Steely Danzig mashup adds dad-rock to Mother

Glenn Danzig has always struck me as a singularly angry dude. That’s partly because he’s been infamously angry in public a number of times — irate about stage times, pissed off about Sinead O’Connor’s bullshit, and indignant about bricks in his front yard — but maybe he’s just got that kind of face. This is, after all, a man who manages to look apocalyptically furious while carrying kitty litter to his car.

Perhaps that’s why Demi Adejuyigbe’s mashup of Danzig’s classic “Mother“ with Steely Dan’s ”Dirty Work” is so striking: it manages to make this little ball of black-maned rage sound almost calm. Devoid of the original track’s gloomy and gothic guitars, Danzig’s song sounds like cheery advice, the kind of thing delivered by a winking crooner, clicking his fingers in time with leisurely drumbeats.

It may be the product of a fun pun, but even Danzig’s roared chorus sounds calmer set to Donald Fagen’s relaxed saxophone line, the audio equivalent of sitting Glenn down with a nice cup of tea. By the end, Danzig’s non-verbal exertions sound almost cheery, the singer “whoa”-ing and “yurr”-ing in agreement rather than rage.

This kind of subversion is a regular occurrence for Adejuyigbe, who’s put out a full album of songs inappropriately mashed together with Hozier’s “Take Me to Church,” recorded a musical version of The Revenant, and filled his parents’ house with 57 Click DVDs that they still haven’t noticed are there.