Review
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
Go Down Under

Well they’re back with a vengeance, the punk supergroup coverband known as Me First and the Gimme Gimmes with the release of their eighth album the Australian tinged EP entitled – Go Down Under. For a band that started out as a side project for fun these guys have worked up a great formula. Take the cheesy pop songs and punk them up to make them a bit more respectable. They have even been known to throw a riff from another tune into a cover like they did with the song Sloop John B (adding the riff from Teenage Lobotomy). Lets have a look at the songlist for this album along with the original writer and performers.

First up it’s the originally funky Never Tear Us Apart which was written by Andrew Farriss and Michael Hutchence and performed by INXS back in the day. As usual the band has their way with the tune making it better than the original, kicked up a notch and cranked.

Next on the list is All Out of Love, written by Graham Russell and Russell Hitchcock and performed by Air Supply. Now I will admit right straight out I have no idea what this song originally sounded like but I can say I was not an Air Supply fan. Nothing against them I just don’t get the style and probably had much better things to listen to when they were around. Of course the Gimmes do it up in with a straight up rocker.

The third song on the EP is Friday on My Mind an oldie written by the band The Easybeats and originally done by them but Bowie also did a great cover. Now this is one that is near and dear to me as I was big into the Easybeats and the Gimmes do a pretty much standard cover of this one, you can’t mess with perfection. This version is a bit fuller and has a much bigger sound quality than the Easybeats version but technology has driven that aspect.

The fourth song Have You Never Been Mellow was written by John Farrar and was performed by Olivia Newton-John so you can pretty much figure they have their way with this one. Starting up with a nice drum beat it drifts into a pretty love song and then get to the chorus and rip it up.

The final song I’ve Done Everything for You was actually written by the Red Rocker Sammy Hagar and performed by Rick Springfield. I believe that this is the way that Sammy originally intended this song to sound like, not wanting to take anything away from Rick but this version kicks ass.

Overall a great Gimmes EP, great strategy, I wanted a full album and all I got was this EP but it leaves me wanting more.