Additionally, the industry guru also runs Underground Inc., a collective of independent labels under an umbrella that gives each shelter from the storms that await the “little guy” in the industry. He’s worked with a staggering number of high profile musicians, and is now sharing his insight by traveling the country and imparting wisdom on up and coming bands on the verge of getting chewed up by an unforgiving industry.

Atkins’ 2008 book/DVD Tour: Smart, which has been met with critical acclaim, compiled his experiences to create a valuable resource for any aspiring touring musician or band. Armed with the base knowledge his book has to offer, we tracked Martin down for a few updates on his philosophy, as well as to get a gauge on the shifting climate of the record industry in today’s world.

How would you describe “selfish philanthropy” to a musician?

It would be GREAT if everyone UNDERSTOOD that the best way to get anything done, anyone motivated is to act and speak in an Unselfish way… What is important to THEM, what do THEY care about, what do THEY want. If you are conscious of these factors (instead of worrying about what YOU want), you’ll actually end up getting what you want. The Selfish Philanthropy idea is just a way of describing this concept to an artist that might be having difficulty with the open-ness of the idea – perhaps not because they are raging selfish assholes – but, in tough times in tough businesses (and in the music business now its both) sometimes it’s difficult for frightened stressed people to be as nice as they might hope to be.

There’s a GREAT example in Tour:Smart where I advise a tour manager – or a band to divide up their rider (this was for a 4 or 5 band package tour so it was quite complicated) into a separate shopping list for the person that would be going to the store. On the surface this seems like an amazingly nice thing to do for the club / the runner BUT really, by YOU taking one hour to do this, nicely and clearly you are saving all 50 clubs that hour but also allowing for the fact that only 20% of the venues might have time to do this. So, in terms of man-hours – you just saved the planet 49 hours of shit, but you also made better sure that the stuff you need will be where you need it, when you need it – and that the person who COULD be helping you work through that days crisis (broken something – instrument, body part or heart) isn’t still at the store circling back around to the fresh produce section for the fourth time because of your horribly constructed, thoughtless list.

You’ve cited Butthole Surfers as a band that had autonomy until they went to a major label, where they failed in a fog of compromise. The fact that bands with talent still feel the need for validation by signing to a label is terribly sad, given all the options out there. What’s a band to do once they’ve bitten the apple, so to speak, and signed a contract with the majors, only to realize things aren’t what they thought they’d be?

I don’t advise bands to NOT look for a deal anymore (I mean that’s the advice but they just don’t listen!) Instead I advise them to start running their own businesses as the ONLY real way to get the audience, the following to attract the attention of even a small independent label – hopefully along the way they will accumulate the skills they need and most importantly the realization that 100 CDs sold themselves is the $ equivalent of 1,000 sold through a label. The introduction of additional filters of a label isn’t always a good thing.

The list of bands who have come unglued by the very different world of majors goes on and on… Butthole Surfers (although they got a ‘hit’ out of it), Jesus Lizard, Cop Shoot Cop (name change insisted upon by the major!) goes on and on.

How do you feel about bands giving their music away as a means of exposure?

Free Is The New Black… we are all drug dealers – and the first hit has to be free, right! I started riffing on this a long time ago – most recently advising people to ‘think like a bakery’  meaning, if you have a new customer – are you going to give them a free sample of the amazing and expensive smoked salmon thingy you just created, or are you going to give them a free sample of last week’s not very popular stale bagels?? Weirdly, Panera Bread is now trying out this formula – pay what you can, pay what you feel…

What’s the best thing a label can do for a band?

At its best the thing that invisible did was USE its total leverage to help a new band get further, quicker… Not by any leapfrogging / missing of important steps but by creating more value and inserting other reasons to be interested in every project. Early on, Meg Lee Chin came out with Pigface when NO ONE knew who she was, I made sure I stood on my drum seat and introduced her every night – knowing that I was sowing seeds – I spent WAY too much time working on her debut album – spending 16 full (12hr+) days working on a song called Heavy Scene alone.

Later, with a band called VooDou, I asked Michelle from the band to sing backups on Chris Connelly’s solo album that we were recording at the time and it naturally occurred that he sang backups on her album. THEN they all decided to tour together, THEN we asked Voodou to open for Pigface and I helped them get the opening slot with My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult… We utilized loads of things that didn’t specifically cost any money, but had taken years and loads of money to accumulate (street team, studio, leverage, etc. etc. etc.) NOW we also make shirts for bands too – trying to help wherever we can.

