Justin sent his latest single from his label Weemayk Music in the other day and as you can see, it's a pretty sweet red/pink split for Valentine's day. Turns out not only is it a cover of Meatloaf's Paraside by the Dashboard Light but it's split by movement among 4 bands, including Justin's own Elastic No-No Band, which I thought had something possibly to do with the elusive anonymous No Neck Blues Band. You be the judge.
Housed in one of those thick picture disk mylar foldover sleeves that says, 'Who needs a printed sleeve when you have a color combo like this?' Let the vinyl speak for itself.
It's an ambitious project, to spring for this crazy color split and then to cover this classic song across two sides. Turns out the original was pressed on one side of a 45 (must have been at 33?) making it the longest single side ever*. Surely that must have been broken by some noise act by now?
The obvious benefit of reexamining a standard like this is to hear the song without the baggage of the various Meatloaf versions. Honestly I haven't paid attention lyrically like this before, and Weemayk takes it a step further to have 4 bands pick apart the various movements and put them back together as one giant single.
The A-Side, from Elastic No-No starts out with a heavy slide guitar bar band stylings or honeytonk blues feel interpretation, faithful to the melody, doing away with the soul and massive glam feel of the original to focus on it's essential live elements. Slow it down with a bit of '50s greaser dirty country delivery. Definitely an improvement.
What the hell is this baseball broadcast interlude by Huggabromstick? Did I miss this in the original? Apparently. Innuendos and all... how many sadistic radio Dj's played this around about the time they knew this epic struggle between the sexes was actually taking place? Thankfully, they change the sacrilegious disco section into something listenable and jazzy. The announcer delivery for this remake is monotone, going through the motions. The protagonist isn't even trying. The game is totally fixed. It slowly devolves into an ancient film sample, the needle stuck on the record.
By the B-Side, it's time to seal the deal with Schwervon! who switches the duet roles. The male lead is trying to convince the female side to take this moment more seriously in this update. And after he just got to third! The nerve. Really live sounding, the drums are big and the guitar frantically raw. In this minimal version they play up the layered offset vocal and get all indie rock in this section. It's a pretty dead on mix of bands, they transition nicely into each other and stylistically make sense, if they really didn't hear each others interpretations before putting this together than they amazingly were all on the same page.
Finally The Leader come in for the narrators reality check to finish it out with just minimal drums and stripped down bassline. The dual vocals, half Cramps and Lucinda Williams take it out to the end.
Listen to the entire thing here. Pure 7" porn. NSF7"W.
Justin, what is that crazy light show console?....that thing is bad ass.
Meat Loaf's "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" remade by FOUR BANDS!
Part I. Paradise by ELASTIC NO-NO BAND
Part II. Baseball by HUGGABROOMSTIK
Part III. Let Me Sleep On It by SCHWERVON!
Part IV. Praying For The End Of Time by THE LEADER.
Available on red vinyl, pink vinyl, or red/pink split. (When you order, we'll email to find out which color you want.)
Get it from Weemayk Music's Facebook page.
(*needs additional citation for verification)
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