Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog: "Break On Through"

Cover songs are risky. They can be uninspired, irrelevant, excessively nostalgic, offensive to the original, or all of the above. There seem to be two ways of going about a cover—copy the original outright, riff for riff, or make something entirely new—and either approach demands a certain pomposity of the imitating artist. But the latter way always proves more successful. Compare, for example, the Flaming Lips’ cover of “Bohemian Rhapsody” and the Get Hustle’s rendition of “Another One Bites the Dust.” The Flaming Lips offer a rollicking simulation. But Queen is God of rock, at least inasmuch as Queen = Rock, which is a truthful assertion within the context of Queen’s music. Even the most grandiose imitation of God’s work is irrelevant, for His original is peerlessly radiant. Enter the Get Hustle, who slap Rock God in the face. That funereal beat, that ghostly wail, that conspicuous absence of virtuosity: how shameless, how heretical, how awesome!

The most memorable covers are, of course, those that turn a classic into something ugly or terrifying. Speaking of Queen, there’s the version of “Lilly of the Valley” by Bastard Noise, an unbearable tune composed of sheets of distortion and feedback. Then there’s Sebadoh’s cover of Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon,” which culminates in the band roaring demonically, “PINK, PINK, PINK, PINK, PINK, PINK MOOOOOOON!” This year finds another classic in the mix: a cover of the Doors’ “Break On Through” by Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog, an experimental three-piece led by guitar maverick Marc Ribot. If the Doors’ “Break On Through” conjures images of the young, sexy Jim Morrison, with his strong jaw and long hair, then Ceramic Dog’s cover depicts the latter-years Jim: the bellicose, bearded, drunk fatso who exposed his dong to thirteen thousand people at a Florida concert in 1969.

On Ceramic Dog’s rendition of “Break On Through,” there’s no lush keyboard, the drums are a skittering mess, and the distinctive sultry guitar line is drowning in distortion (two different kinds, at that.) Taking things one cathartic step further, Ribot sings through a distorted microphone, a middle-finger to those still beguiled by Morrison’s personality. The Ceramic Dog trio chants the line as a pitch-less intonation, like lemmings marching into flames. The track culminates in a freewheeling, heavily distorted solo that kicks ass far more severely than the Doors ever did.

This is a coup of covers, a true classic of the “classic rock” era remade with a contemporary affinity for noisy boundlessness. It’s true that such lack of inhibition is, no doubt, something that Jim of both early and latter days could appreciate. But what makes this cover truly shine is that no Jim Morrison—not even the one who got up on stage beside Jimi Hendrix at a New York nightclub once and screamed “Fuck her in the ass!” over and over—could match Ceramic Dog’s heavily distorted brutality.