cover band? Well, clearly the only requirement is to make a living performing other people's songs. It doesn't matter how they do it, as long as it's someone else's songs. ANYWAYS, I suppose this could be a good time to show you maybe three or four people my favorite cover bands

5. Capitol Offense

Whenever celebrities have bands it usually isn't a good thing. I mean, nobody really wants to see 30 Odd Foot of Grunts even if Russel Crowe is in it. Capitol Offense, however, is actually a pretty well put-together band. Formed by Governor/Colbert Bump recipient Mike Huckabee, who's a damn good bass player, Capitol Offense does covers of classic rock, Motown, country, and blues, shunning newer stuff because it's a bunch of old white Republicans.

Best song: Freebird - Lynyrd Skynyrd (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkeflmkFCj0)

4. Beatallica

Yeah, that's right. BEATALLICA. A Beatles/Metallica mash-up cover band that combines Metallica's thrash sound and the Beatles music and lyrics. It works pretty well and it's shocking to see how well Beatles songs fit into speed metal with a few minor tweaks to the lyrics.

Quirky songs like "All You Need Is Blood" and "Blackened In USSR" make Beatallica one of the strangest, quirkiest, and most fun cover bands I have ever heard.

Best song: ...And Justice For All My Loving - uh...Beatles, mostly (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqEJoQ3Z5v4)

3. Me First & The Gimme Gimmes

Essentially a punk supergroup comprised of member of Swingin Utters, NOFX, and Lagwagon, MFTGG (because they have a ridiculous name taken from a children's book) take songs from the 60s and 70s (mostly, with the occasional 80s or early 90s and one old traditional song) and make it faster, louder, and more raucous, i.e. punk it up. Spike Slawson also has one of the most interesting and unique voices in punk, managing to balance the line between wrecked-to-shit and melodic.

Best song: Goodbye, Earl - Dixie Chicks (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLjNGcd1whQ)

2. Richard Cheese

Mark Davis's insane, pompous, seemingly out-of-touch persona Richard Cheese and his band Lounge Against The Machine serve as some kind of Paul Anka-act, performing popular metal, rap, rock, and pop songs with a Lounge flair. It's almost as if you were in some kind of Vegas show at the Mystique or Magic or some other bullshit name, but only, you know, one from hell.

Best song: Creep - Radiohead (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUUj4BjY-VM) or Chop Suey! - System of a Down (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb6W-h5j3jM)

1. Nouvelle Vague

Beautiful melancholic French women perform Bossa Nova versions of New Wave songs. There is no part of that sentence I don't like. There's really not much to say about them other than that description I gave of them, but they're really good.

Best song: Dancing With Myself - Billy Idol (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76wsCjXg1DM) or Just Can't Get Enough - Depeche Mode (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkPzfbOjRnk)