Artists have been covering Galaxie 500 songs all August in celebration of the vinyl release of the band's Copenhagen live album, which is out Saturday for Record Store Day. The series so far has included The Magnetic Fields, Thurston Moore, Mark Lanegan, The Feelies' Glenn Mercer, Papercuts, and more, and today we get two great bands covering songs from G500's classic second album, On Fire.
First is Real Estate who cover "Plastic Bird." As the band note, they used to get compared to Galaxie 500 a lot. “In the early days of Real Estate, people often assumed that Galaxie 500 were a big influence on us. In hindsight, I can definitely hear it, but at the time, I for one had never listened to them," says Martin Courtney. "Anyway I’m glad for the comparisons because it led me to actually check them out, and they became a favorite band of mine. So now I can say unequivocally that Galaxie 500 are indeed a big influence on us. Not that it matters! Wonderful band. Have a nice day.” It's a pretty lovely cover, definitely within Real Estate's wheelhouse, and you can listen here:
The second cover today is from Versus who tackle one of Galaxie 500's best songs, "Blue Thunder." The band recorded their parts in isolation and turned in a terrific version of the song. Says Richard Balyut: "Fontaine and I [Richard] opened for Galaxie 500 in the summer of 1990, at Woody's in the East Village. (I don't remember it being a particularly hot day, and the internet concurs... 86 degrees. Anyhoo...) We had just met and started playing together, and though we weren't called Versus yet, we were playing songs that Versus eventually recorded. Galaxie of course stood out in contrast to the NY scuzz-rock era, but really prefigured the coming of 'indie-rock.' A timeless band."
Still to come in the Galaxie 500 cover series: Mercury Rev and a couple "special guests." Stay tuned. You can listen to the original versions of "Plastic Bird" and "Blue Thunder" below.
If you're in the Delaware area, Dogfish Head brewery made a Galaxie 500 beer -- that was supposed to be for the original Record Store Day in April (which got postponed due to COVID-19), and will be available at their brewpub in Rehoboth Beach in Delaware.
