There was a time when Chloë Drallos – aka Zilched – was embarrassed that she ever loved Stevie Nicks. Growing up with a love for the classics and then rejecting them in the name of riot grrrl, Drallos has since found her happy medium in a cover of Nicks’ classic “Stand Back.” The cover is one of two songs from a special two-song EP, out yesterday, November 9th, just as Zilched wraps up a short tour with dates in Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Brooklyn.
Drallos’ video references the original, as she dances in the dark under a spotlight. Except, in the Zilched version, Nicks’ dancing troupe is replaced by a shrine of the queen herself; Drallos makes her offering. It’s a celebration of youth, an acknowledgment of the music that shaped her, and a killer performance of her go-to karaoke song; she and her sister spent many nights early on in the pandemic with Ian Ruhala of HALA, the three of them doing drunken karaoke at his house. As a nod to those times, she got Ruhala to play guitar and bass on the cover.
Both “Stand Back” and the video for the EP’s previous-released single, “A Valentine,” encapsulate Drallos’ trademark DIY aesthetic. To be fair, it’s more than just an aesthetic, considering Drallos acts as her own merch designer, photographer, director, booking agent and producer. It’s not uncommon for budding artists to wear multiple hats at the beginning of their career, but it feels exceptional that Drallos mastered all of the above before reaching legal drinking age.
Drallos knew early on that she had to be a musician. Not because she liked being on stage or because her parents did it, but because it was the only thing that seemed to make life worth living. “It was mostly me being like, ‘this is the only thing that I think would make me maybe like my life, or whatever.’ So I was just like, ‘This is the key to being happy and not having to go to college. So I was just doing it.”
“Doing it” meant driving the 45-minutes from her hometown of Hartland, Michigan, to any show she could book in Detroit. The first show she played at Detroit’s El Club was the same week as her high school graduation. While other teens were thinking about college or prom or whatever teenagers think about, Drallos was planning her move to the city, and making sure she had a few friends when she got there. “I hear people say, ‘That must’ve taken a lot of guts,’ or ‘that must’ve been really hard,’ but I wasn’t thinking of it that way. I was like, ‘this is what I gotta do and I gotta do it now,’” she recalls.
It helped that Drallos didn’t really feel engaged with any part of her hometown. There, she kept to herself; even her music was a really private part of her life. While she was booking shows in Detroit, she rarely ever played out in her hometown. In fact, it took her a while to feel comfortable on stage. “I didn’t really hang out with a lot of people in my town so I was really removed from everything,” says Drallos. “And I also had, like, crippling stage fright.”
She explains that part of that nervousness stemmed from feeling like she wasn’t a good enough singer. Growing up listening to artists like Stevie Nicks, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and the like, her idea of what a voice “should” sound like didn’t line up with what was coming out of her. Her early music education consisted of absorbing as much knowledge about the “greats” as she possibly could. “I would come home and watch VHI Classic all day and I would write down all the bands or songs that played, and then I would download them on Napster, listen to them for a few days, delete them so I had more room, then do it again.”
This resulted in her early songwriting career to have a heavy folk-rock leaning. “For me, Bob Dylan was, like, my guy,” Drallos laughs. “I was obsessed with him and wanted to be him so I just wrote songs that tried to sound like him. But then I got into riot grrrl and grunge and I was like, I need a cheaper guitar to be cool.” She turned in her hard-earned Gretsch for a Danelectro and started to let herself sing. “My first practices did not include a microphone – I was sooooo shy,” she says.
Since then, Drallos’ deep knowledge in folk and rock has seeped into her smart and melodic songwriting style, delivered with the angst and honesty of grunge. In “Stand Back” Drallos pays homage to one of her heroes while inserting her own sonic personality. “She’s an artist I loved so much when I was in middle school. I thought she was like the perfect woman,” says Drallos. “In high school, I was trying to forget that I was ever like that and was too cool for that and then after I moved out, I went back to a bunch of those types of artists and was like, ‘I’m not too cool for these, they’re still the greatest.’”
Zilched may be cool as hell, but no one is too cool for Stevie Nicks.
It’s been a week since the “Shelter in Place” mandate was issued by Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, but many Detroiters have been self-quarantined for much longer. Most businesses have closed their doors, thousands are out of jobs, and you’re likely to see more plastic bags blowing in the wind than actual people on your daily walk. Put simply, shit is getting dark. But, the incredibly thin silver lining to all of this is the output from Detroit’s creative community. Whether it’s pre-planned new releases, quarantine-inspired songs, live streams or covers that are helping them cope, these songs offer a temporary solace from the ‘rona blues.
If you are working from home and have a little extra to spare, don’t forget to support these and other musicians via Bandcamp or by buying merch, as many have lost income due to venue closures/not being able to tour! There are also many artist coalitions you can donate to that will spread the love to those in need – NPR has a great list of those here.
“Just Wait Till Next Year” (John Maus cover) – Primer
Electronic producer and songwriter Primer (Alyssa Midcalf) shares her own haunting rendition of John Maus’s “Just Wait Till Next Year.” Midcalf’s melodramatic vocal style is a perfect match for Maus’s twisted lyrics, which seem more righteously delivered by a female voice anyway. Midcalf’s synth-driven production style adds a lush urgency to the track that feels especially pertinent to the times.
“The song is the most honest and vulnerable song about longing and the frustration and aggravation that comes with it that I’ve heard. It resonated with me, but I also felt I would be able to do it justice. And making music is the only thing I’ve been doing to cope with the reality of being in a global pandemic.” – Alyssa Midcalf
“Bored in the house” – Curtis Roach
Detroit-based hip hop artist Curtis Roach accidentally created a viral TikTok that perfectly sums up what most of us are feeling right now. The sound from the original TikTok has been used by a myriad of celebrities – Tyga, Keke Palmer, Chance the Rapper and more – and has even developed to a full-on Curtis Roach x Tyga compilation. Roach’s sunny personality and inherent sensibility for beat and melody make him a magnetic internet personality, and someone to reference when you need a little cheering up.
“How ‘Bored in the house’ came about… I really made that out of pure boredom. There’s nothing more, nothing less. I make funny tik toks all the time and this was one of those times where I was just bored and didn’t know what to do. I come up with melodies all the time. I’m an artist first off, so it’s natural to me. If I’m going for a walk, I might sing a little melody about me going for a walk, or when I’m brushing my teeth, I might write a melody about that, so it’s like, super natural to me. I made it like a week and half before we were all on lockdown going into quarantine. I didn’t know that all of this was going to happen, this is all new to me like it’s new to everyone else, so the reaction, like everybody using the sound and celebrities posting it…it’s just like tremendous, it’s super incredible it’s crazy, it’s kind of overwhelming. I’m just appreciating the blessings from everything coming from this.” – Curtis Roach
“Beyond” – Anya Baghina
Beloved Detroit songwriter and frontwoman of the band Soviet Girls, Anya Baghina shares a song from her eponymous solo project. The recording is as haunting and distant as the song’s muse. Baghina’s intrinsic talent for detailing ordinary heartbreaks in crystal clear metaphor truly hits from unexpected angles. Ultimately, it’s a song for reflecting, wallowing, moving on.
“Recorded live to a 4 track tape recorder, ‘Beyond’ embodies the desperation of finding the answer in fading relationships. A liberating yet conflicting moment when you realize that something or someone doesn’t hold the same meaning anymore. As our reality is being disrupted and redefined by the pandemic, the things that we value are changing. Maybe just temporarily, but hopefully for the long run too. This song identifies with the feelings of loss through acknowledgment and reflection. Something we can all relate to at this time, unfortunately, because of the shared trauma we are experiencing.” – Anya Baghina
“Steal My Sunshine” (Len cover) – Ben Collins
Minihorse frontman and songwriter Ben Collins blessed our Instagram feeds with a subtle and sweet version of Len’s “Steal My Sunshine.” The stripped-down performance is a departure from Minihorse’s lush garage-rock layers and showcases Collins’ calming vocals.
“There were a few songs I used to sing at karaoke with my old bandmates, and ‘Steal My Sunshine’ was something that Leah Diehl (Lightning Love) and I attempted once or twice. It’s an amazing song, but also lyrically dense and nonsensical which I love. I had a bunch of cover requests come in over Instagram, and some were really amazing songs, but as a pathologically lazy jerk, I went for the one I already knew. And with the looper, I’m able to sing my own backups, which is fitting during this lonely apocalypse!” – Ben Collins
“The Ice Creams” – The Ice Creams
Multi-disciplinary artist Emily Roll joined forces with their partner, Fred Thomas, to compose and record an entire punk EP in all of ninety minutes. It’s grungy, ironic, creepy, and, at times, hilarious. I love it.
“So, Emily and I have worked on a bunch of different creative pursuits together over the years, playing together in Tyvek, doing performance pieces, etc, and since a lot of stuff is on hold right now for everyone’s musical output, we just decided to jam in the studio space I work at last Sunday night. A pressure/frustration/anxiety release. We didn’t start playing with any musical concept outside of long ago coming up with ‘The Ice Creams’ as a sick name for a potential future band. We jammed and recorded for about an hour and a half, not really improvising or writing songs, but some weird trance-like version that incorporated both. If we hit on an idea we liked, we’d try it a few times. We recorded the entire session and later pulled out the most realized takes. Emily played synth and sang, I played a floor tom and a snare drum. We posted a few videos on our Instagrams that night and several unrelated people told me it reminded them of the soundtrack from a movie from 1980 called Liquid Sky. We will probably jam again and hopefully play a show or two whenever shows begin again.” – Fred Thomas
“Existence” by Carmel Liburdi
Folk-pop songstress Carmel Liburdi shared her original song “Existence,” a soothing and reassuring tune about harnessing your true self and focusing on gratitude. Liburdi’s charming and sweet demeanor is a perfect match for this uplifting song that sprinkles a little hope into the void. She sang the song for a series called “Lullabies for Detroit,” a Facebook group dedicated to spreading peace and wisdom in the community.
“When I wrote that song I was feeling sentimental about the people and experiences I’ve had in my life and, as cheesy as it may sound, how grateful I am for all of it. It’s such a personal and meaningful song to me, I felt it would be good for Lullabies From Detroit because of that intimate feel. I really want/wanted to offer a sense of comfort and capture the feeling of the ups and downs of life and how we can transcend the tough times. There is so much uncertainty, loneliness, and anxiety in a time of isolation like this, it felt good to connect—even virtually—and share those personal feelings, as a way to tell people I see them, I hear them, I care, and that we’re all connected in our shared human experience.” – Carmel Liburdi
“6-Step Program” – Mathew Daher
Nothing is more welcomed right now than a chance to give your mind a break from the madness. Detroit-based experimental multi-instrumentalist created this truly hypnotizing sonic and visual experience to do exactly that. Entitled “6-Step Program,” the film welcomes the viewer into a mindful meditation exercise. Possibly enjoyed even more if you burn one before watching.
“‘6-Step Program” is a meditation both about and born of pandemic-induced isolation, uncertainty, and channeling restless energy.
Amidst this social distancing, it feels like ways of social and physical connecting that we’ve taken for granted have become objects of fantasy and longing. I’ve been really curious about what kinds of fantasies of physical togetherness and touch people are having right now. I’ve also been thinking a lot about people in addiction/recovery communities for whom orders to isolate bring up particular challenges to the refuge they take in the community.
This track is built off of raw drum audio that I phone-recorded on a whim as I was blowing off some steam at the drum kit the other day. The grooves mused me into a couple late nights down an electronic rabbit hole. They drew out these layers and textures colored by the surreality and sense of uncertainty that has been unfolding, as well as the digital outpourings of pain, tenderness, and care between people navigating this crisis.” – Matthew Daher
“When the World Ends” – Jack Oats
Justin Erion, aka Jack Oats, channels angst, worry and existential dread on this original song. Erion’s emotive delivery encompasses a universal feeling of anxiety as he says the things we’re all thinking.
