I'm a James Brown fan, and a sucker for a cover song. The combination leads me to unusual bands, and none more so than today's selection. The No Wave, post-punk sound of the 80s was perhaps nowhere more apparent than in the work of The Flying Lizards. Famous for their completely 80s cover of Barrett Strong's (and The Beatles's) Money (That's What I Want), the gritty, industrial-sounding group covered a number of songs with their droll exposing of the seamy underside of pop lyrics. The Flying Lizards covered Purple Haze, sounding much more spaced out and disconnected than Jimi Hendrix, and--my point will soon be apparent--Get Up I Feel Like Being a Sex Machine by James Brown. In their way of stripping niceties from the songs of others, they've recorded the song as a clanking, nigh-robotic piece of anti-funk. The juxtaposition makes both songs even more enjoyable.
Buy James Brown's Get Up I Feel Like Being A Sex Machine
If you've got a reasonably-priced source for The Flying Lizards' 1984 album "Top Ten", please let me know. I'd love to get my hands on a copy (or at least get a digital copy on my hands).
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