24 March 2023 - Lights - How You Remind Me

As we think about expanding our Hall of Fame on Wicked Guilty Pleasures, let's welcome the latest Canadian Music Hall of Famer.

Oh, not Lights.  Nickelback.  She's just covering them.  Brilliantly.  

3 March 2023 - Lisa LeBlanc - Ace of Spades

Here, today's Wicked Guilty Pleasure, New Brunswick native Lisa LeBlanc, shows us her banjo skills and her understanding of how Motörhead should be played.  

I honestly cannot stop listening to this.  It's pretty amazing.  

16 February 2023 - Frank Turner - Bob

I never truly considered getting a tattoo until I had a stroke a year before the “plague” hit the world.

Lying in a hospital bed for weeks of rehab and listening to my iPod at night will do that to you. I probably listened to Frank Turner’s “I Still Believe,” dozens of times in those weeks. I would meditate on this single line from that song, “Now who’d have thought that after all something so simple as rock and roll will save us all?”

I was convinced that when I got out of that place and got “well enough” I would get that line tattooed on my arm as a reminder of where I was and what I wanted to be. After my release I had an uphill battle with glorious victories, and annoying failures. Went back to work after a few weeks of my release (albeit in four-hour shifts) and was able to drive after five months. Sadly, playing guitar proved too frustrating and typing on cellphones or laptops is still a freaking chore (left hand freely types away while right hand labors behind frustrating me with errors as every misstep drives me bonkers.

But the greatest moment in the recovery process came just before I was headed to Jamaica for my annual vacation. My doctor, after a boring year of forced, yet absolutely necessary sobriety, cleared me to drink alcohol with one caveat: drink like an adult and not like a frat guy. I happily complied. I then thought, “I’m back. When I return from my trip, I’m gonna get that tattoo.”

Had a great vacation. Came home and saw some friends at the bar. We laughed about some threatening virus as we were saying our goodbyes.

Covid.

F@cking Covid.

Suddenly everything fun was over. Not for days, or weeks, or months, but years. We seem to be getting back to a new normal, but the urge to get that Frank Turner lyric etched onto my skin has waned. It’s still a beautiful thought.

Anyway, here we are with Frank covering “Bob” by NOFX. The video is very meta as NOFX portrays Frank’s band covering themselves. "What is Bob gonna do now that he can't drink?" for a while there, I could certainly relate. Enjoy!

9 February 2023 - Molly Tuttle - Olympia WA

The first five Rancid albums are “go to” albums for me (the records after…not so much but they each had their “moments”). That said, they are one of my favorite bands ever. …And Out Come The Wolves is punk perfection.

Over the years I discovered that I like bluegrass music, too. Well, if the singer is a woman. I can’t think of a male bluegrass singer I like…and that includes Billy Strings who everyone seems to dig. Hell, I even hated Sturgill Simpson’s two bluegrass albums where he reworked his perfect contributions to country music into a bluegrass bore. Gimme Sarah Jarosz, Sierra Hull, Alison Krauss, Rhonda Vincent and the like and I swoon. It’s time to now add Molly Tuttle to that impressive list.

And as the world is now learning of her via her latest album Crooked Tree (which received a couple Grammy nods), I’m still grooving to her previous album …But I’d Rather Be With You which includes this tasty Rancid cover, among others.

• Random Point 1: I went to Olympia High School. Totally unrelated to this song.
• Random Point 2: I went to Olympia High School with the drummer of Mastodon. He was two years younger, and we didn’t know each other (surprisingly I was told this bit of info on Facebook by my considerably shocked friends from high school). This random point is even funnier to me as I’ve been a huge Mastodon fan for at least 15 years.

1 February 2023 - The Interrupters - Bad Guy

After 20 years my truck said “no more” in a liquor store parking lot. Lots of smoke, cussing and believe it or not laughing. Needless to say, the new truck I purchased hours later is amazing. First vehicle I have ever owned without a tape deck or CD player. Eek!

It has XM though, which I love (Hits 1 and Outlaw Radio rule). I also discovered the Faction Punk station which has become my go to. I also found my new favorite band (at the moment).

The Interrupters.

The first time I heard them I was blown away. I told virtually everyone, “Dude, they’re like a female fronted Rancid,” not knowing they were signed to Tim Armstrong’s Hellcat Records. Fortunately, no one called me out on it (to be honest I doubt they cared).

Anyway, while picking up everything I could find by them on vinyl, I discovered this Billie Eilish cover on their Live in Tokyo album.

Duh. 

31 January 2023 - Rolling Quartz - Misery Business

Two days, two covers by Rolling Quartz?

Well, this time, 1) it's in English 2) it's a Paramore classic 3) it rocks really hard.  I guess #3 was the same as yesterday, but it felt like I needed to say it.  

30 January 2023 - Rolling Quartz - Zitti E Buoni

Korean girl rock band Rolling Quartz covering Italian Eurovision winners Måneskin.

Does that sentence sound strange?  Maybe.  It shouldn't, although we've come to expect K-Pop and not K-Rock.  Does the cover rock?  Holy hell, yes it does.  

That was the "Hot" version.  Rolling Quartz rocks this song so hard, they had to do a "Cool" version, too.

I don't know if this is hot or cool.  I can tell you that, the first time they performed the song was live, and no, they don't speak Italian.