My very good friend, confidant, music mentor, and fellow Gwar admirer, the one and only Mr. Doug Nilsen, stumbled upon quite the find on YouTube last week. A find so great that it prompted him to submit a request to Matt Horn’s blog for a post related to the find. Now, for your viewing pleasure (and so you can experience the greatness of Gwar), please check out Gwar’s cover of the Kansas classic “Carry On Wayward Son”.
If you watched this video and for some reason were disturbed or offended, don’t take it to heart, that is Gwar’s goal. And remember – Carry on, my wayward, unemployed son.. get off the couch and get a job!!!!
Ok, so Oderus Urungus forgot a few of the lyrics… and maybe added a few new lyrics into the mix, but this rendition clearly gets a 9.5 out of 10 for its genius and ridiculousness. And also for calling out all the bands that ever decided to bail out on actually picking a band name and instead settling on a geographical location as a substitute.
The series of videos from A.V. Undercover are all pretty good. The concept: 25 Bands, 25 Covers. One Small, Round Room. I urge you to check out more than Gwar’s excellent contribution.
Matt Horn's Blog 
I was impressed at the band lineup and concept they pulled off. Some of the “forced” cover songs really work. A couple crash and burn a bit. But you have to admit that the internet really lives up to its potential with stuff like this. I mean Circa-1996-Doug’s mind would be blown if you told him that instead of waiting for hours for MTV to play a music video he wanted to hear that he could play anything in a band’s entire library plus odd stuff like this instantly.
Yes, I recall taping an entire 6-hour VHS tape of MTV overnight and fast forwarding the next morning hoping to catch them playing the Smashing Pumpkins song from the Batman soundtrack that people were talking about or Metallica’s “King Nothing” when that came out. Now I can listen to fucking GWAR play Kansas or Rise Against play some Nirvana whenever I want. High five to the internet.
Awesome that you bring up the VHS recordings of videos. How many times did we watch that Subdivisions video?? Classic!! Love it.
Taping The Rock Show on VH1 was clutch. So many good videos. Scott Ian was the man.
And you gotta give it to GWAR for truth in advertising. All these years and they still live up to their acronym inspired from playing in their parents’ basement: God, What A Racket!
hahaha yea. They do catch your attention. Some of thee covers were great. Personally I liked the TMBG cover of Chumbawumba, the Steely Dan cover, and the Danzig cover that was totally and unexpectedly sweet.
Yeah, Tub Thumping is the single worst song that I’d have to put in the pantheon of all-time classic songs. They fully captured how bizarre and terrible and yet how fun and great of a song it is.
By the way, Reggie Watts doing Panama made me want to squash their round room like a tin can. It was repulsive and I hope he dies of gonorrhea like that Dan Marino.
Yea I have to agree about the Reggie Watts video. Completely made me want to drive off a cliff in Panama. I get that covers can be explored in different ways, but man, that was brutal. Hated it.