Fong Songs

The Show Must Not Go On

2010-09-10T09:17:00.007-06:00

I don't know if this ever came up at all over the course of this entire blog, but yes, this creepy head, used frequently as an avatar, is a self-portrait bust created in my only university art class. We were supposed to pair up and sculpt a classmate, but I suppose no one wanted to keep a disembodied head of someone else so we all ended up doing our own bust using a series of photos. Anyhoo...

I hope you all had fun with the Fong Songs 101 Cover Countdown. I want to give a huge thanks to Todd G who paid me the ultimate compliment by actually playing my Top 10 covers with commentary on his show The Shuffle, which airs on WFIT-FM, an NPR affiliate based out of Melbourne, Florida. It was very special for me, not to mention flattering, to listen to that and know that there are/were readers all over the globe taking note of my little ol' blog. With the above link, you can download hour 2 of the September 4th broadcast and listen to the portion embarrassingly devoted to me and Fong Songs. It was completely surreal to listen to myself being quoted with words I just haphazardly typed out at the last minute! Thanks again Todd!

...and very big thank you to all you readers out there! I started off writing for an audience of one (me) and ended off with hundreds of visitors a day. While some of those may have been robots and one-timers, I appreciate that I had a healthy number of regular readers, people I didn't even know repeatedly coming back for more... it still kinda boggles my mind and leaves me humbled.

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Just over a year ago, one of my favourite all-time bands Harvey Danger played their last ever show, which I was privileged to attend. The last song they ever played was, in fact, a completely new song. In another sense, it was indeed the last song they wrote. Now over a year later, they've finally mastered and released this last ever recording, fittingly titled The Show Must Not Go On. It is available on their site for FREE. In another generous gesture, they've also made available for a free download their Dead Sea Scrolls compilation that was only available at those final shows. In addition to collecting various rarities and demos, it includes their covers of Save It For Later (The English Beat), Maneater (Hall & Oates), and a live recording of Louisiana, 1927 (Randy Newman). Go get it!

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Now in a random confluence of favourite band news, The Dresden Dolls (i.e. Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione) are back on tour after a two-year hiatus in celebration of the band's 10th Anniversary!

OCT 31
10th Bandiversary Halloween Show
Irving Plaza
New York, NY
with Very Special Guests!

NOV 12
A special gulf oil spill relief-benefit for BTNEP, an organazation that is working to preserve, protect, and restore the Barataria and Terrebonne estuaries of Louisiana.
New Orleans, LA
Tipitina's
with Jason Webley

NOV 13
Atlanta, GA
The Buckhead Theatre
with Lille

NOV 14
Lexington, KY
Buster's Billiards & Backroom
with Chico Fellini

NOV 16
St. Louis, MO
The Pageant
with Sleepy Kitty
**coincidentally the last I have seen and heard of Sleepy Kitty was when they opened the final shows for Harvey Danger. Of course, Sleepy Kitty's Evan Sult was Harvey Danger's original drummer.

NOV 17
Chicago, IL
The Vic Theatre
with Mucca Pazza

NOV 19
Dallas, TX
Granada Theatre
with Girl in a Coma

NOV 20
Houston, TX
Fitzgerald's
with Girl in a Coma

NOV 21
Austin, TX
La Zona Rosa
with Girl in a Coma

Tickets for some shows are already on sale while the rest will be available to purchase soon... keep an eye on their facebook page for updates. Wish I could go!

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I'll leave you all with one last cover...

The Blind Boys of Alabama - The Last Time [EDIT: ~~originally by The Rolling Stones~~ Traditional]
Well, this could be the last time
This could be the last time
Maybe the last time
I don't know

My indefinite hiatus starts now!

Fong Songs 101 All-Time Covers: TOP 10

2010-09-03T08:21:00.004-06:00

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Just joining us?
I'm counting down 101 of my all-time favourite covers before packing this blog away in the attic.
Read my countdown preamble here.
=============================================
Top 10
Here we go!

10. Ben Kweller - BK Baby [originally Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice]
Stop, collaborate and listen to this cover, a brilliant guitar-based sing-a-long version of the Vanilla Ice "classic" white boy rap.

9. Baba Yaga - Back in the USSR [originally by The Beatles]
Here it is, my favourite all-time Beatles cover. Baba Yaga is a band made up of an Irish singer/guitarist, a handful of Hungarian rock musicians, and four Russian folk singers. Together they play a potpourri of songs that combine English lyrics and traditional Russian folk songs, which might make the idea of a Back in the USSR cover seem a little too clever, but it's simply irresistible. This particular cover is all a cappella and kicks off with a bewitching Russian chant that makes me want to sing along every time and perhaps take up Russian.

8. The Philosopher Kings - Dinah (Live) [originally by Harry Akst, Sam M. Lewis, & Joe Young]
Tucked away at the end of The Philosopher Kings' second album Famous, Rich and Beautiful was an almost random jazz cover of the standard Dinah written in 1925. It stood out dramatically from the rest of the album of pop/soul music, but the loose and seemingly spontaneous instrumental track wonderfully showcased the band's diverse influences and their underrated musical chops. I loved it when I first heard it and actually chose the song in grade 10 for CALM (Career & Life Management) class when we were asked to do a short presentation about ourselves with a mini bio, a "fun fact" about ourselves, and a song we liked. It still makes me cringe thinking about that day standing at the front of the class of future dropouts gritting my teeth through the entire song which was met by a massive wave of indifference. Heathens. Anyway, I got to see The Philosopher Kings play at the Winspear Centre in Edmonton and it turns out they actually kick off the live show with a blistering rendition of the song (which I didn't even recognize at first) as a sort of band warm-up before singer Gerald Eaton even comes out on stage. Fortunately, this positively electric version of Dinah was captured on their on their live One Night Stand album.

7. Moxy Früvous - Psycho Killer [originally by Talking Heads]
Admittedly, when I heard this years ago I did not know it was a cover song. Yep, back in the days before I meticulously researched song origins and when the only Talking Heads song I knew was Burning Down the House.... OK, now I only know TWO Talking Heads songs, another credential-shattering hole in my musical education. Regardless, I hope you'll agree this spirited live cover from my heroes Moxy Früvous is a keeper!

6. PoZitive Orchestra - Shine On You Crazy Diamond [originally by Pink Floyd]
Back in 2008 when I first stumbled upon the PoZitive Orchestra, I declared with typical hyperbole that they were "The Best Cover Band You've Never Heard Of" and "my favourite cover discovery of the year". Now they are simply my favourite cover band, period. Most bands that devotes themselves to playing all covers actually have a hard time sustaining my attention for more than a couple songs at a time, but I can listen to the PoZitive Orchestra on endless repeat. Their distinct brand of bossa string quartet arrangements are always inventive and delivered with gusto. What blows my mind is that I think their entire recorded output is only 19 songs, most of which can be downloaded for free from their website. It also kills me that there are a couple youtube clips of the band playing live in Russia, one playing for an unenthusiastic crowd of what seems like less than 10 people and another playing at some sort of aloof dinner reception. In my mind, these guys should be rock stars.

