Varshons is an album of covers by alternative rock band The Lemonheads. Produced by Butthole Surfers frontman Gibby Haynes, the album features a variety of tracks from GG Allin, Wire, Leonard Cohen, and Linda Perry. Guest performances include vocals from actress Liv Tyler on Leonard Cohen’s “Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye”, and model Kate Moss guests on Arling & Cameron’s “Dirty Robot”. The Only Ones guitarist John Perry guests on five tracks. The front cover has the appearance of a design that could have been created using a Spirograph; while the rear cover is an homage to the back cover of Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols. (More from Wikipedia)
If anything, the practice of virtually any celebrity deciding to lay down some musical tracks has been accelerating in recent years; sometimes the results aren’t bad at all actually. On their 2009 Varshons album – made up entirely of covers of mostly unfamiliar songs – the Lemonheads are accompanied by model Kate Moss on one track, Arling & Cameron’s “Dirty Robot”; while actress and model Liv Tyler (daughter of Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler and model/singer Bebe Buell) contributed vocals to their version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye”.
I got Varshons myself, because it includes a cover of one of my TOP TEN favorite songs of all time (maybe my VERY FAVORITE even): “Green Fuz”, a minimalist song by a Texas garage rock band called Randy Alvey & Green Fuz. The Cramps previously included “Green Fuz” as the opening track on their album Psychedelic Jungle. Any version of “Green Fuz” is welcome in my record collection; but (despite truly terrible sound quality) the original is simply untoppable, with 15-year-old Randy Alvey’s growling lyrics backed by a fine band that includes drums that are unlike any that I have ever heard before. To this day, when the original “Green Fuz” comes up on an album I’m playing, it is as if the world stops spinning: My mouth goes slack, my muscles freeze up, and my mind focuses entirely on this incredible recording.
The Cramps were careful to match the timing of their recording of “Green Fuz” to that of the original song (2:06) – though they made only a half-hearted attempt at the drum solo toward the middle of the song – but the Lemonheads took a more leisurely approach to the song.
(March 2013)
