From the compilation Sing the Snow Away: The Chunklet years, which is out now and featuring all their released material on the Chunklet Industries label, Honey Radar have released their version of The Monkees ‘Wind Up’.
Head honcho of the band, guitarist Jason Henn, explains “The Monkees were the first group I was obsessed with when I was a little kid. They had a bizarre TV special in 1969, after their show was canceled, called 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee. It’s almost unwatchable, worse than Magical Mystery Tour, but has some songs in it that I like, and “Wind-up Man” always sounded to me like it would make a good straight-forward rock song. I wanted to record it for years, and we played it live for a while in 2015 and 2016. When Henry asked us to do a split single, he explained that his side would be an impression of the band Slint, which–spoiler alert–is just three minutes of awkward silence. Apparently, there were some very long pauses between songs in their set at Primavera, and this was Henry’s sort of Andy Kaufman take on it. We figured we should also do a cover for our side, and “Wind-up Man” was one we had down and could churn out pretty easily. The handful of times we played it, someone would usually ask about it afterward. One of our friends asked if it was a Wipers cover. I’m glad we were able to make it sound raw enough to get that reaction.”
Full of slashy guitars and scruffy edges, Wind-Up Man retains the off kilter psychedelia of the original, but just roughs up the edges and gives it a little garage flavour.
Check it out, here
