Les Inrocks Cover Contest

I got an interesting e-mail from JD Beauvallet, chief editor of the French magazine Les Inrockuptibles. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Rough Trade Records, they are running a Rough Trade songs cover competition on their website for "new talent" called www.cqfd.com. The competition is opened to any unsigned bands and runs until May 12th, when the winner will be decided by Geoff Travis, founder of Rough Trade Records, and JD Beauvallet himself. And the winner will get to record a single for Rough Trade. Pretty snazzy.

Of course the major by-product is we get to hear a bunch of new covers based on artists in the Rough Trade catalogue. And they have quite the catalogue indeed. Artists on the legendary Rough Trade label include The Smiths, Sufjan Stevens, Robert Wyatt, The Arcade Fire, Belle & Sebastian, The Hidden Cameras, The Strokes, Wire, Jonathan Richman, The Fall, The Libertines, Fiery Furnaces, Violent Femmes, and many, many more.

So from now until May 12th keep checking back at http://www.cqfd.com/concoursroughtrade to hear some new covers. At the moment there are about 20 covers on there so far... check 'em out. And if you're musically inclined maybe you can even enter the competition!

EDIT: I forgot to mention that Les Inrockuptibles are responsible for a number of notable tribute albums over the years including I'm Your Fan (Leonard Cohen), The Smiths is dead, and Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited.