Won't back down
A friend is in a Tom Petty cover band. As I think about it, this is a high achievement. A Beach Boys cover band, a Beatles cover band, even an AC/DC cover band...are really an excuse (a good one!) to have a party.
But a Tom Petty cover band? That's a little different. Tom Petty's not playing lighthearted tunes about Aruba or his sheepdog.
Back when I was walking around New York hammered and blasting my Walkman, Petty had pride of place on my mix tapes, along with Talking Heads, Devo, and a truckload of who dat punk and post-punk artists... It didn't sound wrong then, and it still doesn't.
To my mind, one test of a great song is that no one can cover it (maybe that's also the test of a truly awful song, but nevermind). It's sort of fitting that one of the best cover versions I can find is some random chick (with pipes) singing karaoke in Hot Springs, SD. I always thought Refugee was a great punk song, the sort of thing that someone could play at speed (like this) but in those days no one did. Who'd dare? Apart from Alvin and the Chipmunks, I mean...
By 1999 most of his generation of rock stars had gone into hard idle (<-- look, it's horrible, I'm just illustrating, don't watch the whole thing), whether from the drugs, the the court cases, or the creative inertia that comes from having to sleep on a giant pile of cocaine-saturated hundred dollar bills.
A good friend, a guy who sees a lot of shows, went down to the Fillmore that year to catch Petty. The next morning I asked him how it went: "the best concert I ever saw," he said. "The best." He went back the next night, and the next. He told me to get down there - you have no idea what you're missing, he said. He was right:
Petty always had the reputation for good studio work and great live performances. Just in time for Christmas there's a boxed set of the live stuff. Good luck finding one.
Note to self: begin musicological analysis of The Butchies.
posted by The Front at 4:58 PM
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