With the passing of Ric Ocasek earlier this month, Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus shared a tribute to the late singer of The Cars — a ridiculously dark cover of “Just What I Needed.”

Turns out this song was just sitting around on a hard drive, made for a TV project that never got off the ground.  From Mark’s SoundCloud:  “They wanted moody and strange, dark, and drony, with space for dialogue to go over it. I went into the studio with my friend James Ingram and this is what we came up with. The show was cancelled so quickly the episode never aired, but if you can imagine a grim and grizzled detective determinedly working a murder case that shook them to the very core of their being, this is the music the show requested.”

Despite releasing their latest album Nine without Tom DeLonge, Mark Hoppus says Blink did their best work when he was a part of the trio — and Tom was equally complimentary of his former band mates when Angels & Airwaves played The Lounge this month.  — [eric]