“For the first time in many of our lives, we are faced with a sense of impending doom. We’ve learned the history, we’ve heard about the devastation of our ancestors, and now sadly it’s our turn. Some of us have prepared mentally and situationally, some of us are falling apart in disbelief at the collapse of our normalities. Life feels on pause, as we await to continue to grow. Who knows… maybe this is the end of the world. And who knows which world will come to be next.” – Jack Oats
Valentine’s Day is more than just the seminal masterpiece starring Bradley Cooper, Jessica Alba, and Ashton Kutcher (I kid, I kid). It’s a day of flowers, candy, and hiding away in your apartment listening to sad songs on repeat.
If Adele’s 21 has invaded too many of your Spotify playlists, Taleen Kali’s latest single “Baby Love” will fill your I-bought-myself-chocolate disposition. Originally recorded by The Supremes in 1964, “Baby Love” has that classic Diana Ross cool to it – a detached sadness that pairs perfectly with a shoulder length bob and a glittering pantsuit. Kali’s cover combines a modern beat with a ’60s surfer vibe vocal; it’s a definitively West Coast rendition, the kind of tune Don Draper would spin in his California bungalow. If you’re looking for a gimmick, look elsewhere *cough Weezer*; Kali retains much of the original song’s melancholy, while adding in a style that is all her own.
Read about the song’s production process – with help from former Dum Dum Girl Kristin Kontrol – and listen to “Baby Love” below:
AF: Why did you choose to cover this song?
Taleen Kali: “Baby Love” is the first song I remember singing along to as a kid… I’d sing it to my parents all the time, so this one’s dedicated to them. I’ve always wanted to do a noisy space-rock take on a classic Motown love song, and nobody does girl groups quite like Diana Ross.
AF: What is the experimentation phase like for a song like this?
TK: This one was a total studio experiment during our Sunset Sound album sessions. I wanted to keep the lyrics old school and subvert the classic love song by shaking up the instrumentation, so we went through a few different vibes with the band. First we tried a grungy take that didn’t land, and then a sleepy shoegaze version that was too saccharine – there was no bite. Once my producer Kristin Kontrol helped us find the right beat, Miles Marsico’s fuzzy bass line was able to take front and center, and then everything else fell into place from there.
AF: Did you have the phrasing down when you went into record or were there a few variations at first?
TK: I always knew I wanted to sing certain parts with that classic girl group affectation of feminine yearning, and then at some point to disrupt it, updating it with an active drive. The phrasing was all done on the spot, line-by-line… it begins with a question and ends with a demand. It feels so empowering.
Taleen Kali’s latest record Soul Songs is out now Lolipop Records. Looking for the perfect date night? Catch her LIVE:
2/13 Valentine’s Single Release @ Alphaville, New York
2/15 Live on the air @ KUCI 88.9FM Radio, Irvine
3/01 DUM DUM Zine Fest @ The Smell, Los Angeles
5/18 L.A. Zine Week Kickoff @ The Echo, Los Angeles
In New York City, it’s common for Broadway stars to do small, intimate shows for upper crust elderly women from the Upper East Side. I once got discounted tickets to one of these events (Michael Feinstein‘s show at The Regency), and was surprised by hooting, hollering, and general frenzy of the small crowd, which I was reminded of by the similar atmosphere of Nikka Costa’s Teragram Ballroom show. I walked in expecting a boozy, laid-back night of strings and left wondering where the afterparty was.
Nikka Costa’s career is a true Hollywood story, from her start as a child star recording a single with Hawaiian singer Don Ho to getting a big break when her song “Like A Feather” was featured in a Tommy Hilfiger commercial. Nikka has come a long way since then, producing several albums and starting a family; she recently took a two-year hiatus to concentrate on raising her two children. Her new album Nikka & Strings, Underneath and In Between trades in her usual funk for more sensual, laid back faire.