5. OK Go & Bonerama - Rock 'N' Roll Suicide [originally by David Bowie]
I previously wrote this about this cover collaboration and I'm too lazy to attempt to put it better myself:

"The cover follows the same slow build progression of the original, gradually adding elements one by one. The original acoustic guitar intro is replaced by twinkling piano, Bonerama takes the barely-there horns of the original to bombastic new heights, and OK Go singer Damien Kulash does a phenomenal job expressively building up to the show-stopping howl of "YOU'RE NOT ALONE!" The vocals remind me a little of Paul McCartney's go-for-broke vocals on Oh! Darling, one of my fave Beatles songs that wikipedia surprisingly mentions was influenced by New Orleans rhythm and blues... coincidence?"

4. Bobby Darin - Lazy River [originally by Hoagy Carmichael]
Even before actually hearing this cover, I have a strange memory of borrowing a Bobby Darin compilation from the library and reading the liner notes which had an essay that more or less declared this as a two-and-a-half minute masterpiece. Whoever wrote that was absolutely right. Bobby Darin completely owns this song. The first version of this song I'd ever heard was actually by Rickie Lee Jones, which I had tracked down since Ben Folds randomly provided guest back-up vocals (not piano!).

3. Ben Jelen - Wicked Little Town [originally from Hedwig & The Angry Inch]
2. The Bens - Wicked Little Town (Tommy Gnosis Version) [originally from Hedwig & The Angry Inch]
The fact that slots #2 and #3 out of 101 songs are occupied by two versions of the same song (different lyrics) should indicate how much I love this song from the musical Hedwig & The Angry Inch composed by Stephen Trask. Four Bens, two Wicked Little Towns. Scottish artist Ben Jelen beautifully performs Wicked Little Town (the Hedwig version) and the formidable trio of Ben Kweller, Ben Lee, and Ben Folds do Wicked Little Town (the Tommy Gnosis version). The latter comes from the Hedwig tribute album Wig in a Box, which contained at least three other brilliant covers that I had to struggle to keep off this list.

1. Danny Michel - Young Americans [originally by David Bowie]
Surprise, surprise. This has come up multiple times in past posts as my favourite cover song of all-time. In fact, it's my most played song in iTunes, cover or not. I discovered Danny Michel, who became one of my favourite artists, via his album of Bowie covers Loving the Alien. It was this cover in particular that made me sit up and realize I needed to find out more about his original music. That is an unmistakable quality of a great cover: the "I need to hear more from this person" factor. I got to see Danny live for the first time in 2006 and he's somehow even more amazing live. I've seen him at least five times since and will again in just a couple weeks! David Bowie himself had this to say about Danny's cover of Young Americans:

"he's a great little mover. never seen anyone move quite like that. are his arms double jointed? the maracas are a beautiful thing, out of nowhere they come and the backup voices are really moving and intimate. this is a good, good cover.
db"

So there you have it, my 101 all-time favourite covers circa 2010! Any thoughts? Feel free to share your top three in the comments. I've got one last post up my sleeve for next week since there will be some blogworthy news from one of my favourite bands that will fittingly tie in with my blog goodbye. TTFN, ta ta for now!

Fong Songs 101 All-Time Covers: #15 to 11

2010-09-02T08:57:00.005-06:00

=============================================
Just joining us?
I'm counting down 101 of my all-time favourite covers before packing this blog away in the attic.
Read my countdown preamble here.
=============================================
Oddly enough, the logo and goofy tagline has never changed since day one! My awesome friends made this shirt for my birthday one year. If I remember correctly, the blog had not even reached its first anniversary.

CanConCovers
From the get-go I've been inclined, if not unofficially mandated, to provide a Canadian bias to my blog coverage. As a Canadian blogger, I'm more than happy to draw attention to and trumpet homegrown talent (Danny Michel!) while apologizing for others (Nickelback). Canadian Content (AKA CanCon) is a unavoidable part of the Canadian radio and television landscape, requiring minimum percentages of Canadian produced content to air. Sometimes we grumble about it (i.e. lots of Loverboy airplay), but when done right it can be used to celebrate unheralded talent and hey, that's sort of what music blogging is all about, eh? I even started an irregularly updated and eventually abandoned feature called Canadian Cover Content to discuss cover songs of and/or by Canadian artists. Here are five of my favourite CanConCovers.

15. Captain Tractor - London Calling [originally by The Clash]
Hometown Edmonton boys Captain Tractor were great songwriters and impeccable musicians that were vastly underrated, except perhaps locally. Their 1999 album Celebrity Traffic Jam marks the first and only time my name shows up in an album's liner notes, which I think just happened for pre-ordering the disc (it was also my birthday present!).

14. The Bicycles - Cuddly Toy [originally by Harry Nilsson]
Toronto indie-rock band The Bicycles specialized in wonderful originals inspired by the bubblegum pop of yesteryear, but their debut The Good, The Bad and the Cuddly also featured this cover that was originally written by Nilsson for The Monkees. I did not realize until just now that five of the songs on that album including this one were recorded with Robert Sledge (of Ben Folds Five) in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

13. Tok Tok Tok - The Weight [originally by The Band]
The Weight has been covered umpteen times and most artists don't really mess with it, but this groovy genre-bustin' cover by "acoustic soul" band Tok Tok Tok will leave you tapping your toes all day long.

12. Danny Michel - Gloomy Sunday [originally by Rezső Seress]
Gloomy Sunday is the so-called "Hungarian suicide song" that, according to urban legend, was banned from radio play after leading to a series of suicides. The lyrics tell of the author's recently deceased love ("little white flowers will never awaken you") and his desire to join her ("my heart and I have decided to end it all"). For the English version, most famously performed by Billie Holiday, a vaguely happy ending was tacked on to the otherwise depressing lyrics, revealing it was all a bad dream. More likely a marketing ploy than any real suicide epidemic, the legend was further enhanced by the fact that the original composer Rezső Seress did in fact commit suicide. I never did get around to writing and posting my planned "Gloomy Sunday in Canada" feature with CanConCovers of this song, but it was all an elaborate ruse to post this cover by Danny Michel anyway. Mind you, a remix by Winnipeg electronic artist Venetian Snares titled Öngyilkos Vasárnap is definitely worth seeking out.

11. Serena Ryder - It Doesn't Matter Anymore [originally by Paul Anka; recorded by Buddy Holly]
This piano/organ/vocal cover by Ontario singer Serena Ryder comes from If Your Memory Serves You Well, her cover album of songs penned by Canadian songwriters, in this case Paul Anka. It's a dramatic change from the upbeat original as performed by Buddy Holly in 1958 and is probably more indebted to Linda Ronstadt's country rendition from 1975.

Fong Songs 101 countdown concludes tomorrow with the coveted Top 10!

Fong Songs 101 All-Time Covers: #19 to 16

2010-09-01T09:06:00.007-06:00

=============================================
Just joining us?
I'm counting down 101 of my all-time favourite covers before packing this blog away in the attic.
Read my countdown preamble here.
=============================================
19. Ben Folds - Songs of Love [originally by The Divine Comedy]
As you all probably know, I'm a sucker for all things Ben Folds does. My only problem was choosing from a ton of covers both solo and with Ben Folds Five, but I decided to go with this unheralded cover from Ben's Sunny 16 EP. A different mix also appears on the Supersunnyspeedgraphic compilation disc.

