Cash From Chaos

A Tribute to Johnny Cash (Invisible)
by Lex Marburger

We can see where this one is going straight from the get-go, can’t we? Industrial bands covering Johnny Cash.

We Are All Doomed.

Well, let’s be fair. When the songs are utterly tweaked, it’s OK. Bagman doesn’t even mention “Ring of Fire” until the end, and Chris Connelly emotes the best he can (and that’s a good’un) for “Don’t Make Me Go.” But, c’mon. Will no one take in hand the classic “Cocaine Blues”? It’s bad enough Not Breathing hacks up “Ghost Riders in the Sky” without apologizing first, even if Jeffrey Venturo does a pretty killer interpretation of “Walk the Line.” OK, OK, I guess this is all pretty schizophrenic. Obviously, I’m having problems assimilating the new material with the originals. Mostly, I don’t like the fact that there’s an equal lack of both camp and seriousness. When you want the most tongue-in-cheek versions, of say, Nine Inch Elvis‘ “Orange Blossom Special,” you get instead their very best efforts to industrialize the music; and when you want a dead-serious, even brutal version of “Folsom Prison Blues,” you instead get Kill Switch… Klick‘s goof-off, instead.

What worries me is that these guys are all trying to be serious. Sure, Chris Livesay pulls out a rather faithful rendition of “Jackson,” but for every one of those, you get something like Hypnopaedia butchering “Luther Played the Boogie.” Hey, here’s an idea: Howabout getting people who actually appreciate and understand Johnny Cash to do the tribute? I mean, even though The Western Trio are actually able to manage altering “Thanks Alot” [sic] without it going down in flames, nothing here is measuring up to Nick Cave’s rendition of “Long Black Veil” on the Kicking Against the Pricks album. That’s the blueprint y’all should have been working from. Others busy Cash-ing in: Crosseyed, Section One, The Boxcar Tramps, The Staggers, Tub Ring, Weird Feeling Number Three, Texylvania, Jared Louche, and Remora.
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