I have to end this little part though by saying that any band can start their own label – they WON’T have any leverage and will encounter all kinds of difficulties as they start to try and help their ‘friends’ but there is NOTHING stopping anyone from DOING IT THEMSELVES!

I think the ONLY reason for a band to sign to a label is to be able to take advantage of leverage – if the label has a studio – get it in the agreement that you can spend _______ hours there, if you want to tour with one of their bands – get it in writing that you CAN!!

We get 150 emails a day from publicists pimping new acts, but after years of this I can’t recall more than three bands I’ve ever truly been turned on to by any of them. Our readers, on the other hand, have recommended incredible sounds like Janelle Monae, The Ringers, Nico Vega, Gutter Twins, etc. That relationship is far more important than people seem to realize at the moment. Our readers have just as much of an impact on what we cover as any record label, and we’re succeeding. What does that say about the industry?

I think its great – the promise of the punk rock revolution is finally being fulfilled!

The weird thing is that when a band is over-hyped – they might achieve meteoric fame – but it’s only for a heart beat and can be just as easily taken away or overtaken by someone else’s 15 minutes. When you build it brick by brick yourself, it’s much more solid, much more real, much harder for other forces to tear it down!

This used to be a land of ubiquity, where there were only a select few sources from which to find good music. Now that it’s everywhere – but mixed in with the white noise of the mediocrity avalanche – people seem to be in need of new tastemakers, new places they can feel a sense of trust that they’ll be pointed in some good directions. They’re skeptical, and the last thing they want is another MTV. At Antiquiet, we tackle that role with heart-attack seriousness. What advice can you offer us, whether to not be led astray or get too far up our own asses?

As I said above, just keep doing what you do that works – and less of the stuff that doesn’t and, brick by brick, build the Great Fucking Wall of China.

You are absolutely correct that the very thing that is missing these days is a trusted voice – a filter – there’s room for many of them so as long as you have a consistent voice / opinion / viewpoint or delivery that people like – they’ll come to you. I mean, there’s no shortage of information out there – but people want help to sort through all of it.

Al was somewhat hammered, so all we really had to do was hit record and try and follow the Alien as he whipped his dick out in Virgin Megastore, ranted about being drunk dialed by Neil Young, engaging in sodomy with Jim Morrisson’s ghost, and kung fu-ing George Bush. Maybe that sounds wild, but he wasn’t nearly as unhinged as most of the maniacs that roam the treacherous streets of Hollywood at night, and not once did he try and sell us a star map. So in context, it was a rather pleasant evening.

Antiquiet: We’re here for the Wicked Lake [DVD] signing and…
Al Jourgensen: We are?
Antiquiet: Yes we are… How’d you get involved with it?
Al Jourgensen: (pointing to Zach Passero) That guy. That’s the director. That’s a friend of mine from El Paso. This is his first feature film, and we had a gas doing it. (To Zach:) How many bottles of wine did we drink while we were doing the soundtrack?
Zach Passero: Aw man… Easily like twenty? At least? If not more…
Al Jourgensen: Basically it was like a nepotism thing, where he hired a friend that wasn’t qualified (pointing to himself) to do a soundtrack… (laughing)

Antiquiet: Now you’ve done soundtracks for a few movies…
Al Jourgensen: A.I., Robocop… Stuff like that…
Antiquiet: And The Matrix, right?
Al Jourgensen: Nah, they just put our stuff on there, I didn’t really do anything… But I do know kung fu!
Antiquiet: So do you plan on getting into more [scoring]?
Al Jourgensen: Yeah, of course… (smirking) If they pay me enough, I’ll do it.
Antiquiet: (laughing) very nice.
Al Jourgensen: If they pay me, I will come.

