A good cover song, in my opinion, is not one that emulates the original, but instead is where the coverer makes the song their own. Hamilton has had its fair share of atrocious emulators. Like me, you might have been subjected to them while walking down Victoria Street after leaving a gig in the early hours of the morning. There have been Hamilton bands and musicians who have done covers where they have made the cover songs their own, though. Take Matthew Bannister’s ‘Evolver’ and ‘Rubber Solo’ albums, for example, featuring reimaginings of a couple of The Beatles albums.
But what about in the other direction, where covers have been made of songs by Hamilton bands? Many of us remember fondly the Hamilton Circle Jerk, an event that between 2005 and 2018 featured numerous Hamilton bands of various genres playing covers of other Hamilton bands’ songs, along with an original tune. Recordings of a number of these performances can be found online.
Rarer, though, have been released recordings of covers of Hamilton songs. Here, we explore a few of the better exceptions to the rule.
First up, and nicely making the segue from the aforementioned Circle Jerk, former Hamiltonian Dan Satherley under his indietronic/rock/electro guise of ‘Radio over Moscow’ actually recorded and released the cover versions from his 2010 Circle Jerk appearance; Love & Violence’s ‘Violater’, Tweeter’s ‘Disguy’ and Amy Racecar’s ‘Satan’. It’s a toss up between which song to feature here, and I have changed my mind several times. I was going to go with ‘Disguy’, largely because I feel the original was one of the best pop songs ever written by a Hamilton band. But I have settled on ‘Violater’, the original of which I saw played live multiple times, and into which Dan mixes a lot of himself, a little of New Order’s Blue Monday, and maybe even a touch of Jeff Wayne’s ‘War of the Worlds’.
The Haunting, active between 1990 and 1993, were part of a darker/goth movement present in Hamilton in the late ’80s/early ’90s. Perhaps not moving massively from the original, but certainly recorded in higher fidelity than what was available from The Haunting at the time, was their song ‘Rats’, covered by Disjecta Membra, released on their debut 1997 CD album ‘Achromaticia’.
Interestingly, The Haunting did eventually release a higher quality recording of their song, remastered from their 1993 cassette 30 years after the event, and now up on Bandcamp.
Moving forward to more modern times, and in the quickest of turnarounds, Mike Aplha Xray released an album of covers in October 2023, titled ‘Protect The Drive, Give ‘Em The Cut!’, where he took his covers far from the originals. A highlight here was his mariachi style rendition of ‘Dominion Road’ by The Muttonbirds. As noted by Arpie in our review of the album at the time, the tracks on this album take “on a whole new life, galaxies away from the original, but make complete sense”. Of interest to us here though is his cover of Bitter Defeat’s ‘Pressure’, released only months earlier on their ‘Terrific Effort’ EP in March 2023, in which he takes their upbeat indie pop song and turns it into music for a funeral procession.
Perhaps the one that people might think about immediately is our unofficial city anthem, ‘Hamilton’, originally by folk singer Chris Thompson, covered by Big Muffin Serious Band. Played live at probably every BMSB gig I have ever attended, it appeared on their 2002 ‘Heavens To Murgatroyd’ album, over 20 years after its original release on Thompson’s 1981 ‘Hometown Voodoo’ album.
Stretching things slightly now, Hamilton-born musician Garth Porter moved to Australia and went on to be the keyboard player for Sherbet, as well as being the co-writer of many of their songs, including their 1976 hit “Howzat”. Following a decline in popularity they split, then reformed in the late 1970s as The Sherbs. Among their singles was the song ‘We Ride Tonight’, released in 1982, with Porter listed as the primary songwriter, which was sampled in the 2013 Daft Punk 2013 song ‘Contact’. Though technically a sample, I think we can for arguments sake argue it is a cover of the first 47 seconds of the original.
Stretching the definition even yet further, being a song covered by themselves but under a new name (…and technically they are from Cambridge…), was ‘Harmonic Generator’ by Trinket. Trinket wrote a number of songs that referenced their equipment, including one called ‘Casiotone’ and ‘Harmonic Generator’, the latter of which was later released on The Datsun’s 2003 debut self-titled album.
There was an album of songs by Mike Miller, including ‘Spit out the Sun’ covered by DateMonthYear and ‘Rachel Under the Waterfall’ by The Goth and the Pixie, but I can’t find any recorded versions of these online. [Postscript: DateMonthYear to the rescue – here is a recording of ‘Spit Out the Sun’, below!]
Do you know of other good, recorded (and available) covers of songs by Hamilton bands?
