Huxton Creepers - Pretty Flamingo

Why not keep the obscure‑cover streak alive. Once you start digging in that corner of the musical attic, it’s hard to stop — everything down there glows with its own strange little light.

Take the Huxton Creepers, for example. An Australian group who, for one brief, jangly moment, nudged their way onto the Australian charts with a version of “Pretty Flamingo” so faithful you can almost see Manfred Mann nodding in approval from across the decades. It’s clean, bright, earnest — the kind of cover that doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, just gives it a fresh spin and a little extra shine. Personally, I’ve always had a soft spot for the Tommy Roe version off the Sweet Pea LP — that slightly sugary, sun‑washed vibe he had going — but that’s me wandering off into the weeds again.

Somewhere in the archaeological dig site I call my spillout record room — or, if we’re being brutally honest, my music hoarder room — I’m pretty sure there’s a Huxton Creepers cassette on Big Time Records. It’s probably wedged sideways in a forgotten box of tapes I keep telling myself I’ll alphabetize someday.

I wrote recently about how Big Time swallowed Dumptruck whole and then spit them back out into the world, dazed and blinking. But really, you could say that about most of the bands who passed through their doors. The Creepers had talent, hooks, momentum — and a label that couldn’t quite keep its own wheels from wobbling off. The Creepers were part of that constellation: bright, promising, orbiting a star that flickered out too soon.

And maybe that’s why these obscure covers feel so good to revisit. They’re little time capsules from an alternate universe where these bands got the push they deserved — where the songs didn’t just become minor hits, but major moments. For now, though, they live in the dust and the spines and the half‑forgotten shelves of rooms like mine, waiting for the next time I decide to keep the streak going.