Cover Wars: The Boy In The Bubble Edition

Blue Aeroplanes: These British rockers released this cover on their 1991 disc Beatsongs. It appears this group still tours but as you can see from the list of former members on their MySpace – they have gone through a lot of personnel over the years.

There is also this music video they produced:

Brock Butler of Perpetual Groove: Brock shows up a lot when I am querying the Live Music Archive for cover songs for this column. I’ve grown to love his solo style whether it’s with looping or without. This is a set from Jamcruise where it’s just him and his acoustic guitar – no loops. Source: 1-5-2008

Cleary Brothers Band with Jamie Masefield & Doug Perkins: A bluegrass rendition – fantastic performance and even better recording. Check out the whole show because Mike Gordon stops by for a couple of tunes as well. Source: 2-2-2008

Jiggle The Handle: Growing up in Boston, we saw Jiggle a lot. Everyone’s got their local band where once you familiarize yourself with their repertoire, you say to your buddy, “Why aren’t these guys huge?” – and that’s what Jiggle was to me. While I was at Berkfest in 2000, I was stupidly catching some other band while Jiggle treated the crowd to a complete album cover of Graceland. This tune and I Know What I Know were also in the Jiggle live repertoire, but this show is the only time the crowd was treated to the whole album (complete with teases from the opening tracks of Animals, Rift and Sgt. Pepper’s to start the show). Source: 8-12-2000

John Mayer: The video below is from a few years back and features Mayer and Paul Simon playing the tune together. The recording included in the playlist is from a recent show and Mayer announces at the end, “That’s a Paul Simon song” leading me to believe it’s relatively new to the John Mayer stage. Source: 8-19-2008

Patti Smith: Recent Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame inductee Patti Smith recorded an album titled Twelve in 2007 that featured this and eleven other covers. Often referred to as the “Godmother of Punk”, Smith has been recording studio covers since her amazing 1975 debut Horses where she included a clever remake of Them’s Gloria.

Steve Wynn: Not to be confused with the hotel giant, Steve Wynn is the former leader of the alternative rock band Dream Syndicate. After that outfit disbanded, Wynn pursued a solo career and recorded this cover on the 1991 EP Kerosene Man. There are a whole bunch of recordings of Wynn playing this tune in 1990 on the LMA and I picked one for you. Source: 10-8-1990

U-Melt: U-Melt gets the award for clever wordplay this week as they have successfully sandwiched this cover inside of Medeski Martin & Wood’s groove-tune Bubblehouse. Be sure to check out the show in its entirety to hear this segment as designed. Source: 3-2-2007

And that’s all we’ve got this week. Please scroll up and place your vote for your favorite cover of The Boy In The Bubble and I’ll leave you with a couple more choice videos of Paul Simon performing the tune.

Graceland, Live in Africa:

Central Park 1991:

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