18. Bob Seger - Love the One You're With [originally by Stephen Stills]
I've never been entirely clear on the intended meaning of this song. On one hand, it can be viewed as advice to get over your recent heartbreak and "love the one you're with". It can also sounds like it's celebrating adultery: if you're on the road, party on. I don't really know what a "rose in a fisted glove" has to do with either interpretation. From Bob Seger's Smokin' O.P.'s album of almost all covers, this really is a smokin' version.

17. Ella Fitzgerald - Sunshine of Your Love [originally by Cream]
This is me and my weakness for horn sections again. The big band takes the familiar riff and give it some brassy oomph. Ella's magnificent wails complete the song's transformation from psychedelic rock to a real swinger.

16. The Living End - Tainted Love [originally by Gloria Jones]
Tainted Love is probably more known for Soft Cell's 80s reinvention than Gloria Jones' soul original, but by far my favourite all-time version is from Aussie rockers The Living End. Chris Cheney's guitar solo is absolutely killer. This is one of several examples of when a particular cover song inspired me to delve deeper into an artist's catalogue. The Living End eventually became one of my favourite bands.

Tomorrow the Fong Songs 101 countdown continues with some good ol' Canadian Content. We're almost at the Top 10!

Fong Songs 101 All-Time Covers: #24 to 20

2010-08-31T08:55:00.006-06:00

=============================================
Just joining us?
I'm counting down 101 of my all-time favourite covers before packing this blog away in the attic.
Read my countdown preamble here.
=============================================
Led Zeppelin
When covering Zeppelin, it's best to stray far from the original since any carbon copy cover just comes off as pathetic and wanky, particularly if you're a guitarist attempting to imitate Jimmy Page. Seriously, why bother?

24. Goldbug - Whole Lotta Love [originally by Led Zeppelin]
This bizarro electro dance version actually hit the #3 spot on the UK charts for a few weeks in 1996. I used to think it sampled part of the instrumental break from the Richard Harris rendition of MacArthur Park, but I've since learned it's actually the theme song from the UK cinema advertising company Pearl & Dean. Suspiciously, MacArthur Park and the remarkably similar sounding theme song (known as Asteroid by composer Pete Moore) were both released in 1968... but my whirlwind research cannot determine which came first.

23. Dread Zeppelin - Viva Las Vegas [originally performed by Elvis Presley]
Dread Zeppelin is my favourite reggae Zeppelin tribute band with an Elvis impersonator for a lead singer and hey, it's Robert Plant's too. You wouldn't think there's anything subtle about this band, but they have a way of weaving in Page's riffs into even non-Zeppelin covers that are easy to miss if you're not paying close attention. This Elvis/Custard Pie/Godzilla mash-up is my favourite. As is (sadly) the case with many tribute bands, they've actually been active a lot longer than the band they're paying tribute to. Since 1989 and they're still performing!

22. Rasputina - Rock and Roll [originally by Led Zeppelin]
Rasputina's gothic cello makeover of Rock & Roll. Gothic Cello Makeover, need I say more?

21. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On) [originally by The Everly Brothers]
The 2007 Led Zeppelin reunion was somehow both unlikely yet inevitable. Naturally, everyone demanded if not expected a follow-up tour, but guess what? Robert Plant done moved on. His collaboration with Alison Krauss Raising Sand went five for five at last year's Grammys including Album of the Year and his new album Band of Joy due in a couple weeks makes it clear that he's not done making new and exciting music... with an album full of covers!

20. Led Zeppelin - Hello Mary Lou [originally performed by Ricky Nelson]
During their epic live shows, Whole Lotta Love would often be used as a jumping off point for a set of R&B and blues covers. This treat comes from the How the West Was Won live album, culled from two 1972 California gigs, but you gotta wonder what other pristine goodies Jimmy Page has in his recording vault that will never be released.

Tomorrow the Fong Songs 101 countdown continues with some Songs of Love.

Fong Songs 101 All-Time Covers: #28 to 25

2010-08-30T09:02:00.005-06:00

Fong Songs 101 All-Time Covers: #35 to 29

2010-08-27T08:45:00.008-06:00

"Eschewing the trademark rhythm guitar opening, it starts off with just the drums, before the main chords are dramatically pounded out on a piano. Then, enter the fuzz. Warbling, wah wah, fuzzy guitars featuring a blistering Jimi-like lead by Parliament's Eddie Hazel. And Ruth Copeland's soulful wails of War! Children! Rape! Murder! cement this as the winning cover. Halfway through, the drums crawl to a stop, replaced by a slow organ with whispered vocals of the chorus, which swell to a chaotic climax as the band bursts back in and "love's just a kiss away" is repeatedly chanted like it's the end of the world."

Yes, that was my favourite Gimme Shelter cover for a long time, but it was eventually eclipsed by the next cover...

30. Merry Clayton - Gimme Shelter [originally by The Rolling Stones]
Everyone's heard Merry Clayton's blistering vocals opposite Mick on The Rolling Stones' original Gimme Shelter, but she doesn't get nearly the recognition she deserves. A year after the original, Clayton released her own solo version, which starts off similarly before the awesome awesome horn section comes in (and you know I love the horns). She actually recorded the original version of The Shoop Shoop Song, remarkably when she was just fifteen years old. Covers-wise, Clayton also does an incredible Bridge Over Troubled Water and a stunning version of Neil Young's Southern Man. Oddly enough, she sang back up both Neil's self-titled debut AND Lynyrd Skynyrd's Sweet Home Alabama. She was born with an incredible voice and it's a wonder she never became a superstar, but luckily I'm not the only one rooting for her comeback... Aeroplane, a Belgian/Italian DJ duo that is now simply an Italian solo act after an amicable split, tracked down Merry Clayton to provide her still wicked vocals on a track called I Don't Feel. The debut album We Can't Fly is due in September.

29. RLM & Katsuhiko Sakamoto & Ikuko Harada - 19th Nervous Breakdown [originally by The Rolling Stones]
This jazz trio + flute cover comes from that same Japanese Stones tribute as Choro Azul's Paint It Black. With a near incomprehensible accent, the lead singer here sounds like he learned the song phonetically (perhaps with the wrong lyrics sheet to boot) but bonus points for unabashed enthusiasm!

Taking a break this weekend to visit the Island. The Fong Songs 101 countdown will continue on Monday with (count 'em) 1, 2, 3, 4 numbered-themed covers.

Fong Songs 101 All-Time Covers: #42 to 36

2010-08-26T11:34:00.001-06:00

Fong Songs 101 All-Time Covers: #49 to 43

2010-08-25T08:52:00.011-06:00

=============================================
Just joining us?
I'm counting down 101 of my all-time favourite covers before packing this blog away in the attic.
Read my countdown preamble here.
=============================================
The White Stripes Set
Right from post #1, The White Stripes (and Jack White's musical endeavours in general) have been featured on Fong Songs more than any other single act. Regular readers must be sick of it. They were more or less my favourite band already, but seeing them live on back-to-back nights of their Get Behind Me Satan tour here in Vancouver cemented the deal. My White Stripes fever hit its peak in 2007 when they announced they would be touring every province and territory in Canada. I got to stand an arm's length away from Jack on the other side of his keyboard at a secret show in Edmonton. Then two of my friends and I flew to the Maritimes for the ultimate rock vacation, following Jack & Meg to Moncton, Charlottetown, Halifax, and finally Glace Bay for their epic 10th Anniversary show. It's only fitting a small portion of this list is dedicated to them.