The Teragram Ballroom is a sexy venue in itself. As you enter, you’re greeted with lush, textured wallpaper and dim lights. The string section was just setting up when we entered the performance space; the gentle tuning of the instruments melted into the beginning of “The Dark Side of the Moon.” Nikka’s voice entered dramatically from offstage in that distinctive, careening tenor that’s sure to excite a crowd; as she came onstage she transitioned the intro into hit single “Like A Feather.” It was instantaneously clear that this was a gathering of Costa fans.
“It’s all about the strings,” Nikka cooed as she gave us some background on the album. Nikka and the band just finished an unofficial residency at The Largo in West Hollywood. It was through those performances that the album started to take shape. Nikka bragged that the process was so smooth that the album was recorded in one day. Although the album is mostly comprised of covers like Jeff Buckley’s “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” and the classic standard “Stormy Weather,” there are a few new songs that made the cut. “Arms Around You” was written after a friend of Nikka’s passed; the performance was particularly moving, with Nikka telling the audience to “tell people you have now that you love them.”
Nikka is adept at working an audience, and clearly enjoyed the rowdy one she got. The show was sprinkled with winks. After an audience member asked what was in her drink, she answered “Ginger and honey and water. No chaser.” When Nikka entertained the idea of taking requests, the audience got loud and belligerent, causing her to giggle “I started a riot.” The music undulated between standards and Nikka’s more funk-driven offerings. After she performed “Everybody’s Got That Something” to much applause, she teased, “Don’t make me do another funk record now!” The band matched Costa’s energy note for note, the perfect accompaniment to her theatricality.
The night felt very New York. Whiskey was drunk. Couples fondled each other. Girlfriends bumped butts and shouted lyrics. An encore was demanded and we were pleased to hear Costa’s rendition of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U.” We swayed happily, heads resting on the shoulders of our dates. The night was a success. As I ran toward my Lyft, a woman joked with me that they took down Costa’s name before she could get a shot of the marquee. Los Angeles moves fast, but with nights like this in the bag, Nikka Costa is bound to be performing on the regular for long time.
Nikka Costa’s new album Nikka & Strings, Underneath and In Between is out now. Get it HERE. [/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
“What a drug this little book is; to imbibe it is to find oneself presuming his process.” In her latest memoir M Train, Patti Smith speaks of W.G. Sebald’s After Nature with bibliophilic hunger. She is seeking inspiration and therefore turns to a favorite work. Smith continues:
“I read and feel the same compulsion; the desire to possess what he has written, which can only be subdued by writing something myself. It is not mere envy but a delusional quickening in the blood.”
As I read her book with a similar hunger, I realize that I’ve felt this way before, in the precise way she has described it – when I listen to the music I love. “The desire to possess” what has been written, played, and sung. This desire is so strong that it ventures upon wish fulfillment; I often feel as though I am taking communion with the music…eating it, so to speak. For a split second, I near convince myself that I have written it. That it is mine.
I often wonder if this is a personal quirk (a hallucination) or if others experience the same phenomenon. I wonder if it is perhaps the subconscious impetus to cover songs, even. What if instead of mere flattery, or tribute, possession also informed Jeff Buckley’s version of “Hallelujah” or Jimi Hendrix’s take on “All Along the Watchtower?” They certainly made both songs their own. I do not mean a jealous possession, necessarily, but an attempt to be “one with” the song, at the risk of sounding faux-metaphysical.
Cover songs as a genre get a bad rep, it seems. Covers = karaoke, or worse, Covers = Cover Bands. It was after all a throng of home-recorded cover songs that launched Justin Bieber’s career. But cover songs lead a double life. In their pop/rock identity, it is often considered a lowbrow, unoriginal form – sometimes even an attempt at latching onto the search engine optimization of the artists being covered. But in a cover song’s blues/folk/country life it goes by another name: a traditional. Throughout countless genres that could be filed under the umbrella of “folk” or “roots” music, artists recorded their own versions of songs passed down by performers before them.
