Yet, another cool cover…

If you look at the posts here on Station 18 1/2, we’ve seem to, more often than not, talk about covers.  Covers can be hit or miss.  If a band plays a cover note for note, the line begins to blur between homage and karaoke.  If a band veers too far astray, they can be hailed as geniuses for the direction that they took or pariahs for flat out butchering a song.  That said, I present to you “She’s Not There”, the Neko Case-Nick Cave duet of The Zombies’ classic for the upcoming season of True Blood.  This cover strips away Rod Argent’s keyboard sound (the hook in the original) until a piano solo at around the 1:40 mark.  Using the lazy music journalist’s “sound like X meets Y” technique, this sounds like Grinderman goes to New Orleans.  I think that’s a good thing.  Neko Case does not vocally overpower the verses while Nick Cave provides some much needed Nick Cave creepiness to the chorus.  Count me in the “DIG IT!” camp!

Stream “She’s Not Here” by Neko Case & Nick Cave here!