49. Nostalgia 77 - Seven Nation Army (feat. Alice Russell) [originally by The White Stripes]
By far this is the most covered White Stripes song, though most coverers make you wonder they bothered. However, one of the earliest covers remains a clear winner with a heavy bass groove, some horns, and electric vocals from Alice Russell who've I've been fortunate to catch twice live and yes, this was one of the last songs played at each show.

48. Chris Thile - Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground [originally by The White Stripes]
Former Nickel Creek member and mandolin extraordinaire Chris Thile took Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground and completely made it his own with a killer bluegrass arrangement. It's hard to imagine, but I almost associate this more with Thile than the White Stripes at this point. Almost. I know Thile still plays this frequently at live shows with his current outfit Punch Brothers.

47. The White Stripes - I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself [originally by Burt Bacharach and Hal David]
The White Stripes canon is full of great covers from Jack's anguished update of Dolly Parton's Jolene to the blazing mariachi rock of Conquest as made famous by Patti Page (I've yet to actually track down the original Corky Robbins version). I also love when they dabble in their folk blues roots with Your Southern Can is Mine or Lord, Send Me an Angel. Then there are those handful of Bob Dylan covers they do. Or I could gone a little off the map with their unlikely live performance of Mr. Cellophane from Chicago with Jack seemingly channeling a carnival barker. With so many great covers to choose from, I just didn't know what to do with myself... and the answer revealed itself. A modern classic.

Bowie/Reed
46. David Bowie - White Light/White Heat [originally by The Velvet Underground]
My most played Bowie track is the Lou Reed influenced Queen Bitch and I also love Bowie's covers of The Velvet Underground, so how is it that I've managed to avoid listening to most Lou Reed and/or Velvet Underground music outside of a handful of their most popular songs? It's a terrible oversight that needs to be rectified someday.

45. The Futureheads - Let's Dance [originally by David Bowie]
I was never particularly taken with the original until I got seriously hooked on this cover. It's not all that dramatically different, but to me it revealed something I had initially found lacking in the original and now I actually do love the original. Go figure.

44. David Bowie - I'm Waiting For the Man (Live) [originally by The Velvet Underground]
I've been blown away by this version ever since first hearing it on the Almost Famous soundtrack.

43. The Celibate Rifles - I'm Waiting for the Man [originally by The Velvet Underground]
This frenetic cover was released by Aussie punk band The Celibate Rifles in 1984. I can't find any evidence that supports this, but the drumming and guitar playing in this song are, in my mind, a direct precursor to Supergrass. I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to drumming, but I love this style which seems to cram in as many extra drumbeats as possible, whenever possible.

Tomorrow on the Fong Songs 101 countdown I'll be talking about the weather forecast and the four elements.

Fong Songs 101 All-Time Covers: #55 to 50

2010-08-24T08:59:00.007-06:00

=============================================
Just joining us?
I'm counting down 101 of my all-time favourite covers before packing this blog away in the attic.
Read my countdown preamble here.
=============================================
Whoops, yesterday's post was accidentally numbered "#65 to 52", but I jumped the gun and we're just getting to #55 today! Gee, can you tell I'm doing these in the middle of the night?

Alt Rock
55. The Polyphonic Spree - Lithium [originally by Nirvana]
I'm a big fan of The Polyphonic Spree and the ragtag choir/orchestra cult-like thing they've got going on. I'm still kicking myself for the time I skipped out David Bowie's 2004 show in Edmonton because I was worried that he would mostly play his new stuff (stupid assumption) and I was weary of $45 cheap seats (now $90 seems to be a standard "cheap seat" these days). I also couldn't convince anyone else to come with me and was not in the habit of concerting solo (yet). So I was crushed when I read the next day that he indeed played all his classics and The Polyphonic Spree were his opening act! Sadly I don't think Bowie has toured since and The Polyphonic Spree never ever came back to town. That lingering regret has more or less egged on on a lot of my concert-going ever since.

54. Hayseed Dixie - Holiday [originally by Green Day]
After starting their novelty career with a bluegrass tribute to their namesake AC/DC, the band expanded their repertoire to other classic rock anthems, a full album tribute to Kiss, and a handful of surprising cover choices like Outkast, Scissor Sisters, and Franz Ferdinand. This year saw their 8th full-length studio album Killer Grass, which actually followed an album of originals pointedly titled No Covers. My absolute favourite is their cover of Green Day's Holiday, which is geuninely great beyond its novelty value.

53. Gina Jeffreys - Creep [originally by Radiohead]
Gina Jeffreys is an Australian country singer who performed this beautiful acoustic Radiohead cover on Andrew Denton's Musical Challenge, an Aussie radio show that challenged artists to perform covers in a style that differed from their own. Creep has been covered so frequently it's practically a cover cliché, but I can always revisit this cover and not grow tired of it.

The TV Set
52. Lady & Bird - Suicide is Painless [originally by Johnny Mandel and Mike Altman]
Also known as the Theme from M*A*S*H from the film and subsequent TV series, Suicide is Painless was co-written by Robert Altman's son who was a teenager at the time and ultimately earned more from the song royalties than his dad did for directing the movie! There are several covers, with and without lyrics, but I'm particularly fond of this understated, poignant take from Lady & Bird.

51. The Blind Boys of Alabama - Way Down in the Hole [originally by Tom Waits]
This song is synonymous with The Wire, which used the original and four covers as its theme song for each of its five seasons. And is it the so-called greatest show in the history of the medium? After plowing through the whole show over a sleep-deprived month, I have a hard time coming up with worthy counter-examples. This phenomenal blues cover by The Blind Boys of Alabama is probably my favourite of a strong batch of covers that included The Neville Brothers, DoMaJe, and Steve Earle, who also had a small role in the series.

50. Deluxx Folk Implosion - I'm Just a Bill [originally written by Dave Frishberg; performed by Jack Sheldon]
Technically Schoolhouse Rock is before my time, though I'm familiar with many of the tunes via (surprise!) cover songs. It also shouldn't be that surprising that my first exposure to Schoolhouse Rock was through The Simpsons with their parody I'm an Amendment to Be which actually featured the original "Bill", Jack Sheldon. From the great 1996 Schoolhouse Rocks! Rocks tribute album, this irreverent but quirkily faithful cover by Lou Barlow's Deluxx Folk Implosion is absolutely priceless. Based on playcounts, this is my 19th most played cover and 66th most played song overall. So really this should be higher on the list, but like I said the rankings don't really matter until around the top 10.

Halfway there folks! Tomorrow the Fong Songs 101 countdown continues with Bowie! Reed! The White Stripes!