Much like the poems and fables of oral history, it was common for the original authors of traditional songs to remain unknown. Take for instance the trad number “Goodnight, Irene,” which was first recorded by Lead Belly in 1933, and by many others thereafter. But the original songwriter has been obscured from music history. There are allusions to the song dating back to 1892, but no specifics on who penned the version Lead Belly recorded.
Lead Belly claimed to have learned the song from his uncles in 1908, who presumably heard it elsewhere. “Goodnight, Irene” was subsequently covered by The Weavers (1950), Frank Sinatra (1950, one month after The Weavers’ version), Ernest Tubb & Red Foley (1950 again), Jimmy Reed (1962) and Tom Waits (2006) to name but a few.
The reason so many artists (I only listed a couple) covered “Goodnight, Irene” in 1950 was because that was the way of the music biz back then. If someone had a hit record – like The Weavers, who went to #1 on the Billboard Best Seller chart – it was in the best interest of other musicians to cash in on the trend while it was hot by recording their version of the single. Not as common today of course, but in a time when session musicians were rarely credited and hits were penned by paid teams instead of performers, it made sense.
The history of traditional folk songs or “standards” is a fascinating one because it is like a musical game of telephone. The songs’ arrangement and lyrics change with the times, the performer, and the context. And that same model of change can be applied to both the artist’s motive for covering certain music, and the listener’s reaction to it.
For years I quickly dismissed cover songs, finding them boring at best and unbearable at worst. But in my recent quest to become more open-minded, I have revisited many covers…and become a bit obsessed in the process. The first cover song to move me was The Slits’ version of “I Heard it Through the Grapevine,” which in itself is a pop traditional as it has been covered by everyone from Marvin Gaye, to Creedence Clearwater Revival, to The Miracles. Gaye’s version is the most widely recognized, however, making The Slits’ rendition all the more fascinating. Their 1979 stab at the Motown classic was what taught me that a cover song could be more than just a karaoke version of something. It can become a completely new medium of expression when the artist tears the original apart and stitches the pieces into a new form. The Slits did this so effectively, to the point that theirs and Gaye’s versions are incomparable.
The Stranglers achieved a similar result by reconfiguring the Dionne Warwick classic “Walk On By” in 1978, morphing the lounge-y original into a six-minute swirl of organ-infused punk. Another master of pop modification was the one-and-only Nina Simone, who somehow took the already perfect “Suzanne” by Leonard Cohen and managed to make it…perfecter. I remember a friend playing this cut for me three and a half years ago, and I haven’t gone so much as a week without putting it on since. Nina’s phrasing can make Dylan’s seem predictable, and she dances through Cohen’s poetry in a way that astonishes me to this day, no matter how many times I’ve heard it. I feel that her version is, dare I say, better than the original, though I love both dearly.
But of course, not all covers exist for the purpose of possession. Sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one: that a cover is an opportunity to pay tribute, not ironically, but with reverence. Of course, even artists performing the best reverent covers make the songs their own. Take Smog’s version of Fleetwood Mac’s “Beautiful Child,” which is such a gorgeous recording that I was heartbroken to learn it was a cover, and disappointed upon hearing the original. Ditto Bill Callahan’s more recent take on Kath Bloom’s “The Breeze/My Baby Cries.” Bloom’s take isn’t short on oddball, winsome charm, but Callahan brings a barge full of sorrow, which always wins in my book.
In similar form, Robert Wyatt somehow out-Costello’d Elvis Costello when he covered “Shipbuilding” in 1982, which reaches another dimension of despair with Wyatt’s wavering vocal performance. Another favorite is Morrissey’s interpretation of “Redondo Beach,” an oddly bouncy rendition by the King of Sad.
Though I once turned my nose up at cover songs, I seem to fanatically collect them now. I often dream up cover song commissions that will likely never come to fruition: Cat Power singing Bob Dylan’s “Most of the Time” or King Krule doing “Bette Davis Eyes” by Kim Carnes. I’d pay them to do it myself if I could damn well afford to. Until then, let the covers of others stoke your desire to possess.
Ticket Giveaways
Each week Audiofemme gives away a set of tickets to our featured shows in NYC! Scroll down to enter for the following shindigs.