In 1994, Ministry played an acoustic set at Neil Young’s Annual Bridge School Benefit concert. I had known of Ministry as the industrial metal band they usually are, so I was absolutely shocked to hear their version of The Grateful Dead’s Friend Of The Devil on 1997’s Bridge School Concerts, Vol. 1 CD. This was a song my Dad (who incidentally bears an uncanny resemblance to Neil Young) used to play when I was a little kid, and I’ve been absolutely in love with Ministry’s rendition ever since. I had always wondered how it came about, and so I snuck the following question into Tedward’s brain:

Antiquiet: On [Antiquiet], Friend Of The Devil was on not only one, but two of our ‘best covers’ mixtapes. How’d you guys get involved with that?
Al Jourgensen: Neil called me, Neil Young, and uh… he… (laughs)
Sin Quirin: Wasted.
Al Jourgensen: (laughing) Yeah.
Sin Quirin: He was wasted. So he drunk dialed Al…
Al Jourgensen: Yeah, he drunk dialed me (laughing) …He saw us in New York, and said ‘that’s the loudest show I’ve ever seen in my life. You guys are insane… I want you to do an acoustic show (laughing)
So [we're] like, well, if Neil Young wants it, uh, well, I guess we have to do it, because it’s… Neil Young! So we did like this unplugged Ministry…
Usually [when we're 'unplugged'] it’s just like things not being plugged in, amplifiers- [so] we don’t make any noise (laughs), but this unplugged, we did for Neil, and it came out good.
Neil’s a great guy. He’s awesome. The cause that he [supports with] his Bridge Benefits is awesome. His wife Peggy is great (to camera) Hey Peggy! Shout out to Peggy…
And then plus… We already had… He heard we had a country band too, called Buck Satan And The 666 Shooters. So he knew that we were kind of into that unplugged thing [with] our side job.

Antiquiet: We hear you’ve also done Roadhouse Blues. How’d that come about?
Al Jourgensen: Well, Jim Morrison’s ghost came and slept with me in bed. We had mad passionate homosexual sex.
Antiquiet: That’s the same way I came about it…
Al Jourgensen: And we fell in love, me and his ghost, and we decided to do Roadhouse Blues.
Antiquiet: Nice.
Al Jourgensen: No. It’s because (over Tommy Victor’s lauging) I can play harmonica, and the band was rockin’ and the thing I never got about that song was like, Morrison’s lyrics were always about like complete anarchy on that song, just like… Fuck it, I’m gonna run into a building at full speed in my car, I’m gonna drive drunk blah blah blah and then [the song is] this slow like brawmp ba-brawmp ba-brawmp ba brawnana… And I figured, that doesn’t do the lyrics justice- Jim is really like, Hey man, I wanna die crashing into a fence! And the music was all like regular blues. So I just figured I’d speed it up a bit, and then we got something that seemed to like, be [the] yin and yang…

If you’re following along with the video, right here we cut to a scene that Al caused right after the interview. We’re not exactly sure what provoked it (besides alcohol), but while posing for a picture with a fan, Al whipped his dick out in the middle of the crowded store. To prove we do actually maintain a lone shred of decency here at Antiquiet, we cropped it out. But I assure you, everyone got some Alien cock, and the brave Enjoy Human crew had a hi-def camera rolling. That’s one for the archives, eh?

Antiquiet: You’ve dedicated a lot of your music to our dear leader George W. Bush…
Al Jourgensen: He’s not my dear leader…
Antiquiet: So I was just wondering, if you were to sit at a bar with him, what is the one thing that you would say?
Al Jourgensen: (momentarily incredulous, everyone’s laughing) No, it’d be like, hands behind your back.
…I wouldn’t say a word to him… I know this is going to get secret service… (dropping to a ninja stance) all alarmed. But I know kung fu. And if I sat next to Georgie, I would use my kung fu powers. I wouldn’t say a word. I would kung fu him.
Antiquiet: You’d let your fists do the talking.
Al Jourgensen: I would let my fists do the talking.

Wicked Lake is now available on DVD. The movie was scored by Al Jourgensen, and the film soundtrack is headed for a November 24th release through 13th Planet, featuring music by Ministry, Prong, Meshuggah, and the Revolting Cocks.

But I digress. Here’s the jams, kids. Turn ‘em up.

Rock Show
Cover: Electric Six
Original: Peaches

Like Electric Six needs any more reason to be awesome. This Peaches jam is a perfect fit, furthering suspicions that a collaboration between the two artists would induce mass fucking in the streets, fists pumping in the air, hair flying everywhere. 

Gravel Road 
Cover: Clutch
Original: Mississippi Fred McDowell

Another precious gem stolen from the kingdom of dead black blues heroes. But hey, Clutch can do no wrong.