Fong Songs 101 All-Time Covers: #61 to 56

2010-08-23T08:28:00.007-06:00

=============================================
Just joining us?
I'm counting down 101 of my all-time favourite covers before packing this blog away in the attic.
Read my countdown preamble here.
=============================================
The Dap-Kings Set
61. Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) [originally by Mickey Newbury]
This of one of several instances where my introduction to what would become one of my favourite artists was through a cover song. Back in 2007, I headed down on a bus from Edmonton to check out the Calgary Folk Festival for the first time, mainly because the newly reunited Squirrel Nut Zippers were on the bill, but I was also intrigued because the festival organizers had also booked Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings. At the time I knew almost nothing about the band, but I recognized their name from their cover of Just Dropped In which, oddly enough, I had tracked down after becoming a fan of Supergrass's cover of the same song. Yes, cover love begetting further cover love. I was a full-fledged fan by the end of the festival, the last day of which they jammed with Bettye Lavette on a side stage before killing it on the Main stage. I've seen them at every opportunity I get (three more times) and they simply put on one of the best live shows you'll ever see.

60. Mark Ronson - Oh My God (featuring Lily Allen) [originally by Kaiser Chiefs]
I soon became acquainted with the Dap-Kings brief history and found out that not only did they provide horn backing on Amy Winehouse's Back to Black album, but they also collaborated with Mark Ronson on his Version cover album, which was quickly becoming my favourite cover album of '07. Even now, it's among my favourite all-time cover albums. I've become hyper-aware that I'm predisposed to liking almost any cover song that adds a horn section, so Mark Ronson's style of covers are right up my alley. Also, his "re-version" of Bob Dylan's Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine) is brilliant and would be high on this list if it technically wasn't a remix.

59. Mark Ronson - Just (featuring Alex Greenwald & Sam Farrar of Phantom Planet) [originally by Radiohead]
A year before his Version even hit stores, Mark Ronson popped up on everyone's radar in the blogosphere with his masterful horn-infused reworking of Radiohead's Just for the tribute album Exit Music: Songs with Radio Heads. Once I heard he was working on a full cover album, it became one of my most anticipated releases. When Version finally did come out, it delivered on the promise of even more Ronsonized covers.

The Motown Set
58. The Flying Lizards - Money (That's What I Want) [originally by Barrett Strong]
I was surprised to learn this oddball cover was released in 1979 since it sounds like the sort of avant-garde indie cover that could have easily come out sometime in the past 10 years. Barrett Strong's original version was the very first hit for Berry Gordy Jr.'s Tamla Records in 1959, an early incarnation of Motown Records.

57. Gladys Knight & The Pips - I Heard It Through the Grapevine [originally by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong]
The timeline of the recording and release of this song is rather confusing. It was first recorded by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles but this original version was vetoed by Berry Gordy Jr. and remained unreleased until many years later on a Motown compilation. Marvin Gaye recorded it next, but this was also not released immediately as apparently Gordy was apparently still unimpressed. Gladys Knight & The Pips recorded their version, which had been retooled in the style of Aretha Franklin's Respect (of course, itself a cover) and finally released as a single in September 1967. Then Berry reluctantly agreed to release Gaye's version a year later and it was, of course, a huge success and became Gaye's signature tune. Which brings us to a covers dilemma: which song is the "original"? I don't really have a proper answer to that, but in my gut this is a cover and it's my list, so there.

56. Ellen McIlwaine - Higher Ground [originally by Stevie Wonder]
I first discovered this on the compilation A Break From the Norm, which collected the original song sources that were sampled by Fatboy Slim (he used this in Song for Lindy). It's a unique tour-de-force of a cover by Ellen McIlwaine who plays a mean slide guitar and has a soulful expressive voice, which I've been privileged to witness live in concert twice. She has a playing and singing style that's all her own. This is one of the rare covers in my book that comes close to topping the original.

Tomorrow the Fong Songs 101 countdown continues with some Alt Rock and some TV Themes.

Fong Songs 101 All-Time Covers: #65 to 62

2010-08-22T08:26:00.005-06:00

Fong Songs 101 All-Time Covers: #71 to 66

2010-08-21T08:55:00.006-06:00

=============================================
Just joining us?
I'm counting down 101 of my all-time favourite covers before packing this blog away in the attic.
Read my countdown preamble here.
=============================================
Just Duet
71. Tom Jones & Stereophonics - Mama Told Me Not to Come [originally written by Randy Newman]
Clearly taking a cue from Three Dog Night's famous cover, this is my favourite cut from Tom Jones' 1999 (nearly) all-covers album Reload, which more or less resurrected his career.

70. Daryl Hall & KT Tunstall - Something to Talk About [originally recorded by Bonnie Raitt]
Speaking of career resurrections, Daryl Hall seems to have undergone a revival of his own in the past 5 years with his excellent Live at Daryl's House webcast-- free and cover -friendly! A couple Hall & Oates tribute albums have recently popped up, Daryl randomly showed up on an episode of Flight of the Conchords, and their You Make My Dreams provided the soundtrack to a great fantasy dance sequence in last year's (500) Days of Summer. This loose and fun cover is from the KT Tunstall episode of Live at Daryl's House. If you've never watched it, it's a lot of fun and he has one of the most talented backing bands I've ever heard. For the record, this song was written by Canadian Shirley Eikhard who would later record her own version on her album Country.

69. William Shatner - Common People (feat. Joe Jackson) [originally by Pulp]
A surprising cover that takes the spoken word magic of William Shatner, complements it with an inspired guest vocals from Joe Jackson, and throws in a choir and almost the kitchen sink. It's audacious, it's irreverent, but not a joke (well, not entirely) and this can be said of Shatner's entire solo album Has Been. It helps to have a producer like Ben Folds who frequently straddles the line between irreverence and genuine pathos. And yes I know I have a Ben Folds bias.

Instrumentals
I'll let these ones speak for themselves. It's late and I'm lazy.

68. The Bad Plus - Tom Sawyer [originally by Rush]
67. Speak Low - Thriller [originally by Michael Jackson]
66. Dorothy Ashby - The Windmills of Your Mind [originally performed by Noel Harrison]

Tomorrow the Fong Songs 101 countdown continues with some U2, Frankie Valli, and the cover that bridges them both.

Fong Songs 101 All-Time Covers: #77 to 72

2010-08-20T08:06:00.008-06:00

=============================================
Just joining us?
I'm counting down 101 of my all-time favourite covers before packing this blog away in the attic.
Read my countdown preamble here.
=============================================
Playing with Shadows
77. Labelle - Moon Shadow [originally by Cat Stevens]
From their 1972 album Moon Shadow, Labelle completely make this song their own, transforming Cat Stevens' peaceful folk ballad into a vivacious soul number with a healthy dose of funk. This is actually a shortened version of the album edit, which stretches the track to over 9 minutes by adding (unnecessarily I think) a 5 minute slow groove coda.

76. The Shins - We Will Become Silhouettes [originally by The Postal Service]
The original electropop version of this song by The Postal Service (i.e. Jimmy Tamborello and Ben Gibbard) is excellent in its own right, a bittersweet song of loneliness in a post-apocalyptic world. I prefer to interpret the lyrics quite literally rather than a metaphor for a broken relationship, but in any case The Shins' warm acoustic cover is a joy to listen to, providing an even more dramatic contrast to the melancholy lyrics than the original. This cover was actually included on The Postal Service's single for Such Great Heights.

75. Dick Brave & The Backbeats - Black or White [originally by Michael Jackson]
Dick Brave & The Backbeats only put out one album, a collection of rockabilly covers that included Red Hot Chili Peppers, Avril Lavigne, Eddie Cochran, Pink, and Aerosmith. Far and away the two best covers of the album are a toe-tappin' reworking of George Michael's Freedom and this lively update of Michael Jackson's 1991 hit.

