While I love New York City 364 days out of the year, it is the last place I want to be on New Years Eve. Restaurants jack up their already steep prices, clubs overcharge for the privilege of waiting interminably for a drink at their open bars, and the streets are full of intolerable amateurs, bewildered tourists, and lapsed teetotalers. Typically, I stay at home and watch the ball drop in the comfort of my Park Avenue penthouse. Yet this time I was almost tempted to break with tradition when I read that Courtney Love would be playing a black tie event at The Standard Hotel’s Boom Boom Room. The exorbitant ticket prices, which started in the high hundreds and went well into the thousands, were prohibitive enough to keep me away, but fortunately Love has graced the IntarWebs with some candid footage of her rehearsing for the show (in what appears to be a hotel room) with Micko Larkin, a member of the reconstituted Hole. The track is a difficult-to-recognize cover of The Replacements’ “Unsatisfied” and, speaking as a longtime fan of the group, it is extremely, well, unsatisfactory.

Some time ago, in that distant year 2009, a copy of Love’s planned sophomore solo album, leaked and made the rounds online. This take on “Unsatisfied” is very much in line with that meandering acoustic tripe. The video above shows a distracted Love practically oblivious to the structure of the song, with Larkin correcting her. What’s especially surprising about that the old Hole used to cover it too! Now, it’s probably pre-show jitters, and it would be forgivable if the cover didn’t have such a second-rate “Malibu” vibe. I can only hope there’s some actual rockers on the upcoming Hole record, because that’s where Love’s fractured voice has always matched. Despite her affinity for great female singers like Stevie Nicks, she never was (and from the sound of this, never will be) of that caliber. Anyway, I suppose the sound of the new Hole–which co-founder Eric Erlandson inexplicably has nothing to do with– will finally be revealed when the band performs a few European gigs next month. Dates are:

February 17 – London – Shepherds Bush Empire

February 19th – Milan – Magazzini Generali

February 21 – Amsterdam – Paradiso

Oh, and she’s back on Twitter now.

[Gary Suarez helps manage Shadows FAIL. Say, why don't you follow him on Twitter?]