At 01:49 PM 4/3/2003 -0600, Michael Bennett wrote:
>Two things:
>
>>From: Stewart Mason <flamingo@theworld.com>
>
>>ISM -- Downbeat 5 ('60s-style garage rock with female vocals)
>
>-- I'm presuming this is a different band than the Ism from the '80s who 
>covered songs like "Constantinople" and "CIA Man" and put out a compilation 
>CD which had a cover of two monkeys fucking, with the faces of David Cassidy 
>(on the pitcher) and Shirley Jones (on the catcher) pasted over the monkey 
>heads.

Sorry: ISM is the name of the album, and the Downbeat 5 is the name of the
band.
>
>>VIC CONRAD AND THE FIRST THIRD (Highly recommended if you prefer the Green
>>Pajamas' original "Kim the Waitress" to the fucked-up cover)
>
>This isn't the first time you've dissed the Material Issue cover of "Kim" -- 
>'fucked up'???  For those who haven't heard the original Green Pajamas 
>version, it's languid and haunting, like a lot of typical GP songs, and it 
>is certainly one of their best songs -- so well written.  Material Issue 
>didn't radically rearrange the song -- it's fairly faithful in that sense.  
>Basically, they just played in their style.  So it is slicker and plays up 
>the drama in the chorus, but it's not histrionic, like Journey or Bryan 
>Adams.  When you call it fucked up, do you mean that no one should have 
>messed with perfection.  Or is it just that a band you loathed did it?

Primarily the former.  I truly think "Kim the Waitress" is one of the
greatest singles of the '80s, and it would make my short list of favorite
songs ever, and I think *anybody* covering it is just pointless, because
it's just the archetypal Green Pajamas song.  It's like that Paul Young
cover of "Love Will Tear Us Apart": the fact that it's awful doesn't matter
so much, it's just that it was a misguided idea.

Although admittedly, my opinion *is* colored by the fact that I've always
hated Material Issue.

S