From the Wonderful World of Disney Covers
The realm of Disney covers is wide and wonderful, which is why we're lucky to have Kurtis and his Covering the Mouse to help highlight the best (and sometimes worst) of them. I nearly forgot that I first got an e-mail from Kurtis just over three years ago inquiring about some Disney cover songs. This led to a long e-mail conversation over the next few months swapping Disney covers and discussing an idea he was toying with: an all-Disney cover blog. Soon this would eventually evolve into Covering the Mouse with me providing sagely advice as a veteran (ha ha) two-year blogger. I can't believe at one point I actually suggested expanding the scope to include all cartoon covers, thinking it would help extend the lifespan of his blog. Now it's been three years and I realize there's no danger of Kurtis running out of Disney covers anytime soon! As one of my favourite subgenres of covers, I'm more than happy to chip in every now and then with some of my favourites, so I'll continue to do so in my monthly guest post over there.

74. Devo 2.0 - Monkey's Uncle [originally performed by Annette Funicello and the Beach Boys]
The first time I heard this while randomly shuffling my iPod I didn't even know it was a cover, but I resisted skipping long enough to get hooked on its nutty lyrics and unusual electro-pop rock arrangement. I soon found out it was Devo 2.0, a Disney kids reincarnation of Devo that actually featured the original performers. They produced one album of revamped Devo covers that flopped and this cover for a Disneymania compilation. I'd never heard of the original song or even the movie it was originated from, 1965's The Monkey's Uncle. I was immediately fascinated since it was originally performed by Annette Funicello and the Beach Boys over the film's opening credits (watch it here!). It was also written by the Sherman Brothers who are actually my favourite Disney-associated songwriters, notably writing songs for Mary Poppins, Winnie the Pooh, The Jungle Book, Disneyland, and so much more.

73. Daniel Bedingfield - A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes [originally performed by Ilene Woods in Cinderella]
This starts off as a dreamy ballad, then flips into a snappy big band number and I do dig when covers get the big band treatment. Along these same lines, I'll actually be going to see Michael Bublé tonight for the first time! The two previous times I've tried to go have been sold out, but for a hometown show I expect it to be pretty awesome.

72. Vika, Linda & Siniva Bull - The Bare Necessities [originally performed by Phil Harris and Bruce Reitherman]
Speaking of the Sherman Brothers, they were brought in to redo the soundtrack to The Jungle Book after original songwriter Terry Gilkyson's songs were deemed "too dark", but Gilkyson's now-classic The Bare Necessities was retained and went on to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Song. Vika and Linda Bull are a sister duo from Australia and this particular cover comes from a rare album I stumbled across in Hong Kong called Duets: A Family Celebration that featured Australian artists covering Disney songs with their siblings, parents, or children. As I just found out, this thing is so rare that I can barely find much information on it other than a few posts (including my own) on Covering the Mouse. I can't even find the CD to consult the liner notes, so I'm not even entirely sure what relation "Siniva" is to the sisters or if that's even the proper name since I specifically recall that the CD designers had ill-advisedly chosen a nearly illegible cursive font that made tagging the MP3s difficult and potentially erroneous. In any case, this has become my all-time favourite Disney cover song with its unique arrangement and incredible singing.

Tomorrow the Fong Songs 101 countdown continues with some duets and some instrumental covers.

Fong Songs 101 All-Time Covers: #82 to 78

2010-08-19T08:03:00.004-06:00

Fong Songs 101 All-Time Covers: #88 to 83

2010-08-18T08:30:00.008-06:00

=============================================
Just joining us?
I'm counting down 101 of my all-time favourite covers before packing this blog away in the attic.
Read my countdown preamble here.
=============================================
Swedish Invasion
88. The Flu - Hate to Say I Told you So [originally by The Hives]
What sounds like a window breaking kicks off this audacious cover with multi-part harmony and a hoedown bassline. At first it's a hilarious context shifting variation on The Hives hit, but by the midpoint I always want to join in on the handclaps, sing along with the climactic harmonized vocal arpeggio right out of Twist & Shout, and folk rock out like there's no tomorrow. I don't know if "harmonized vocal arpeggio" is a proper term, but you know what I'm talking about, right? See also: intro to Bowie's Let's Dance.

87. Love is All - I Ran [originally by A Flock of Seagulls]
With wailing child-like vocals, splashes of saxomaphone, and idiosyncratic drumming, this fun and noisy take by Love is All (from Gothenburg, Sweden) made me completely forget the original, perhaps that's a good thing anyway. They also remind me of a defunct San Diego band I adore called Bunky.

86. Glow - Dancing Queen [originally by ABBA]
It's fun to play this for someone and see how long it take for them to identify the original. This is such a dramatic pop rock reinvention that unless they recognize the lyrics, it might not be until right before the chorus that they finally go "Ahhhhh!". This is from a German ABBA tribute album, aptly named A Tribute to ABBA. That might sound generic, but another cover from this album will grace this list a little later on.

Showtunes
The soundtracks to Les Misérables and The Phantom of the Opera were ingrained in my head from a fairly early age. I've seen them each about three times and have listened to both soundtracks countless times. There of plenty of Phantom covers though sadly very few Les Miz covers (excluding I Dreamed a Dream). Although Me First & The Gimme Gimmes have a full album of showtune covers (Are a Drag), genre busting covers of any Broadway musical number are somewhat hard to come by. The next are a couple of my favourites while the last one's a bit of a cheat.

85. Nightwish - The Phantom of The Opera [originally from Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera]
The definitive metal cover of The Phantom of the Opera, Finnish power metal group Nightwish delivers a snarling, but faithful rendition with an impressive duet from Nightwish's original classically trained vocalist Tarja Turunen and the band's bassist Marco Hietala. By the way, look up Nightwish in the Urban Dictionary for a laugh.

84. Toy Dolls - Any Dream Will Do [originally from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat]
I've never been completely sold on Joseph, which I also saw when I was quite young. Some of the music is pretty catchy, but my overwhelming impression of the CD soundtrack (I'm probably wrong in retrospect) was that it sounded like one guy on a keyboard playing all the instruments. I'm a big fan of English punk band the Toy Dolls' cheeky rendition of Joseph's opening number complete with children's choir.

83. Jon Brion - Play the Game [originally by Queen]
Technically this is in the Queen musical We Will Rock You so it's getting lumped in here to help fill out the showtunes category. Jon Brion is a remarkable and severely underrated musician/composer/virtuoso. As a producer he's worked on albums for Fiona Apple, Kanyé West (Late Registration), Rufus Wainwright, and Aimee Mann among others. He composed the scores to P. T. Anderson's Hard Eight, Magnolia, and Punch-Drunk Love, not to mention Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. He's legendary in certain circles for his residency at L.A.'s Largo club where he'd play setlist-less shows of originals and covers shouted out from the audience, his knowledge of popular music history being so vast that it was a challenge to stump him. He still plays there semi-regularly and I'd love to visit Los Angeles just to see him perform (I've been to the Largo, but my trip didn't coincide with one of his shows). His solo output is limited to his 2001 indie release Meaningless, a long time bestseller on CD Baby, and a handful of guest appearances on compilation albums including Sing Hollies in Reverse and Killer Queen: A Tribute to Queen.

