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May 11: Greg Dulli Happy 50th Birthday

“Rock ‘n’ roll doesn’t always pay the bills, and I’ve been interested in bars – obviously – for a long time,”
~Greg Dulli

Debonair (live @ Conan O’Brien):

Born	May 11, 1965 (age 49)
Origin	Hamilton, Ohio, U.S.
Genres	Alternative rock, Indie rock
Years active	1987–present
Associated acts	The Twilight Singers, The Afghan Whigs, The Gutter Twins

Love Crimes (live):

Gregory Dulli (born May 11, 1965) is an American rock singer and instrumentalist. Dulli was born and brought up in a working-class suburb of Hamilton, Ohio. Dulli’s father’s side of the family comes from Kalamata-Peloponnese, Greece and his mother comes from West Cork, Ireland. He first came to public attention in Cincinnati in the late 1980s with The Afghan Whigs, when Dulli joined D.C. transplant bassist John Curley and Louisville, Kentucky, guitarist Rick McCollum. The band was comic punk rock. One indie rock critic wrote that The Afghan Whigs were “the most cartoony band in all of hairdom”. Dulli’s half-hour-long on-stage cigarette breaks, complete with running commentary on sexual politics and attempts at matchmaking at first enraged, but later fascinated the clientele. Dulli’s budding career in the rock and roll production business was halted as The Afghan Whigs began playing more and better gigs, drawing bigger and bigger crowds. The band was soon brought to the attention of Sub Pop Records in Seattle. Sub Pop’s signing of The Afghan Whigs created quite a stir; they were the first non-Northwestern U.S. band to record for the label. The Whigs split in 2001. ~in.com

Afghan Whigs:

Evolving from a garage punk band in the vein of the Replacements, Dinosaur Jr., and Mudhoney to a literate, pretentious, soul-inflected post-punk quartet, the Afghan Whigs were one of the most critically acclaimed alternative bands of the early ’90s. Although the band never broke into the mainstream, they developed a dedicated cult following, primarily because of lead singer/songwriter Greg Dulli’s tortured, angst-ridden tales of broken relationships and self-loathing. The Afghan Whigs were one of the few alternative bands around in the late ’90s to acknowledge R&B, attempting to create a fusion of soul and post-punk. ~Stephen Thomas Erlewine (allmusic.com)

You My Flower (live 1992-03-18, Khyber, Phila., PA):

We saw Afghan Whigs at last years Oyafestival and of the 80 concerts I saw in 2012 I rated them on third place. What struck me was not only the great live versions of their own songs, but their very clever choices of cover songs.

And it was funky as hell!

I started to dig around the interweb and found a lot of very good cover versions done by Afghan Whigs, these are my ten favourites:

1.  See and don’t see – Afghan Whigs:

“Man, these words are kind of desperate and lonely, and they’re surrounded by this funky song. I might have to strip this one down someday.” – Greg Dulli

Originally by Marie Queenie Lyons:

2. Lovecrimes – Afghan Whigs (Frank Ocean cover):

“LoveCrimes came to me immediately. I had played around with that one maybe a week after I heard it. When I was looking to have something to play with the guys—we jam covers all the time…we had it down in half an hour. So that one was very, very natural.” – Greg Dulli (to AV Club)

3. True love travels on a gravel road (audio only) – Afghan Whigs (Nick Lowe):

4. Superstition (and Going to Town) – Afghan Whigs (Stevie Wonder):

5. Beast of Burden – Afghan Whigs (Rolling Stones):

 

6. Lost in the Supermarked – Afghan Whigs (The Clash)with a clever use of the Train in Vain drum intro:

7. If I only had a heart – Afghan Whigs (from The Wizard of Oz):

8. Can’t Get Enough of Your Love Babe – Afghan Whigs (Barry White):

9. Everything Flows (audio only) – Afghan Whigs (Teenage Fanclub):

10. Creep (audio only) – Afghan Whigs (TLC):

Greg Dulli also did some great cover versions with The Twilight Singers but that’s another post…

– Hallgeir (the 2 photos in the middle are from Oyafestival 2012 and taken by me)