I just got out of the shower after a great night of Greek Food, Samba and Belly Dancing (trust me, it makes much more sense in real life than it does online) – and as I started walking towards the living room, I heard the easily recognizable strains of Sheryl Crow singing “All I Wanna Do”. You know the song… overplayed for months on top of months when Ms. Crow started her career. Well before her “Lilith Fair” days, back when she actually had a concept of what Guitar Rock is. Yeah, that song. Except it wasn’t Sheryl Crow signing it.

The offender in this case was Amy Studt – a late teens/early tweens “rocker” doing her best impression of Sheryl Crow singing “All I Wanna Do”.

This leads to Avery’s next rule on cover songs. If the song is less than 10 years old AND the person who made the song is famous is still alive AND still singing AND still singing that song at concerts, then don’t fucking remake it. And if you really have to sing it (and the reasons can only be coercion via a gun to the head), add something to the song – don’t just copy it.

So, by these rules: Covering Cat Stevens (who in all reality should never be covered due to what he brought to his music) – would be acceptable. He is alive, but is not singing. This passes the test. Covering James Taylor’s Fire and Rain – not acceptable (more than 10 years old, but he is still alive and singing that song in converts). Covering All I Wanna Do is akin to covering something still in rotation on Top 40 radio.

All I Wanna Do is hear some original music.

For some reason, I was searching through Google for an old webproject that Janet and I worked on back in 1999. And yes, I was searching through google, because I refuse to use the word “google” as a verb.

Anyway, in a search for stuff on that project, which included a couple of now net-legends like the now infamous Pamela Ribon, as well as a couple of now net-nobodies (ourselves humbly included in that project) – I stumbled upon an archive of the original Scowl message boards from 1998 and 1999. The bizarre thing is that these archives were being stored, in all places, on Scowl.nu. That’s right. In all of the re-designs and re-workings of the site, I thought I had lost the forums, but I was wrong. In the bowels of the scowl.nu directory tree was the forums.

Re-reading the forums was a fun trip down memory lane. I saw the first flirting between Jocelyn and Slappyjack, who got themselves hitched a few years back. The same forum also lists Jocelyn’s first public admission that she wanted to work in the porn biz.

We have Pamie complaining about her neighbors when she was still parked on an old Geocities account. Nita musing on her neighbors searching through her underclothes and even the genesis of my movement to bring back the classic TV show Maude.

Take a scan through them, faithful readers, then comment back. Oh, and Nita, Slappy, Jocelyn, Pamie and all of the long lost Scowlers… drop us a line!

A note to anyone ever planning on singing in one of those damned Idol/Popstar/Superstar shows…

The following is a list of bands/musicians that should never be covered. Ever. Especially by rank amateurs like you.

The Doors. I’m not a Jim Morrison freak by any sense of the word, but come on people. Penalty for singing “Light My Fire”? Being lit on fire.

John Lennon. Again, not one of my personal favorites, but nobody should have the gall to try and cover Imagine. This is a song about Lennon’s dream for the future… nobody else’s. Imagine this as a penalty: you’re flown to New York and shot.

Continuing on with doling out ironic punishments…

Thinking of covering Kurt Cobain? I won’t take the obvious route of recommending a shotgun firing squad. Instead, we’ll go with something even more hideous. The penalty for covering a Nirvana song is eternal marriage to Courtney Love.

And here are some more punishments to dole out…

Thinking about covering Mick Jagger? I’ve got an interesting little corner of hell for you… first you’ll be forced to smoke, swallow, inject, absorb or otherwise take in all the drugs consumed by the Rolling Stones and their roadies. Then, you’ll have to sit in a small room with Keith Richards while he plays connect the dots with his track marks. That should take a couple of decades. If you’re still alive by the time he finishes (don’t worry about Keith – like the cockroach, he’ll be around for ever) – a permanent chastity belt should ensure that you can’t get any satisfaction. Hey, hey, hey. That’s what I say.

And finally, thinking about taking that Aerosmith sheet music off the shelf? Well, I don’t really have something worked out for that one. Maybe we’ll just tell them that you knocked Steve’s daughter Liv up and let them deliver a little Boston justice on you. I’m not sure… let me keep working on that one.

Consider yourselves warned, Idols!

Ok. So everyone is wondering why there have been no postings for the last few weeks. Just to give everybody an idea of a typical week in my life…

Last Friday, friends came in to town for the weekend. That was Friday and Saturday. Followed with a marathon meeting day on Monday, a flight to Brussels on Wednesday for work and then a train to Paris on Thursday. Follow a day of meetings in Paris with a delayed flight from Charles de Gaulle, one of the poorest excuses for a major airport which got me into the Munich airport after 11pm leaving me with Burger King as the only food option (since there was no food at the terminal in Charles de Gaulle where I spent over 4 hours), which got me home practically at midnight, at which point I had to unpack from the previous night and then pack for a weekend in London, rush around at work for Friday, rush to the airport and fly out to london for the Eddie Izzard show.

In five days, I was in three countries, not counting Germany.

At least the holiday break starts Wednesday afternoon…

…and will post again soon!