Dave Grohl, Greg Kurstin cover "Sabotage" as the first of 8 musical Hanukkah presents

Dave Grohl’s had a tough year. But, despite grappling with a debilitating coffee problem and facing the humiliation of losing a months-long drum battle to a 10-year old, he’s not only refusing to let his personal troubles get the best (the best, the best) of him, but has sought to bring joy into the world with eight days of Hannukah presents. The first of these sees Grohl and Foo Fighters’ producer Greg Kurstin collaborate on a hell of an opener to their holiday set: A two-person cover of Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage.”

The video’s caption says that Grohl and Kurstin “thought it would be a shanda to not kick off this party with New York’s (and Abraham’s) finest … known by some as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abedenego, known by others as Ad-Rock, Mike D, and MCA … known by their Imas and Abbas as Adam Horovitz, Mike Diamond, and Adam Yauch.” The track sounds pretty different performed on just drums and keyboard, but it works well and, most importantly, is as energetic as any good “Sabotage” cover needs to be. It also sees Grohl paying homage to Ad-Rock’s ferocious whine by singing in a register we didn’t know he could hit, which makes us really curious to hear how he’d do covering other Beasties songs. (He’d probably be an annoyingly talented rapper because Grohl is annoyingly talented at lots of things.)

The Hanukkah Sessions will continue to see Grohl and Kurstin covering songs from Jewish musicians throughout the rest of the holiday. Even if the project is basically promotional work for the Foo Fighters’ upcoming album, it’s still a very nice bunch of gifts to receive as a reward for making it through a year of struggles, coffee- and kid drummer-related or otherwise.

[via Consequence Of Sound]

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