Tomorrow the Fong Songs 101 countdown continues with a quick trip through the 1980s.

Fong Songs 101 All-Time Covers: #95 to 89

2010-08-17T11:35:00.002-06:00

=============================================
Just joining us?
I'm counting down 101 of my all-time favourite covers before packing this blog away in the attic.
Read my countdown preamble here.
=============================================
It occurred to me that attentive regular readers will probably know or will at least be able to guess what's sitting at the top of this list. Oh well, hope the journey there is a little less predictable!

Super Mario Covers
The video game cover scene has exploded over the past ten or so years as generations of kids who grew up with Super Mario Bros and other video soundtracks pervading their consciousness went on to become musicians and form bands. There are video game cover bands such as The Minibosses, The Advantage, and The OneUps, just to name a few. A integral role of the proliferation of video game covers has been OverClocked ReMix, which has long been the premier site for video game covers and remixes.

95. The OneUps - Super Mario's Sleigh Ride [originally by Koji Kondo; Sleigh Ride by Leroy Anderson]
This brilliant cover seamlessly weaves Super Mario musical cues with Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride with few other Christmas classics sprinkled in. I love how you could get away with throwing this on at a Christmas party where it can pass for legitimate Christmas music while only a small subsection of the room might catch on to its Koji Kondo roots.

94. Estradasphere - Super Mario Bros. 2 SuperBuckJazz [originally by Koji Kondo]
This was probably the first video game cover I ever heard that really blew me away with its impeccable musicianship and creative jazz arrangement.

93. Retro Remix Revue - Super Mario World - Overworld BGM, Ending [originally by Koji Kondo]
Retro Remix Revue is a project by Davis Jones and Blaine McGurty that is "solely dedicated to arranging and remixing classic video game music with great musicianship and quality engineering". They've released two albums, Retro Remix Revue Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, each containing a phenomenal jazz trio arrangement of Mario music. While the rest of the songs on the albums are a grab bag of styles, unfortunately nothing comes close to the greatness of these covers that play the Mario themes like they're jazz standards. Really, there should be an entire album of these! I had this on at work one time and my manager (who in his spare time happens to be gypsy jazz guitarist a la Django Reinhardt) walked by and exclaimed something along the lines of "Oh yeah! Now THAT'S music!". I nodded in agreement but neglected to ask if he was a fan of Super Mario World for the Super Nintendo.

Rock and/or Roll
92. AC/DC - Baby Please Don't Go [originally by Big Joe Williams]
This blistering Bon Scott-era version of Baby Please Don't Go is probably my favourite version of the song. Well, besides Them. Sorry Aerosmith.

91. Jazz.k.lipa - Purple Haze [originally by Jimi Hendrix]
The first time I heard this I thought it was a brilliant infusion of James Brown's soul into Jimi's original Purple Haze, but it turns out it's actually a remix of a great cover by Johnny Jones and The King Casuals. In fact, Jimi Hendrix was in fact a one-time member of The King Casuals before going solo. The band recorded this cover of their former member in 1968, one year after Purple Haze was originally released. Although it's already a great cover in its own right, I really dig the beats underlying the remix.

90. Lulu Hughes - Time [originally by Pink Floyd]
I first heard Québec singer Lulu Hughes' stunning pipes on this electro tinged cover from the generic sounding (but quite good) Pink Floyd Redux, a collection of Pink Floyd covers by Canadian female artists including Sarah Slean and Pascale Picard. Lulu Hughes also contributes her wails to The Great Gig in the Sky and, on her own self-titled debut, a cover of The Beatles' Helter Skelter. Just a couple weeks ago while at the movie theatre, they actually showed a short interview with Lulu Hughes in conjunction with her new album Lulu Hughes & The Montréal All City Big Band, one of the few times I've actually perked up during the pre-show ads and videos. The new album features a mix of big band originals and covers including Whole Lotta Love, Respect, God Put a Smile Upon Your Face, and Welcome to My Nightmare!

89. The Beatles - Rock and Roll Music [originally by Chuck Berry]
As I've mentioned a couple times, Beatles for Sale is my favourite Beatles album. It was probably the first full Beatles album I ever heard and definitely the first I repeatedly played as a kid. If memory serves, it was the second CD our family ever bought (somewhat ironically, our first CD was a 3-inch Chuck Berry disc) at the defunct Sam the Record Man on Yonge Street in Toronto. Of the six covers on Beatles for Sale, it was between posting this one or Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey Hey, but this one won out. After all, it really does "gotta be rock and roll music if you wanna dance with me". I was definitely an unconscious cover lover at an early age!

Tomorrow the Fong Songs 101 countdown continues with a Swedish Invasion and some showtunes!

Fong Songs 101 All-Time Covers: #101 to 96

2010-08-16T08:26:00.003-06:00

As I mentioned last week, starting today I will posting every day as a last grand gesture before Fong Songs goes into hibernation, counting down my 100 all-time favourite cover songs. Make that 101. I went up and down this list and could just not make that last cut. It goes without saying that this will be a very personal list. There will be no covers of Hallelujah of any kind and no Hurt from Johnny Cash. Also, unless I am a huge fan of that particular cover there will be no historically significant or other chart-topping covers such as Jimi's All Along the Watchtower, Aretha Franklin's Respect, or Soft Cell's Tainted Love. Sorry, but there are plenty of other lists out there that cover that well-trodden territory. I should mention however that a different cover of Tainted Love did indeed make the list...

The process was unscientific and unwieldy. I started with a list of 4 and 5 star cover songs in iTunes and started whittling the list down methodically, factoring in playcounts and often using the criteria of "how likely am I to skip this song when it comes up on shuffle?" when faced with some tough cuts. A few were chosen because I think they represent the best of what a cover song has to offer, although at the same time I find there is no clear formula or pattern to what constitutes a great cover. There is something about each of these covers that resonates with me in some way, be it nostalgia (misplaced or genuine), the head bob factor, or some intangible quality that is hard to pinpoint. You might call it heart, but even that might not even necessarily apply. You'll find the list runs the gamut from straight up punk cover to funky instrumentals to Russian folk a cappella. You may also notice that I am partial to adding a horn section to any cover song, so expect some Mark Ronson later on.

As I found out this weekend, putting 100 songs in any sort of meaningful ranking is a futile process. Other than the top ten (and even that's up for debate), every other cover song on the list can be shuffled around and re-arranged depending on my particular mood that day. Instead I've grouped covers #101 through #11 into "sets" of three or more songs using very loose headings such as 80s, Showtunes, or simply Duets. I ruled against including mash-ups and remixes, though in one instance I did allow a remix of a cover. I attempted to limit artists to one cover on the list unless I absolutely had to include it. I also attempted to choose only one cover to represent any given song, though again there are some exceptions to that as well.

With all of that in mind, I think we're ready to get started with...
FONG SONGS 101!

Animal Crackers
101. The Damned - White Rabbit [originally by Jefferson Airplane]
The first time I heard Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit, one of my immediate thoughts was that it practically demanded a cranked up rock cover. The Damned more or less fulfilled this pressing need for me.

100. Toad the Wet Sprocket - Hey Bulldog [originally by The Beatles]
Subbing in an electric guitar for the recurring piano riff and upping the tempo, Toad the Wet Sprocket bring a slight edge to the proceedings while remaining faithful to the original.

