Pitchfork: Cobra Verde to Release Covers Album

Fresh off the critical success of the rollicking J Mascis-aided Easy Listening, Cobra Verde will release an LP's worth of covers titled Copycat Killers on May 10, about which frontman John Petkovic had a few things to say.

"Going into it I just wanted to try out a bunch of recording approaches and arrangements in advance of our next disc," Petkovic told Pitchfork via e-mail. "We were all really happy with the way our last album came out. My concern was that we were too happy with it and the next record would sound too much like it. So I figured we should work on other songs that were external to us-- songs we wouldn't be attached to and could thus play with as if they were fluid objects." Fluid objects, you say? Well, OK then:

01 Get This Party Started (Pink)
02 Underpants (Easter Monkeys)
03 Temptation (New Order)
04 I Feel Love (Donna Summer)
05 Urban Guerilla (Hawkwind)
06 I Want You (the Troggs)
07 Play With Fire (the Rolling Stones)
08 Teenage Kicks (the Undertones)
09 Yesterday's Numbers (the Flamin' Groovies)
10 The Dice Man (the Fall)
11 So Long, Marianne (Leonard Cohen)
12 Rock and Roll Queen (Mott the Hoople)

Petkovic stresses that the copycat collection is in no way a list of the band's favorite tunes. "I've had people say they thought it was weird that we covered a New Order song, a Pink song, Donna Summer. That really points to the increasingly contextual take people adopt when it comes to music... I do think the downside of indie rock is that it's too confessional, too tied to the person that came up with the song. I've always liked songs to have their life, their own logic, momentum-- to exist in their own world, by their own laws."

Cobra Verde have a handful of tour dates left to play this spring, three of which are with storied Irish blokes the Undertones. Those who enjoy unapologetic rock songs might tune in to a nationally syndicated radio show called "Little Steven's Underground Garage" (hosted by Stevie Van Zandt of E Street/Sopranos fame) to keep tabs on this venerable Cleveland powerhouse and others of their kind. Dates:

04-23 St. Louis, MO - The Gearbox (w/ Prisonshake)
04-25 Cleveland, OH - Beachland Ballroom *
04-27 Detroit, MI - Majestic Theatre *
04-28 Chicago, IL - Bottom Lounge *

* with the Undertones