Various Artists - An Alternative Hendrix (1990)

I was listening to my New Fast Automatic Daffodils 'Peel Sessions' album the other day, and was reminded at just how great their take on 'Purple Haze' was, which in turn prompted memories of another couple of Hendrix covers by new wave/alternative bands that I'd always loved - 'All Along The Watchtower' by XTC and 'Foxy Lady' by The Cure. I wondered if there were any more punky versions of Hendrix's songs out there, and found that although there have been two tribute albums released, with 'Stone Free' in 1993 and 'If Six Was Nine' in 1990, they seemed to concentrate on more mainstream groups to contribute to them, and so I only had to borrow four songs from the latter to flesh out this collection of re-imaginings of Hendrix classics by some of my favourite new wave/alternative bands. 

Track listing

01 Purple Haze - New Fast Automatic Daffodils
02 Can You See Me - Thee Hypnotics
03 Stone Free - Supergrass
04 Are You Experienced - The Mock Turtles
05 Who Knows - Bevis Frond
06 Foxy Lady - The Cure
07 Love Or Confusion - The Screaming Trees
08 Hey Joe - Patti Smith
09 All Along The Watchtower - XTC
10 Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) - The Membranes
11 Crosstown Traffic - Richard Hell & The Voidoids

Patti Smith - Fire Of Unknown Origin (1988)

Patti Smith was always something of an outsider when she emerged onto the New York punk scene, as she was primarily known as a poet rather than a singer. However, after setting some of her poems to music and recording them with a band that included guitarist and rock archivist Lenny Kaye, she released them as the highly influential 'Horses' album in 1975, and established herself as a leading light in the New York punk community. Before that, though, she'd released the 'Hey Joe'/'Piss Factory' single in 1974, neither of which made it onto 'Horses', with the A-side being a version of the rock standard with the addition of a spoken word piece about fugitive heiress Patty Hearst, who had been kidnapped and confined against her will, and had been repeatedly threatened with execution and raped. The B-side describes the helpless anger Smith had felt while working on a factory assembly line, and the salvation she discovered in the form of a shoplifted book by the 19th century French poet Arthur Rimbaud, entitled 'Illuminations'. After 'Horses' had made her name she scored her biggest hit with a Bruce Springsteen co-write on 'Because The Night', putting her firmly in the mainstream media. Following a string of successful albums she retired from music in 1988, re-emerging in 1996 for a second wave of success, but her heyday was that decade where she reinvented what a punk band could sound like. Some of the singles that she released during that period contained exclusive b-sides which I've collected here, and listening to them you can hear how her career progressed from punk-poet to fully-fledged musician.   

Track listing

01 Hey Joe (single 1974)
02 Piss Factory (b-side of 'Hey Joe')
03 My Generation (b-side of 'Gloria' 1976)
04 Chicklets (previously unreleased)
05 Godspeed (b-side of 'Because The Night' 1978)
06 Fire Of Unknown Origin (b-side of 'Frederick' 1979)
07 5-4-3-2-1 Wave (b-side of 'Dancing Barefoot' 1979)
08 Wild Leaves (b-side of 'People Have The Power' 1988)
09 As The Night Goes By (Previously unreleased)