Melissa Fossum

Snail Quail

See also: Snail Quail Learns to Love This Screwed-Up City
See also: Field Tripp Covers Townes Van Zandt

Snail Quail once combined covers of Rick Astley's legendary cheese anthem "Never Gonna Give You Up" with Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," so suffice to say: the band is quirky. So it's no surprise that the band takes an innovative approach when it comes to its cover of the Violent Femmes' "Kiss Off."

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Melissa Fossum

Field Tripp

See also: Avery Covers Damien Jurado

Steve Earle famously opined: "Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that," so it stands to reason that Townes is a tough songwriter to do justice. Yet local psychedelic folksters Field Tripp pull it off.

"I don't think we strayed too far from the original," singer/guitarist Dan Allmond says. "We had a little more jamming because I heard Brian [Mabry] playing the clarinet on it, and we just needed more of that. We try to do it as much justice as we can."

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Melissa Fossum

Avery

See also: The Rolling Blackouts Cover Kongos

The cello is a tremendously under used instrument, but perhaps that's a good thing. In most cases, the scarcity of the instrument makes a band's sound that much more interesting. This is the case for Avery, whose unique sound derives from a cello, a talented vocalist, and a semi-acoustic sound.

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Melissa Fossum

The Rolling Blackouts

See also: Kongos are Huge in South Africa. Is Phoenix Next?
See also: The Serene Dominic Show: Kongos Tear it Up

Are you stoked for Kongos' album release party tonight? Well, you should be. The band's latest album, Lunatic is doing quite well in South Africa. Banana Gun, Iamwe, and Future Loves Past join Kongos tonight at Crescent Ballroom as the band looks to make an impact on the United States.

The Rolling Blackouts' take on "I'm Only Joking" is a Take Cover first. We've never had a local band cover another local band, and we'd certainly be up for doing it again.

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Melissa Fossum

A Technicolor Yawn

See also: The Swamp Coolers Cover "Secret Agent Man"

Local noise/rock duo A Technicolor Yawn shares a noisy aesthetic with Sonic Youth, so it was only natural for them to decide to do an all Sonic Youth set for Cover the Crescent.

"When you think of the Venn diagram of overlapping interests between two musicians like us, [Sonic Youth] is at the center, right there," says drummer John Schampel. "It was a no brainer, we were like, 'We're going to do this.'"

The band will perform "Silver Rocket" and a bunch of other Sonic Youth tunes tonight (with Sun Ghost, Nowhere Man and Whiskey Girl, and Vinyl Station) at Crescent Ballroom.

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Melissa Fossum

The Swamp Coolers

We've all had dreams of growing up to be a spy at one point or another-- whether we lived vicariously by playing GoldenEye 007 (for Nintendo 64, natch) or we wished Christopher Nolan really was directing the prequel to the James Bond series.

Local surf/Americana rockers The Swamp Coolers cover Johnny Rivers' hit "Secret Agent Man" to live that fantasy.

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Melissa Fossum

Wooden Indian

See also: Bad Lucy Covers Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay"

Local psychedelic folksters Wooden Indian would be well suited to cover a band with a similar music style like Grizzly Bear or Animal Collective, so it was a little surprising to find out that they know a song by The Rapture. They didn't pick a synthy song like "In The Grace Of Your Love" or "Miss You," instead opting for "Open Up Your Heart," a standout track from 2003's Echoes.

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Bad Lucy with Gabe Williams of Bears of Manitou

"Lay Lady Lay" is a classic Bob Dylan tune, even if it doesn't sound like classic Dylan. 'Ole Bobby D. claims his voice sounded different on Nashville Skyline because he quit smoking before recording. Magnet and Gemma Hayes' soft, orchestral take on the song appeared on the Mr. & Mrs. Smith soundtrack, and inspired Bad Lucy's version.

"It's actually pretty different than most of the other Magnet tunes. There's an orchestra on it and it's really arranged, but it was just so well done. It's a great tune, Bob Dylan's an awesome songwriter, obviously, so we went for it," says bassist Alex Kyhn.

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Melissa Fossum

Yeah, that's a "cancer" visor.

For this week's installment of Take Cover, a singer-songwriter covers Sublime. Tempe-based musician Page Davis picked up his acoustic guitar, puka shells, and visor to jam "What I've Got."

"What I like about this song is its rebellious nature. I think it's so punk rock -- he actually says in the song 'I don't mind if my dog runs away.' I've lived in Tempe for a while, and I've seen a lot of missing-pet signs. People usually do mind if their dog runs away. That, my friends, is punk rock," says Davis, who performs under the name Page the Village Idiot.

Page the Village Idiot performs every Wednesday night at Long Wong's at the Firehouse.

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Melissa Fossum

Carol Pacey and the Honey Shakers

"Somewhere Over the Rainbow" is one of those songs: no matter who you are or your circumstances, you feel something listening to it. For most, it's the sound of childhood, a beautiful and hopeful song that conjures up images of wistfulness and memory.

Plenty of musicians have offered soulful renditions of the song, but we're immediately drawn back to the visual of Judy Garland as Dorothy, longing to get out of Kansas.

Local folk rockers Carol Pacey and the Honey Shakers covered this song for that very reason. "It's very positive and upbeat," says guitarist Andy Borunda. "Everybody pretty much has a good time with it."

We captured Carol Pacey and Andy Borunda performing the song as part of Mill Avenue's Third Thursday series.

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