101 Interesting Things, part fifty-nine: YouTube Cover Bands

We thought the internet would enable people to educate themselves, put an end to disinformation by making fact-checking easily available to all, bring the world closer together through open communication, and radically open up artistic collaboration.

Uhh... instead, we enabled people to look at cats (and porn), gave superpowers to disinformers, balkanized the world with micro-communities that enable all kinds of awfulness from pedos to Nazis, and... wait.  We actually radically opened up artistic collaboration.  One outta four... is an F minus minus.  But at least it's not an F minus minus minus!

Today, I want to talk about some of my favorite cover bands that I only found out about because of YouTube.  There are cover bands older than YouTube, of course, such as Me First and the Gimme Gimmes.  But YouTube makes it possible to check out their sound and then... do whatever?  I guess you could participate in the crowdfunding, but even if you don't, there's still the ad revenue they get.

Ew, that means I like something a corporation did.  Le sigh.  I can't be all-commie all the time, I guess.
Anyway!  In the order I discovered them, the first up is Postmodern Jukebox!  They do all kinds of great stuff, in different styles.  Here's a 20s-ish Gatsby-inspired cover of Bad Romance, with some kickass tap dancing:

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Here's a cover of Give It Away, in an Austin Powers-inspired 50s style:

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And a Big Easy-inspired cover of Seven Nation Army:

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Next up, Kawehi:  a one-woman band who uses loops and such to cover all kinds of music.  I used to think that looping was kinda cheap, because even though it enables a single person to make the sound of a whole band, each part is only done once.  But then I realized, the performer only gets one shot at each loop - so everything has to be done perfectly on the first try.  Here she is singing Closer:

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Nine Inch Nails is actually a great band to cover for this sort of thing, as is pretty much any techno-ish song, like Sail:

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She also does live shit, like this cover of Time is Running Out that just rocks my socks:

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Finally, the band that got me to think about writing this post, Brass Against.  One day I got a random notification on my phone, and it was the YouTubes, asking if I wanted to see a woman of color sing War Pigs with some ass-kicking backing brass.  I said Yes, and was shown this:

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They do a lot of Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave, and Tool.  Here's their cover of Cochise:

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And, saving the best for last, The Pot:

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All right, that's it for today.  Enjoy!