Takin' A Ride

#10. Satanic Bat: “Ramones” – A doom metal band from Pittsburgh. They did this EP as a one-off for a Ramones tribute show, where they were called “Satanic Brat”. You would think most bands would play Black Sabbath songs faster as if the Ramones did them. Satanic Bat does the opposite. They slow down the Ramones to classic Black Sabbath speed. It’s just an EP, but it makes this list at #10.

You can listen to their version of Commando here.
You can download a copy and read the story about it from the band here.

#9. The Zombeatles: “Meet The Zombeatles” – ok, this is more of a parody band than a tribute, but they are paying tribute to the Beatles. As zombies. Well that is, if zombies could talk and sing. And play instruments. So the song titles and lyrics are changed. “She Said” becomes “She’s Dead”. “Eight Days A Week” becomes “Ate Brains A Week”. You get the picture. They even have a documentary called “A Hard Days Night Of The Living Dead”.

Ate Brains A Week

#8 The 13 Crimson Ghosts: “Tribute To The Misfits” – A tribute to the Misfits. This one in instrumental surf style. This just goes to show how amazing the Misfits songs are. They can be recorded in a variety of styles and they still hold up. This is a little confusing though: There are several bands called “Crimson Ghosts”. I discovered this on the jukebox at Frankie’s Tiki Room in Las Vegas. There’s also a punk band from Germany called Crimson Ghosts with several albums out. But “the only instrumental surf tribute band to the Misfits” is listed as “Crimson Ghost” on Facebook. I’m thinking this is the same as “13 Crimson Ghosts” as they on the same record label “Necro-Tone” and I’m guessing they had to add the “13” to their name for legal reasons. Anyway, they are still active and they rule!

20 Eyes

#7 The Nutley Brass Band: “Ramones Songbook” – Well Nutley Brass Band is on here twice and it’s well deserved. This time they do a full album tribute to the Ramones. And also got full endorsement from the Ramones and crew themselves. “Ramones meet the elevator head-on (ouch!!) through the clever genius of Sam Elwitt, and time travel will never be the same again” – Joey Ramone (1999). They also have a just as excellent tribute to the Misfits, which you should also check out.

#6 The Ramonetures: s/t – I’m not trying to be cheap here. I swear! But again, this is another testament to how good a song can be if they can be covered in a variety of ways and still make it work. And the Ramones’ songs are among the best. This is the Ramones as if they were played by the Ventures, so basically surf rock style. Rumor has it that surf rock fuzz guitar legend Davie Allen secretly plays on this. I wouldn’t doubt it. This flat out rocks! The Ramonetures also have a surf rock tribute to X, which you may also want to check out.

Carbona Not Glue

#5 Wax Sabbath: “A Surf Rock Tribute To Black Sabbath” – This is the brainchild of a talented guy named Chris Saunders, who did a project of surf rock covers of Black Sabbath Songs. And what a job he did! Again, not a mix of styles that you would expect to go well, but surprisingly goes over excellently. Available to hear and download on Soundcloud. Thee Swank Bastards also have a surf rock tribute to Sabbath, but that’s a lot harder to find.

Into The Void

#4 The Little Richards: “Bama Lama, Bama Loo” – There’s actually another band called The Little Richards which came out around the same time as this one, which was around 2013-2015. But they’re not a Little Richard tribute. THIS band is! Punk rock style! You can argue that Little Richard was “punk rock” before there was even “punk rock”, but the Little Richards tribute is with louder guitars. I should mention that this band was started by punk rock legend Robert Lopez from the Zeros and Pat & Lety from the Schizophonics. They got an album out on Sympathy For The Record Industry, which may have been one of the last albums Sympathy released.

There’s zero internet presence here for any of the songs on the album, but here’s a live show that I recorded.

#3 Classic Pat: “Why Not Vol 1 – Tiffany” – Yeah, you read that right. Tiffany! This goofball does a lot of interesting and cool stuff in his basement, but this is one of the more off the wall things Classic Pat has done. A punk rock tribute to Tiffany! I actually have her album, gifted to me on my 21st birthday. But this is better, because the songs are faster and the guitars are louder.

#2 Tragedy: “We Rock Sweet Balls And Can Do No Wrong” – A heavy metal tribute to the Bee Gees! This usually goes down pretty well when I used to DJ around town. They started off as a heavy metal Bee Gees tribute, but soon branched out to do metal tributes to other disco and ’70s songs. But their Bee Gees tribute was first. And the best.

#1 Brown Sabbath: s/t and Vol II: This band actually has TWO albums of Black Sabbath songs, done in the style of latin funk. It also brings to mind some ’70s style TV theme music. You wouldn’t think this style would mesh too well with Sabbath’s heavy guitar style, but it actually works quite well. Half the songs are instrumentals, the other half have vocals. I would prefer it as all instrumental, but it’s all good. After all, they even got Ozzy Osbourne’s blessing on this, calling them “A lot of fun!” when he saw them.