Two Nice Girls - Like A Version

An openly lesbian country group? From Texas? That had to be a tough field to work in. The traditional world of country music is not terribly open to such diversity, but Two Nice Girls must not have cared too much about that. Led by multi-instrumentalist Gretchen Philips with fellow multi-instrumentalists Kathy Korniloff and Laurie Freelove, the band formed in 1986 and released their debut, 2 Nice Girls, in 1989. Freelove left shortly thereafter and was replaced by Meg Hentges with Pam Barger added on drums. Their second album, Chloe Liked Olivia, was released in 1991 with the band breaking up shortly thereafter, but between those two releases this EP, Like A Version, was released.

Like A Version is, for the most part, a collection of diverse covers that you generally wouldn't expect from a country group, all performed with love and affection. Seriously, anyone should be surprised by a combined cover of Donna Summer's I Feel Love and Bad Company's Feel Like Makin' Love, but more than that is the fact that it's amazingly good. Same goes for their version of Speed Racer, slowing it down from the jaunt that it is to a lovely country swing. The only original track is I Spent My Last $10.00 (On Birth Control & Beer), an amusing tale of a young woman leaving her lesbian ways for a heterosexual relationship that doesn't sound terribly inviting. It's lyrics are rather odd but the mood conveyed through the song makes it clear it's not meant to be taken seriously.

I can't say that I'm familiar with the rest of Two Nice Girls' discography but I know I'll have to investigate soon. This is a great record and I can only assume the rest of their releases are as good. Give it a shot, you may be taken by how good their music is as I am.


Two Nice Girls - Like A Version

01 I Feel (Like Makin') Love (Donna Summer/Bad Company)
02 Bang Bang (Janis Martin)
03 Top Of The World (The Carpenters)
04 Speed Racer (theme song from Speed Racer)
05 Cotton Crown (Sonic Youth)
06 I Spent My Last $10.00 (On Birth Control & Beer)

Replicants

Two main guys from Failure? CHECK. Two dudes who used to be in Tool? CHECK. A bunch of awesome cover tracks? CHECK. Me using the check thing again to describe this album? CHECK. Take all of that and you've got the Replicants!

For all the Failure and Autolux love I spread around here, I thought it was time I shared this slept-on gem with you. After Failure recorded their swan song, Fantastic Planet (which is really great and you should not hesitate to purchase immediately, especially the vinyl reissue if you can find it), some tapes of Ken Andrews and Greg Edwards jamming on classic rock staples with buddies Paul D'Amour and Chris Pitman ended up in the hands of a Zoo Records A&R. It led to the offer to record an album's worth of these sludgy, slowed-down covers and put them out on Zoo. The label probably figured the synergy of having two guys who used to be in Tool doing a kind-of prog cover band with the guys from Failure was brilliant since Tool was on Zoo at the time as well. The album didn't sell well though, probably in part to Zoo sucking at promoting anyone other than Tool which was mostly left to BMG, despite featuring a cameo from Tool's Maynard James Keenan on a progged-to-death cover of Paul McCartney's Silly Love Songs. Then, in a WTF twist of fate, the album, recorded after Fantastic Planet, came out before Fantastic Planet, by which time Failure toured but had otherwise fallen apart. DAMNIT!

A lot of people I've made listen to this record hate it, which makes sense because they grew up hearing the original versions of these tracks. I grew up listening to the originals too, but I love to hear interesting reinterpretations of songs I love. For the most part, Replicants adds a layer of sludge to these songs, tuning them down a step or two and rocking harder. Cinnamon Girl is about the same tempo but it's beat sounds like a group of soldiers marching in lockstep. Silly Love Songs is slowed to a crawl with Maynard's vocals distorting just about anything left of the original. Competing for my favorite track on the album is their version of Dirty Work, which turns it into a grunge thrasher complete with the band breaking down at the end. Dead awesome, but the rest of the album is just as good, seriously!

The aftermath of Failure and the Replicants has lead to all kinds of interesting events. Ken Andrews started recording as ON and is now an in demand producer and studio guy, still performing The Nurse Who Loved Me live from time to time. Greg Edwards joined Lusk and is now a member of Autolux. Paul D'Amour and Chris Pitman formed Lusk and recorded their sole album, Free Mars, which saw release in 1997 via Zoo and it's new sister label, Volcano. Since then, Paul and Chris have worked on a number of other projects seperately, most notably Paul's solo release as Feersum Ennjin and Chris being a long-time member of the revised Guns N' Roses, which it's worth noting also featured Tool alumni Billy Howerdel and Josh Freese for a time.

Below you'll find the link for the Replicants album with the original performers listed beneath each track, just in case you didn't listen to 100.7 WMMS growing up. Enjoy!


Replicants - Replicants

01 Just What I Needed
The Cars

02 Silly Love Songs
Wings

03 Life's A Gas
T.Rex

04 Cinnamon Girl
Neil Young

05 How Do You Sleep?
John Lennon

06 Destination Unknown
Missing Persons

07 No Good Trying
Syd Barrett

08 Are 'Friends' Electric?
Tubeway Army

09 Dirty Work
Steely Dan

10 The Bewlay Brothers
David Bowie

11 Ibiza Bar
Pink Floyd


PS - The image I've used for this post in from the inner sleeve of the CD. The album's actual cover is the box the guys are in sealed up with only the word REPLICANTS appearing on it. I thought this image was better. Also, enjoy the video for Destination Unknown.

Ciccone Youth - Ciccone Youth 7"

Sonic Youth and Mike Watt used to have a thing about Madonna. SY, for the most part, are responsible for a goofy album under the name Ciccone Youth. That album, The Whitey Album, is not a very serious affair with lots of experimental and noise recordings, a few Madonna covers, a weird track with J Mascis on lead guitar, and Kim Gordon singing Addicted To Love in a karaoke booth. Pretty inessential but nonetheless entertaining. The high points are definitely the track with J Mascis (Two Cool Rock Chicks Listening To Neu), the cover of Madonna's Into The Groove and Mike Watt's solo demo of Burnin' Up. Before the album was released though, Ciccone Youth produced a much better single.

The self-titled Ciccone Youth single featured the same version of Into The Groove from The Whitey Album, retitled Into The Groovy here, along with Thurston's Tuff Titty Rap intro to the song, both on the b0side and featuring assistance from Martin Bisi on engineering and drum programming. The real find though is the a-side, Watt's finished version of Burnin' Up. Watt handles guitars, bass and vocals while Ethan James engineers and programmed the drum machine and Greg Ginn provides a fucked-up guitar solo. It's so ridiculously eighties and it will have you dancing like an idiot in a heartbeat. Why Watt's demo ended up on the album as opposed to this version is a question I'd love to see answered, but Sonic Youth clearly held the reigns regarding this project and we all know how stereotypically indie they can be, so in the end it's not that hard to imagine them pulling a stunt like this for no particular reason. After all, they ended up making an album out of this and that album is more noise than Madonna tribute.

This single is a ton of fun and totally worth your time to download. Into The Groovy is truly groovy with occasional Madonna samples creeping in over Thurston's voice and Burnin' Up is truly excellent. It's so much fun when you get to see artists as talented as Watt and the folks from SY having truly inspired fun doing things like this. Hope you enjoy!


Ciccone Youth - Ciccone Youth 7"

01 Burnin' Up
02 Tuff Titty Rap
03 Into The Groovy


PS - In case you want to inflict further pain upon yourself, The Whitey Album is available for purchase digitally on iTunes and Amazon.