I've mentioned Spy Comics before in these pages as my friendly neighborhood comic shop. And the usual helpful staff there are Rick and Paula. Rick is my age group, with a strong knowledge of the Golden Age. Paula is younger and is strong on the modern forms of the art, like manga. He's Classic Comics, she's Hello Kitty - together, they fight crime!(oh, sorry).
Anyway, when they work together, they "share" the radio, and their tastes are very different. Rick favors big band, swing, and blues. Paula is more progressive and listens to punk. Now punk is pretty much "after my time". I bear it no ill will, but leave the genre to younger, more hardier souls (such as
Freeport Pirate). But one of the things I like about having a local shop is exposure to things that I would normally not encounter, be it a new collection of Popeye strips or the musical stylings of Jello Biafra.
In any event, the last time I was in the shop, Paula had dibs on the sound system, and I recognized the tune. Styx.
"Come sail away with me". Done in a thrash punk version. Paula, knowledgeable in such things, informed me that it was by
Me First and the Gimmie-Gimmies, a punk band made up of members of other punk bands that did nothing but covers. But not covers of punk bands, rather covers of non-punk artists, like
Bob Dylan,
the Eagles,
Sesame Street, and
John Denver. And of course
Over the Rainbow.
So I found that interesting, and so I drop it on you guys as well.
More later,