No Diggity
Cover: Klaxons
Original: Blackstreet

What do you want? No apologies, no excuses. Not exactly among the best cover songs ever, but it’s a badass song, and reminds me of a time when shit seemed a lot less complicated. I don’t know anything about Klaxons, but I might have to give em a look after hearing this.

How Soon is Now?
Cover: Quicksand
Original: The Smiths

Quicksand was a rockingly awesome group out of the 90s New York post-hardcore scene that not enough people know about, and they made this Smiths jam their own. Check out their album Slip. These guys died out too soon.

Sympathy For The Devil
Cover: Guns N’ Roses
Original: The Rolling Stones

This Stones cover is the last track the band ever recorded together, a fitting final send-off to the true soul of Guns N’ Fuckin’ Roses. If only I could shake the picture of Scientologist vampires killing Christian Slater when I hear it…

Have A Cigar
Cover: Foo Fighters
Original: Pink Floyd

In the summer of 2000, Brian May of Queen teamed up with Grohl and the gang for this brutal Pink Floyd cover, which Dave affectionately calls “the most punk rock thing Pink Floyd ever did.” I happen to agree. It’s also on a movie soundtrack, but I’ve already made one reference to Tom Cruise. 

Death Letter
Cover: The White Stripes
Original: Son House

On this Son House classic and Stripes concert staple, Jack White proves his blues chops beyond a shadow of doubt. Often, he’ll stretch the song to 7 or 9 minutes with thrashing epileptic solos and snippets of other songs. This easily qualifies among the greatest cover songs ever.

Friend Of The Devil
Cover: Ministry, Bridge School Benefit 1994
Original: The Grateful Dead

Ministry covering the Dead? What the fuck? Magic happens at the Bridge School Benefit, kids. That’s all I can say. 

Masters Of War
Cover: Eddie Vedder & G.E. Smith
Original: Bob Dylan

Like I said on Vol. 1, this mix could have been comprised entirely of Pearl Jam songs. A cornerstone performance for any PJ fan, this Dylan cover is easily as passionate and poignant as the original. A then-28-year-old Vedder and SNL bandleader G.E. Smith took the stage at a star-studded Dylan tribute concert in 1992, breathing new life and urgency into a song written a full generation earlier. Sixteen years later, the ass-kickery hasn’t diminished a bit.

Teenage Kicks
Cover: The Raconteurs
Original: The Undertones

The sound ain’t great, but the song fucking crushes, and inspired me to dig up the original after figuring out the guitar part and rockin it till the neighbors pounded on the walls. That’s what it’s all about, so by default it deserves a spot here.

Bring The Pain
Cover: Mindless Self Indulgence
Original: Method Man

I’m still trying to wrap my head around MSI, but there’s no denying that they took this one and ran like hell. Besides, anyone who would set himself on fire and walk through the crowd to scare off a beefneck asshole who kept throwing shit at him at least deserves a listen.  I mean fuck, even G.G. Allin had an audience. 

Sonic Reducer
Cover: Pearl Jam
Original: Dead Boys

That’s right, more Pearl Jam. This crushing Dead Boys cover was side A on PJ’s 1992 fan club Christmas single. They’ve done a million versions of this song in concert, but this one’s particularly awesome. Oh yeah, and I took this picture standing next to Skwerl in San Francisco.

Billie Jean 
Cover: Chris Cornell
Original: Michael Jackson

This cover wasn’t represented properly on Cornell’s last solo record, but the energy and passion that sucked me into Seasons and Temple Of The Dog is evident in full form on this live version. I can’t stand most of the shit Chris has put out since leaving Audioslave, but this is a great interpretation of a pedophyllic weirdo classic.

Hazy Shade Of Winter 
Cover: The Bangles
Original: Simon & Garfunkel

I grew up with this song, thanks to my 80s-pop-loving mom. I had no idea it was actually a cover. Consider it a prelude to a Best 80s Covers mixtape, taking up bandwidth on a server near you this fall.

Buick Makane / Big Dumb Sex
Cover: Guns N’ Roses
Original: T-Rex / Soundgarden

So there’s been a lot of talk about Guns N’ Roses around here lately, and a lot of trash talk directed towards their last ‘real’ album, the covers disc The Spaghetti Incident. Granted, the selection of songs was kinda weird, but sometimes weird can be fucking awesome, such as this strange multiracial siamese twin.

Helter Skelter
Cover: Mötley Crüe
Original: The Beatles

Sacrilege right? Drunken half-witted Sunset Boulevard gutter trash covering the finest, most respected pop group in the history of the universe. Whatever. If you can still stand to listen to the original after hearing this version, pack up your shit, step away from the rock and roll, and go home to mommy and daddy.

Buddy Holly
Cover: Biffy Clyro
Original: Weezer

This is some scottish rock group that seems to be fairly famous everywhere but here in the US. I don’t know a whole lot about them, but this track showed up on some Kerrang! compilation, and I couldn’t help but fall in love.

Toxic
Cover: Local H
Original: Britney Spears

Of all the tongue in cheek ironic covers of megahit pop songs by megaunknown indie bands, this is one of the best. I believe it was posted on the band’s website as a Christmas gift to fans a few years back.

Metro
Cover: System Of A Down
Original: Berlin

I’m not a big fan of System Of A Down, but there are at least two songs that they’ve done amazing covers of: This one, and Snowblind by Black Sabbath.

Valerie
Cover: Mark Ronson w/ Amy Winehouse
Original: The Zutons

Mark Ronson’s latest album, Version, is basically a best-of covers compilation in and of itself. There are tons of great ones on there, all creative and radically different from the originals. This is one of my favorites, and it helped turn me onto The Zutons; particularly their second album, Tired Of Hanging Around, where the original can be found.

Black Steel
Cover: Tricky
Original: Public Enemy

Tricky is a fucking musical genius, and this revision of Public Enemy’s Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos is a fine example. The original recording is close to my heart, as it’s from the first album that I actually managed to piss off my relatively liberal parents with, but I can’t deny the superior musicianship in Tricky’s version.

Killer Queen
Cover: Sum 41
Original: Queen

Despite the fact that Sum 41 sucks, in 2005 they attempted to cover a classic song by one of the hardest bands to cover, and shockingly, they somehow knocked it out of the fucking park. There is no way this recording came to be without some sort of contract with Satan himself, but that’s fine by me: I’ve got an interesting new take on a classic track, and the comfort in knowing that at least one shitty band will burn in hell for all eternity.

Simple Man
Cover: The Deftones
Original: Lynyrd Skynyrd

The Deftones have done a lot of great covers. I had to choose between this, their versions of Sade’s No Ordinary Love, The Smiths’ Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want, Duran Duran’s The Chaffeur (which was basically just more obvious a cover than The Passenger from White Pony), and The Cars’ Drive. This one fit into the mix best.

Easy
Cover: Faith No More
Original: The Commodores

One of my favorite covers of all time: Faith No More’s cover of Easy, from 1993’s Songs To Make Love To EP. If Johnny had fit this onto his covers mix yesterday, I might have considered it complete enough to not immediately warrant a reactionary follow-up. He did get Ministry’s Friend Of The Devil though… That’s another crucial one.

Long Train Runnin’
Cover: Hanson
Original: The Doobie Brothers

Yes, that Hanson. No, seriously. Trust me. I know, last time you checked, Hanson were three 12 year old girls and they had only one song, MMM-Bop, and it sucked balls. Well, they grew up, and they’re fucking talented. They sound like The Black Crowes now, with black Michael Jackson singing, and this cover of Long Train Runnin’ from their appearance on the Howard Stern Show gave me chills when I tuned in- not knowing who it was until afterwards.

The process was agonizing and the tracklist could easily run into the hundreds, so I narrowed things down chronologically. As a result, with one or two exceptions, all the songs posted here have been recorded in the last 10-12 years. And no, I won’t apologize for including two Pearl Jam tracks- they’ve been my favorite band for nearly as long as I’ve been in love with music, and nobody but the songs’ creators could hold a candle to these renditions. Just be thankful this isn’t a Pearl Jam covers mixtape, cause it easily could’ve been.

I dug up some real gems while working on this, as well as some fuckin’ weird shit. Didn’t expect to ever hear Mariah Carey tearing up a Journey song (Open Arms) or The Streets’ sharting butchery of Elton John’s Your Song. There’s more than enough material to warrant a “Worst Covers” mix… but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

There’s a certain sweet sacrilege to an artist’s reinterpretation of someone else’s music, especially when they “make it their own”. With any luck, a few of you might like one or two of these tracks enough to dig up the originals. But I can’t do it all for you- you’ll have to find the originals for yourselves.

Enjoy.