Looking back at last week, we were flooded with votes pouring in from The Midwest for both 30db (Brendan Bayliss & Jeff Austin) and Van Ghost. These two bands were fighting it out for a while, but the energetic supporters of Van Ghost ultimately left 30db in the dust when we looked at a number of great covers of Don’t Let Me Down. Congrats to Michael Berg, Jennifer Hartswick and the whole Van Ghost team on their first Cover Wars win.

Cover Wars has focused on a number of classic rock and ’80s tunes lately, so in an attempt to move as far away from that as possible I have selected this hit from Rage Against The Machine’s 1992 debut self-titled album. The album topped out at #45 on The Billboard Top 200 in 1994. With this week’s artists covering the tune, it’s hard to determine if the bands are going for a legitimate angry performance or are going for a more satirical approach. Well, in some cases it’s clearer than others. Regardless of the intent, it’s always a crowd-pleaser.

As always, be sure to register/login to IMEEM before starting the playlist below to ensure you stream full-length clips.

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READ ON after the jump for the scoop on this week’s competitors including a number of additional artists not included in the playlist above…

Audioslave: Since three of the four members that recorded the original version are in this group, I have decided not to include Audioslave as an available choice in the voting, ’cause that just wouldn’t be fair. But check below for an Audioslave performance from the Quart Festival in 2005. For those that might not know, that’s Chris Cornell of Soundgarden on lead vocals.

Biffy Clyro: Our first acoustic peformance this week comes from this Scottish rock band. This is pretty funny actually, while the band doesn’t sing the “Fuck you” outro, the crowd certainly does!

The Disco Biscuits: The Disco Biscuits get a lot of shit for their vocal abilities, but Jon “The Barber” Gutwillig can yell with the best of them. I also noted that fact in the Nirvana Cover Wars when we saw The Biscuits deliver a great take on Lithium. I’ve included the long outro jam because it was the beginning of a fantastic set of music. If you like this, you need to check out their second set from Starscape 2008 where Killing In The Name is a theme for the second set. Source: 1-17-2009

Video from 6-5-2008 in Buffalo:

Guster: Judging by the tapes on the Live Music Archive, it looks like Guster rocked this playful arrangement a few times in the mid ’90s before resurrecting it at this private show in 2000. Pretty hilarious, after they are done with the song, there is some banter about how nobody should ever request the songs they are playing again, and they will be at the mercy of whoever is taping the show. WHOOPS! I especially like the signature Guster harmonies on the “Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me”, it shows these guys have a sense of humor about their niche of pop music. Source: 7-2-2000

La Maison Tellier: I had never heard of this band before poking around for a few additional renditions to include this week, it’s nothing stellar but I wanted to include another obscure band to offset the jambands.

Lotus: Lotus does a mostly instrumental rendition here, have a listen to hear what I’m talking about. Source: 4-5-2008

Perpetual Groove: While I’ve never seen them do this cover, I have seen PGroove play Bulls On Parade a couple of times and it’s always thoroughly entertaining. Source: 2-15-2008

A short clip from Jamcruise 6:

Tea Leaf Green: Unlike The Biscuits (who stretch out their performance with an outro jam), TLG has managed to make an eight minute version of this song with the addition of a jam section in the middle. Source: 1-9-2004

And that’s all we’ve got this week. Scroll back up to place a vote, or look below for a couple live videos of Rage:

Woodstock Live:

PinkPop 1993: