Moscow's Xvostya offers a beer 'n' vodka-soaked polka cover of NIN's "Survivalism," Trent's pricy wall-of-synthesizers replaced by accordion, bottle, silverware, comb, guitar, handclaps, and (pretty literally) the kitchen sink. Maybe it's the dawn of MacGyver rock?
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Conversely, turning a "racket" into musical notation, the 11-strong Zeitkratzer "covered" Lou Reed's 1975 Metal Machine Music a few years back, leaving the Oberst-loving, ex-VU leader pretty astonished?
Via Billboard:
The German chamber music ensemble Zeitkratzer "gets in touch with me, 'Can we play Metal Machine Music live?'," Reed recounts in a press release. "I said, 'It can't be done.' They said, 'We transcribed it. Let us send you a few minutes of it and you tell us.' They sent it, I listened to it, and the results were unbelievable. I said, 'My God! Okay, go do it.'
He was so into it, in fact, he joined them on stage for a 2002 live performance at the Berlin Opera House: The audio/live footage and a 30-minute interview with Reed is forthcoming on a CD/DVD, released by Asphodel on 9/4 in the U.S.
Okay, we're not sure if this Eastern European cover thing is a trend or a coincidence, but you do have to wonder where Gogol Bordello'd "Redemption Song" and Stazis' series of Slipknot covers fit into the puzzle.
