Thursday, May 11, 2006

More Beatles Bloggage

I usually don't have much use for covers of Beatles tunes. However, while nosing around on Wal-Mart (shaddap!), I found a version of "It's All Too Much", by a Seattle band call Just Plain Bill. I don't know anything about them other than that, but I like this cut! The original, a Harrison composition, is a wild, acid-aided shout of joy for being part of The Infinite. This cover version is more of a loping, stoner take on the same sentiment. There's no fiery guitar work; instead the song is built on a thick carpet of...well, I guess you'd call them Beatleisms, sonic effects grabbed from a lot of different Beatles songs and re-woven into new material. I don't mean that it's cobbled together out of a bunch of samples; I mean the band recreated a Beatly tone. The organ-sounding flanged guitar, the sitar, the backward loops, they're all here, confected into something quite new.

It was worth eighty-eight cents, I'll tell you...