Friday, May 04, 2007

Nothing but Star Wars


As you may or may not realize, today is May the 4th, otherwise known as Star Wars Day. Get it? May the 4th be with you, ho ho ho. But today is not just any Star Wars Day, this year is the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, which blew into theatres May 25th, 1977. So technically I'm celebrating a little early, but here are some Star Wars covers for ya.

No Doubt - The Imperial March (live)
From their Live at the Tragic Kingdom DVD.

Montefiori Cocktail - Theme From Star Wars (Spaghetti Western Version)
Um, ok...

Lounge Brigade - Star Wars
With lyrics originally by Nick Winters.

Anchorhead - Shredisode IV
An epic 13-minute death metal medley of the first film. Quite brilliant, really.

Buckethead - Star Wars
Now if we could just get Star Wars covers by Motörhead, Radiohead, The Futureheads, The Lemonheads, and Propellerheads we'd be set.

Ash - Cantina Band (live at ILM)
The cool thing about this cover is that it was performed live at Industrial Light and Magic studios, the legendary visual effects company started by George Lucas. Given that they even have an album titled 1977, you can imagine the band members are big Star Wars fans. The sound quality is also fantastic, straight from the soundboards. If you're an Ash fan, take a gander at The Ash Files, a comprehensive resource of live recordings with many recordings (such as this one) provided by the band themselves. And if you're particularly vigilant, there are several covers to be had there such as Daydream Believer (The Monkees), Only in Dreams (Weezer), I Only Want to Be With You (Dusty Springfield), and more...

Evil Genius Orchestra - The Asteroid Field
Meco - The Asteroid Field/Finale
Here are lounge and disco covers of The Asteroid Field, probably one of my favourite pieces of soundtrack music. I don't particularly remember hearing it when I saw The Empire Strikes Back the first time. Though I do remember first noticing it while at a friend's house playing Shadows of the Empire on the N64 and thinking "Isn't this the theme from Batman?" during the sweeping climax of the song (honestly, there are some vague similarities!). A couple years later I was at a relative's house in Toronto and they had a remastered CD of the Empire soundtrack. For some reason I just latched onto The Asteroid Field and listened to it repeatedly that summer through giant earmuff headphones while lying on their floor.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hah this is great, I had no idea it was SW day! Well actually where I am, it's still Thursday, so either you're far, far away, or your comp is all confuzzled ^_^

Now I gotta update my website lol. I'm sending them here, great post man.

Fongolia said...

Oops, it's not my computer, it's my head that's all confuzzled! I've been waiting to post these for a while and I guess I jumped the gun. Oh well, May the 3rd be with you too!

Anonymous said...

Aphex Twin did a version of the Star Wars theme song a while back. It's weird, but interesting. Not entirely sure which album it's from, but look into stuff around 1999, if you're curious. ~zoe

Anonymous said...

How about Star One's "Master of Darkness"?

Fongolia said...

I know not of these covers of which you speak. Feel free to send any Star Wars covers my way and I may be forced to do the inevitable sequel to this post.

Anonymous said...

You forgot Cleveland, Ohio's alternative, heavy metal, industrial band Mushroomhead. At any rate, thanks for the songs. May the 4th be with you too. :)

Anonymous said...

Don't forget Bill Murray's "Staaaaar waaaaars...those nutty staaaaar waaaaaars...are coming to yoooooouuu." :D

Anonymous said...

Not to mention Weird Al's "Yoda" and "The Saga Begins"...

Apathygrrl said...

*giggles*
My fav is The Saga Begins by Weird Al Yankovic, and following a close is Yoda. Anything by Weird Al is awesome!! Love that guy!

Fongolia said...

"Don't forget Bill Murray's "Staaaaar waaaaars...those nutty staaaaar waaaaaars...are coming to yoooooouuu." :D"

You'll notice the Lounge Brigade version is actually a cover of Bill Murray's Star Wars...

Also, I didn't post the Weird Al parodies since I was aiming for the less obvious and readily available. That's not to say though that Yoda isn't brilliant. I couldn't believe when I was in high school and found out Lola was a real song!

Anonymous said...

"A New Hope" by Blink 182.

Erica S said...

What about:

"At the Star Wars.. Star Wars Cantiiiiiiinaaaa... music and laughter and old Jedi masters.."

Anonymous said...

There is a glaring omission!

Dan Beahm and The Invisible Three's "Half as Cool as Han Solo" from the album Amplifier.

Definitely a favorite.

You can play it on their MySpace page (http://www.MySpace.com/DanBeahm) and get it from iTunes, CDBaby, etc...

Hansgirl3 said...

Excellent list!! I'll definitely check these out! I love how these are some that aren't necessarily ones that are "mainstream" for Star Wars! :)

Anonymous said...

Please repost these...