Covering Our Tracks by Various Artists

It was hard to ignore the bigger picture when I heard Isaac Arms repeat the words of Common Loon’s Matthew Campbell: “I’ve got a notion of circular motion hovering over me.”

Arms’ voice mimicked Campbell’s pattern but remained unique in its inflection, managing to build on what the past had already laid out for him. It happened again when Emily Otnes repeated the words of HUM’s Matt Talbott with added clarity, and again when Champaign Mayor Don Gerard took Bill Johnson’s aggressive vocals on Honcho Overload’s “Miserable” and stripped them down across an unexpected cushion of violin.

Champaign-Urbana’s music scene has built itself around every turn of the year, creating communities and a history that outlasts its cyclical supply of musicians — whether they’re the ones who moved here for it, the ones who stumbled upon it through the University or the ones who were born into it, lucky enough to grow up in the artistic breeding grounds of the CU area. It’s easy to focus in and celebrate the individual accomplishments throughout the towns’ history, but it’s hard to ignore the collective accomplishment of the history itself.

Buzz Magazine’s Covering Our Tracks compilation extends the collaborative nature of the town’s great musical background. The 18-track compilation features CU artists covering other CU artists of past and present eras. From historic bands like The Poster Children and HUM to more recent successes in Grandkids and The Fights, listeners are able to absorb an audible history lesson on one of the most successful and productive music scenes in the history of the Midwest.

You can download the compilation for free here.

Running just over 66 minutes, Covering Our Tracks features both current and reformed CU bands performing covers of their favorite local tracks, including The Fights, Tara Terra, Withershins, Easter, Motes, Feral States, The Phantom Broadcast, Sad Man, Morgan Orion, Paul Kotheimer, Kenna Mae, Boycut, Finer Feelings, Jeremiah Fisher, Walt Falbo & the Falbonauts, Mike Ingram, Penny Horses and the Self-Righteous Brothers.

The artists on the compilation vary in their interpretations of the original songs. Noise artist Jeremiah Fisher takes a bending, industrial approach on Didjits’ 1988 punk track “Joliet,” while The Fights’ take a naturally straight-forward trip through The Beauty Shop’s “A Desperate Cry for Help.”

“The Beauty Shop had songs that were soulful in the strictest sense of the word,” said The Fights frontman Cole Rabenort. “The heart and thought that they put into their songs is something that should be remembered. Saying so much with so few words is what every aspiring writer aims to do, but The Beauty Shop couldn’t help but do it.”

Thirty-two CU artists’ work are found on the compilation, spanning four decades of the area’s history. Many of the covers include bands who are still active in the CU scene—or ones that have reemerged for reunions in recent years (American Football, HUM). Artists from the area are also featured in the compilation’s production.

Arms (Withershins) helped organize the effort and Tara Terra’s Colin Althaus mastered the collection. Local singer-songwriter Morgan Orion’s cover of Kenna Mae’s track “Worst Kind” also featured mixing from Champaign emcee Shannon Swords (Swords and the Shady Perrys).

“(Kenna Mae’s ‘Worst Kind’) struck me at The Rosebowl’s Hootenanny one night in Urbana, and I was floored,” Orion said. “I feel like every time I see Kenna, she has one great song—the sort of song that stands the test of time. And then the next time I see her, she has one even better than that.”

It’s this immortality Orion touches upon that elevates the CU music scene. In a college town where the people and their surroundings are changing year-to-year, the area’s musical past and present can be relied upon, and from time-to-time, celebrated in a balanced entanglement of what was and what’s to come.