Opium Jukebox
What began as a side-note to Pigface has quickly grown into its own entity. If you are not familiar with Opium Jukebox, now is the time to learn about them.
Originally comprised of Martin Atkins (label-owner/Pigface founder) and Bob Dog (former member of Evil Mothers), with a little help from Lee Fraser (Sheep on Drugs) and a few others. The basic premise was to take underground songs and compose them as Bhangra tunes using sitars and drums as the basic instruments. According to the bands page on the Invisible website other parts included, "instruments (both real and imagined) such as stringed things, vibes, toy pianos, tempuras, dijeridus, shakuhachis, sarods, and violins."
Taking a page from the music journals of the Moog Cookbooks versions of "popular grunge" tunes of the early nineties or the symphonic versions of seventies' rock hits, their first release, "Music To Download Pornography By," included songs from bands/artists such as Nine Inch Nails, Soft Cell, Jane's Addiction and Gary Numan. Each track a mellow, middle-eastern influenced version of it's original. If you love "Been Caught Stealing," "Head like a hole" or "Smells like teen spirit," but just aren't in the mood to 'rawk out' then this album is perfect for your home opium den enjoyment. Sit back, smoke-up and enjoy.
But that's not all. Atkins decided for their follow-up, they would ask their fans for feedback and suggestions for tunes to be re-worked next. Without being the proverbial fly on the wall, i'm not sure how the decision was made, but instead of covering various artists, they decided that a tribute to the Sex Pistols would be an appropriate sophomoric effort. They took "Never Mind the Bollocks" as well as the song "My Way" (a Frank Sinatra tune that Sid Vicious covered in "The Great Rock n' Roll Swindle") and gave them the Opium Jukebox work-over. Some tunes are not even recognizable, but all are worthy of a good lazy Sunday afternoon (or late Saturday night smoke-out) listen.
Evidently, the idea has grown since its one-off inception. After these first two "re-creations" Bob Dog and Atkins (along with help from some other friends in the business, including Ozzy Osbourne), have also produced tributes to Black Sabbath ("Bhangra Bloody Bhangra") and the Rolling Stones ("Sticky Bhangra"). Each one is a kind tip of the hat to the respective artists in gratitude for their contributions to music as we know it, as well as a completely new creation itself worthy of everyone's attention...go out and buy one of these now. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
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