Lanegan does a properly slow, soulful, kind of blue take of one of his Gutter Twin’s classic Congregation songs “Tonight.” His go at the 1992 come-on’s from the forthcoming Summer’s Kiss: A Tribute To The Afghan Whigs, which includes a baker’s dozen of Whigs takes via Joseph Arthur, My Jerusalem, Zykos, etc. The idea for it started in the summer of 2006 when the Afghan Whigs fan site Summerkiss put out an open call for covers of Whigs songs and folks responded. You can hear snippets of the selected 13 (of nearly 100 submitted) at the Summerkiss label’s website, but first you can hear Lanegan in his smokey entirety here. (By the by, does Sam Holden’s photo for the tribute’s cover look at all familiar, gentlemen?)
Scared ya, didn’t I? Speaking of slow and smokey:
Summer’s Kiss: A Tribute To The Afghan Whigs is out 6/23 via Summerkiss. Check out the aforementioned snippets of the other tracks at the above Summerkiss site.
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One of the greatest bands ever. But this version is weird. Have to listen to it more times.
beautiful … anyone who gets the afghan whigs gets what it means to be a lover … hand in hand, at least in my experience
I agree with you 15000000%, Lucy!
Gabe, as soon as I read “Scared ya, didn’t I?” I knew what that link was going to be. I have that commercial on tape from when my mom taped me Muppet Family Christmas in 1988. Oh, and good cover of a good song by a great band. I miss the Afghans.
Whoops. This isn’t Videogum. I meant Brandon, not Gabe.
he does sound as tempting as jack the ripper…
It’s a fantastic cover but it doesn’t quite match the atmosphere of the original.
I don’t know how he did it, but Lanegan managed to blow more smoke into this track than there was before.
I’m really digging this and I want more of it.
Lanegan fills the song with darkness and regret… he takes an aspect of it that sits in the background on the original and uses it brilliantly. I can’t believe that some people are not getting that – it’s not MEANT to have the atmosphere of the original. That’s the point. He takes it somewhere else because he’s a fantastic interpreter of songs and he unloads his own weary baggage on it.
No need to be so patronising, I “get it”, in fact I love Lanegan, he’s one of my all-time favourite singers, but that doesn’t mean I have to appreciate his cover more than the original, which I think was filled with something eerie and unique. I didn’t say I thought Lanegan’s take was meant to have the atmosphere of the original, all I meant is that I prefer the dark, smoky, Dulli-filled atmosphere of the original. The way Greg sings “Hey baby, it’s a vampire moon” is one of my favourite moments of the Afghan Whigs back catalogue. For me, it would take a lot to surpass that.
i have to say i’m a bit disappointed by the line-up on this album. apart from Lanegan there’s not really anyone i know or care about.