Happy Hump Day - The Pinheads are back premiering a huge cover track & the first release from Farmer and The Owl's upcoming compilation LP

Everyone loves a good cover - even if you hated the original, a cover gives a song a second chance... a new shot at life. Country and blues musicians used to trade songs like Pokemon cards (or poker chips or whatever) with everyone from Elvis to Hendrix to Johnny Cash bathing in the spoils. In a world where there were only so many songs, as a road musician you needed to know all of them. It was completely acceptable and even respected to cover someone else’s work, an endless list of musicians have built careers from it and made everlasting hits.

It has changed slightly overtime with labels and artists protecting their works more closely via copyright but I think we’ve all still been surprised to learn once or twice that our favourite artists track may in fact belong to another. At the bottom of all this one thing that will never change is the nostalgia you feel hearing a song come back from the dead, completely reimagined, remixed or just a straight up cover - it really doesn’t matter.

Luckily for you I’m not all that in to dance music, so there’s no remixes here. You’ve got to love the irony though as today I get to premier a cover of a song I used to hate by a band I really love.

The Pinheads' cover of Elvis Costello and The Attractions “Pump It Up” comes in at 3 minutes and 19 seconds of Jet-esque leather clad rock n roll with The Pinheads signature raw garage approach, it’s a fitting tribute to the original, which is one of the better rock n roll party tracks of it’s time and is just what I need to get me all hyped up on a Wednesday.

It hasn’t been too long since Coal Coast based Pinnies put out new music with their 2^nd full length album “Is This Real” hitting the shelves back in May of 2019 but with all that’s gone on since it has felt like an eternity. I’m sure for none more so than the multi talented and extremely self sufficient Pinnies. With their live shows being renowned for an almost unrivalled display of energy I was extremely curious to hear just how the band had handled the forced downtime. The track was recorded and mixed by singer, Jez player. When asked how they navigated the recording, Jez explained “during the initial few weeks of lock down, we recorded the cover. Due to lockdown and travel restrictions, parts of the song were recorded remotely, interstate and in closets. This is the first cover we have recorded in a number of years”.

The track is the first taste of a new compilation record master-minded by Wollongong based record label Farmer And the Owl. The compilation titled ‘Family Values” is set for release on Sept 25. Unfortunately it has absolutely nothing to do with the 2000’s Nu Metal festival of the same name but it’s bound to be just as exciting. With a new track for your ears every week in the lead up to its full release, the record will see The Pinheads joined by label mates Hockey Dad, Bad//Dreems, Bec Sandridge and a slew of other friends and friends of friends.

Farmer and The Owl Co-Founder Jeb Taylor says the record was “inspired by some of the incredible record labels around the globe and the communities they build, Family Values has been an idea we've had kicking around for a while that kicked into gear when the covid lock down took place. We realised we had a bunch of tracks from our label artists and close friends that had either had very limited releases or were totally unreleased and it would be a great way to showcase these to the world”

To complete the puzzle they had local award winning artist and fellow Pinheads member Christopher Zanko adopt one of his distinctive artworks to suit the record and the rest is history... or at least it will be once it all goes live on September 25.

The Double LP will be available for Pre-Order as of Tomorrow (Thursday 13^th) in two different vinyl colours and as always we’d advise getting in quick because well, only a few months ago you used to be able to fly to other countries.