Everyone knows that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And when some random dude 1,500 miles away makes a YouTube cover of your song (in this case, Jacuzzi Boys' "Smells Dead"), the flattery factor is cranked up to 10,000.
Boston's Glen Maganzini is a 19-year-old college student, the leader of one-man band Gangbang Gordon, and a huge fan of garage-y punk rock. When we stumbled upon his karaoke-style cover, our jaws dropped. We were a little confused (but very proud) to see some kid with no ties to Miami paying homage to our Boys.
The Jacuzzi Boys bassist Danny Gonzalez was also impressed by this kid's passion. After seeing the video, he quipped: "Does this mean we've arrived?" But joking aside, the entire band is stoked about this vid, especially the impromptu drum solo at 1:28.
Meanwhile, we here at Crossfade were kinda curious why this kid took the time to turn on his webcam, record himself singing "Smells Dead," and broadcast it into the galaxies. So we asked him about it.
Maganzini explains: "These videos started in the fall of 2009 when I was really into Jay Reatard. There were not many videos singing along to garage rock [or] punk songs on YouTube, so I decided to try that out and ended up doing that ever since. All of the bands that I cover or karaoke to are my favorites."
He's gotten some mixed reactions to his work, though. "Feedback has been pretty negative. Some people think that my videos are a joke. They aren't. But I can understand where people are coming from when they say that. There has been a decent amount of people who seem to appreciate what I do. Perhaps the biggest support has come from some of the bands themselves. Nobunny posted my cover of 'I Am A Girlfriend' on Terminal Boredom. From there, it was reposted on a few different blogs. No Age posted my cover of 'Eraser' on their blog. I will say that I am an awful musician and singer. But that doesn't stop me."
We hope nothing stops him. Shit, when the Ramones would roll into a small town, people used to think they were mentally handicapped.
Check out more of Glen Maganzini's fan videos on his YouTube channel.
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