Watch Members Of Converge, War On Women, The Distillers, & Fucked And Bound Cover Samhain’s “Mother Of Mercy”
Ever since the beginning of quarantine, the comedian Jordan Olds has turned Two Minutes to Late Night, the metal-themed talk show that he used to do live at Brooklyn’s Saint Vitus, into a deeply entertaining weekly video series. Once a week, Olds gets musicians from the punk, metal, and hardcore worlds to cover old songs, usually changing them up a bunch. In his Gwarsenio Hall guise, Olds regularly joins in — singing backup, playing guitar, jumping on his couch. This week, for what I believe is the first time, Olds sings all the vocals in one of those videos. He really handles his business, too.
Two Minutes To Late Night has already aired two different salutes to the Misfits, and they also did Danzig’s “Snakes Of Christ” way back in May. Today, the series completes the trilogy, taking on Samhain, the band that Glenn Danzig led in the years between his time in the Misfits and Danzig. For the latest video, Olds does a pretty great Danzig impression while singing “Mother Of Mercy,” a song from Samhain’s 1986 album Samhain III: November-Coming-Fire.
Samhain has always been the least of those three Danzig bands, but they had some bangers, and it’s intriguing to hear Danzig playing around with goth-metal before going all in. “Mother Of Mercy” might be Danzig’s second-best song with the word “Mother” in the title. Still, I might like the Two Minutes To Late Night version of the song better than the original. Olds also plays keytaur on the song, giving it a drum-machine-infused industrial overtone. He’s also got a great backup band. Converge bassist and Doomriders leader Nate Newton plays on the song while evidently taking a dump. Brooks Harlan, whose band War On Women just released the impressive Wonderful Hell album, plays guitar. Distillers drummer Andy Granelli, whose bandmate Brody Dalle sang on last week’s Two Minutes To Late Night Annie Lennox cover, joins in, and so does Brian McClelland of the Seattle hardcore band Fucked And Bound. Watch it and check out the Samhain original below.
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