It’s fun to hear bands do the odd cover song, but I’ve always had a special place in my heart for full-on cover records. Not creative dead-ends like Rod Stewart’s wheezy-Muppet takes on American standards, mind you, but minor classics like David Bowie’s Pin-Ups and the Dirtbombs’ Ultraglide in Black. The best all-covers records don’t just serve as sonic love letters to influences: They often give artists a chance to relax, cut loose, and experiment. It’s good news for my fetish, then, that two local acts have crafted recent cover records of their own, and that both efforts are definitely worth checking out.
I’ve long been fond of the work of singer/songwriter Kris Orlowski, whose warm and smoky voice has always added texture to his brand of folk-tinged pop. There’s an unassuming good nature about Orlowski, so the fact that he’s just finished up The Gershwin Sessions Volume One feels less like pretentious hubris and more like good old-fashioned artistic stretching.
Orlowski and his band have been moving towards a grander, more expansive sound over the last two years, and in its own easygoing way this six-song EP sees that adventurer’s spirit flowering. It’s a fair bet you’re not really gonna go wrong by covering one of the greatest pop songwriting teams in history, but Volume One frequently finds Orlowski’s ingratiating earnestness ascending to incandescence. He and his band hit it right out of the gate with the opening track, a terrific rendition of “It Ain’t Necessarily So” sporting a James Bond movie-worthy swirl of strings and quasi-surf guitar driven along with an assertive stomp of a drum part. It’s one of those alchemistic covers that puts its distinctive stamp on an old chestnut without short-changing the original’s appeal.
Interesting touches pepper the production throughout Volume One. “Nice Work If You Can Get It” sounds almost prettily psychedelic as it starts out with Orlowski crooning sweetly over a gently-strummed electric guitar, until his voice reverbs into some lovely string orchestration. The stark piano and fuss-free drumming that join Orlowski’s voice at varying points of “Love Walked In” flirt with the gothic, while the quiet beauty of “Put Me to the Test” provides a ravishing companion piece to Orlowski’s recordings with the Passenger String Quartet. The biggest surprise overall turns out to be Orlowski’s singing, which is higher and more playful than in the past without sacrificing his engaging trademark rasp.
Singer/guitarist Tom Dyer doesn’t reach back into the American Songbook quite as far for the source material fueling History of Northwest Rock Vol. 1, his recording with loose-knit hired guns New Pagan Gods. Dyer, a 35-year local rock stalwart and head cheese at local indie label Green Monkey Records, dips into the well of first-wave Northwest rock and roll. The result is the joyous audio equivalent of the best sloppy-drunk sweaty house party you ever crashed.
Like any good band rocking a house party, Dyer and his bandmates play with grittily fun-loving chemistry, and that’s what makes this ragged little record sing. Lead guitarist Scott Sutherland contributes a versatile palate of six-string tones (spiky surf notes, flanged-out gothic brushstrokes, face-kicking punk power chords) unified only by their fuzzy roughness, while Dyer’s rough and ready voice booms over songs by The Sonics, The Wailers, The Ventures, and more. The rock numbers rock hard, and Stranger Genius Award winner Steve Fisk mans the production board with scrappy efficiency, doubtless with a beer in his hand and a smile on his face.
Some of Sutherland’s nasty solos sound like a dirty hand smearing mud on your face (in a good way), and Scott Vanderpool bashes at the drums with punk directness throughout, but the go-for-broke spontaneity thrumming through Vol. 1 results in some surprising side-journeys, too. Some of those detours, like a slightly faster funk-flavored “Louie Louie,” don’t quite work. But when Dyer and New Pagan Gods transform the fragile Fleetwoods ballad “Come Softly to Me” into a swooning hard rock shuffle guided by Dyer’s best wounded-thug voice, it’s proof positive that tipping sacred cows can be done with love.
The Gershwin Sessions Volume One drops on October 2; History of Northwest Rock Vol. 1 is available online and in stores now.
