Valentine Is Done

Posted on | February 9, 2006 at 10:17 pm | 1 Comment

Pet Peeve Time: Inaccurate attributions. I recently bought the Six Feet Under Soundtrack Volume 2: Everything Ends, chiefly because it had some new tracks by people I like that didn’t seem to be available elsewhere (Interpol, Arcade Fire, etc.). There’s also a cover from one my new favorite groups, Caesars, where they are performing a song from one of my old favorite groups, Blue Öyster Cult: that old cowbell chestnut “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper”. I have to say that it’s a pretty decent version, maybe the best cover I’ve heard of the song, and I’ve heard a few. They wisely opt not to duplicate the guitar solo in the middle*, yet still manage to do something interesting there with guitar and keyboards. But anyway, what hacks me off about it is that in the liner notes for the CD, the song credits read “Written by Jerry Roesser” [sic]. Any BÖC fan worth his salt knows that the song was written by BÖC band member Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser (as you can see here). Who is this Jerry guy? His father? The name is not even close. And what’s up with the extra s in the last name? You’d think the name of the songwriter would be pretty important to get right, at least for royalty issues or whatever, but I guess it doesn’t really matter. If I was Buck, I’d be pretty pissed. I see this all the time, especially with covers of BÖC songs. Is it really so hard to get the writers’ names right? They’re right there on the original records. And it’s not just cover records that get this kind of thing wrong. I still remember how Stephen King’s novel The Stand opens up with a quote from “Reaper”, but gets the lyrics wrong – substituting the name “Mary” for the word “baby”, among other things.

FYI, the Interpol song on the CD, “Direction” is not so great. Kinda droney.

The Arcade Fire song, “Cold Wind”, on the other hand, is pretty good and would probably be worthy of being on Funeral. It was nominated for a Grammy for Best Song Written For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media (gad, what a horrendously long award name) but lost out to something from the movie The Polar Express. I didn’t pay much attention to the Grammys, as usual, but I see that Arcade Fire had another nomination: Best Alternative Album for Funeral. It also did not win. What a shock – the White Stripes won in that category. They were the safe choice; the one everyone knows. I would take any of the other four nominees before that one (besides Arcade Fire, they were Beck, Death Cab For Cutie, and Franz Ferdinand). No wonder I don’t watch the Grammys. Even when they happen to nominate something worthwhile, it still ends up not winning.

One more Blue Öyster Cult comment before I let you go: The guitar arpeggios in the middle section of the Strokes song “Juicebox”, and in other places on the new album First Impressions of Earth, sound exactly like a classic BÖC motif. I have read reviews from critics who have noticed this as well, and I wonder if it was an intentional homage. They’re both NY groups, after all.

Latre.

* – Coincidentally enough, after I composed this entry, said guitar solo was featured in tonight’s hilarious episode of My Name Is Earl. And yes, it was just the solo. I wonder how many people recognized it outside of its normal context.