99. OK Go - Antmusic [originally by Adam Ant]
I love OK Go's lead singer Damian Kulash's delirious vocals on this cover, coupled with the loud electrorock vibe. While known primarily for their wildly creative internet music videos, I think their underrated for their dabblings in the world of cover songs that are generally a cut above your average band. From a live acoustic cover of ELO's Don't Bring Me Down to a wonderful take on The Zombies' This Will Be Our Year, their not shy about wearing their influences on their sleeves, most notably the Pixies who they've covered multiple times and whose Surfer Rosa gets name-checked in their hit Here It Goes Again. We'll be hearing from OK Go again (much) further down on this list...

Covers for She & Him
98. Me First & The Gimme Gimmes - Elenor [originally by The Turtles]
Me First & The Gimme Gimmes are like the Weird Al of punk covers: they do what they do so well, other punk covers are often misattributed to them by default. While their tongues are definitely planted firmly in cheek, they perfected the arrangement of pop punk covers, staying surprisingly faithful to unlikely sources (e.g. an album of R&B covers or broadway musicals) while making them their own as well. It helps that they've got the musical chops and cred with band members from NOFX, Foo Fighters, and Lagwagon among others. Lead vocalist Spike Slawson has a go-for-broke quality with an unexpectedly range and ability to sing songs from any genre . There are at least ten of their covers that could have easily made this list (I Only Want to Be With You or Save the Best For Last come to mind), but I chose their cover of The Turtles' Elenore (different spelling), which also incorporates the opening riff from The Clash's London Calling. The Gimme Gimmes are clever like that.

97. Tori Amos - Angie [originally by The Rolling Stones]
Tori Amos' austere piano and vocal covers boil down a song to its essence. Her 1992 Crucify EP featured similarly arranged covers of Nirvana and Led Zeppelin while her 2001 concept album Strange Little Girls takes it to the next level with 12 covers of songs originated written and performed by men. Her version of Alice Cooper's Only Women Bleed is also worth checking out. This is definitely not the last Stones cover that we'll hear before I'm done this list.

96. Crispin Glover - Ben [originally by Michael Jackson]
Crispin Glover is often labelled as a "weirdo" or at the very least an outsider for his eccentric film roles and a very notorious appearance on David Letterman. In conjunction with his title role in the remake of the killer rat horror movie Willard, how perfect then is it to have Glover cover Michael Jackson's ode to a rat? The original song was MJ's first solo hit outside The Jackson 5 and served as the theme song to Ben, the sequel to the original 1971 Willard. What makes this cover great even beyond simply the greatness of its bizarre concept is that Glover sings it faithfully with all the poignancy and sincerity it deserves as if he completely identifies with that special human/rat relationship.

Tomorrow the Fong Songs 101 countdown continues with covers of Hendrix and Pink Floyd, covers by AC/DC and The Beatles, plus a set devoted to everyone's favourite Italian plumbers.

Five Years

2010-08-11T09:58:00.001-06:00

Five years ago today, I started Fong Songs. I had moved to Vancouver for a two month stint taking a two month course in 2D animation and after happily reading other mp3 blogs figured "Hey, I can do that!" (isn't that how all blogs inevitably start). Now, full circle, I'm living in Vancouver semi-permanently and in less than a month I'll be going back to school for my master's degree. So yeah, the blog end is near, I face the final curtain, yada yada yada. I've done it my way, more or less.

The Polyphonic Spree - Five Years [originally by David Bowie]
Maxine Weldon - My Way [originally performed by Frank Sinatra; lyrics: Paul Anka]

While it may have started as a lark, Fong Songs has gone on much longer than I expected and it has resulted in many random fortuitous happenings and discoveries that I would have never imagined. I mean, to a narrow cross-section of the population I can brag how Neil Gaiman once pimped one of my blog posts in a tweet to Adam Savage! Even more astonishing to me was when I discovered that three months earlier I had also introduced Neil to the brilliant PoZitive Orchestra as evidenced by another of his tweets! Gasp, Neil, a closet Fong Songs reader?! Ha ha, I can dream. One of the coolest things that happened that I don't think I've ever mentioned was getting an awesome e-mail from Walt Kraemer, the composer of the Pinball Number Count, who thanked me for my post and actually asked me to help him in his quest to track down as many versions of the Pinball Number Count as possible! I got to participate in a cover songs round table discussion on the seminal Coverville and was even a cringy interviewee for an online radio station. I also performed my first (and last) Fong Songs interview with Max Vernon, one of those rare artist submissions I championed that I actually still listen to and follow. I got chummy with other cover bloggers to form a sort of covers community and they're still chugging along (you should have them all bookmarked already anyway, but be sure to visit their blogs on the sidebar to get your covers fix!). And then there was that awesome time I got DMCA takedown notices (9 total!). Yep, good times, bad times, you know I've had my share.

In light of the impending school workload and my steady decline in regular blogging anyway, I'll be going into a state of semi-retirement, though I won't completely close up shop. In the footsteps of many of my favourite bands, I guess you can say I'll be on an indefinite hiatus. I may drop in every now and then to check on the place, but don't hold your breath. I also plan to continue my monthly Disney cover post on Covering the Mouse (speaking of which, my latest guest post coincidentally went up today as part of Robin Hood Week).

So with less than a month left before sticking a fork in this blog, I thought I'd compile and post my 100 all-time favourite cover songs as my melodramatic swan song. Starting Monday (I may regret this) I'll post 5 songs a day for 20 days straight or until I get shut down by the powers that be. I'll lay down some judging criteria later once I come up with some. Stay tuned!

Christopher Lee - My Way [originally performed by Frank Sinatra; lyrics: Paul Anka]
Awesomely bizarre cover that will not make the final cut.

Breathe

2010-07-30T06:02:00.001-06:00

Been too busy, no substantial post forthcoming.
Off to the Island for the long weekend!

The Ten Pound Suit Band - Breathe [originally by The Prodigy]
The Prodigy by way of the Squirrel Nut Zippers.

Amanda Palmer covers The Double Rainbow Song all the way!

2010-07-21T08:21:00.003-06:00

Yesterday marked the release of Amanda Palmer's all-ukulele album of Radiohead covers, which you can buy directly from her bandcamp site for as little as 84 cents for the whole thing!

Tracklist:
1. Fake Plastic Trees
2. High and Dry
3. No Surprises
4. Idioteque
5. Creep (Hungover at Soundcheck in Berlin)
6. Exit Music (For a Film)
7. Creep (Live in Prague)

She also had a webcast release party during which performed a rousing piano cover of everyone's second favourite song about rainbows. Out of context you may be slightly baffled by this cover, so if you're not one of the 6 million folks (and counting) who has seen the original Double Rainbow video you really need to do so immediately. Once the original Double Rainbow video went viral less than 3 weeks ago following a Jimmy Kimmel tweet, The Gregory Brothers of Auto-Tune the News youtube fame quickly whipped up the instant classic Double Rainbow Song. If you can believe it, this song is actually available on iTunes and last week made it up to #74 on the singles charts with half the proceeds going right to Paul Vasquez AKA Yosemitebear AKA Hungry Bear AKA the Double Rainbow Guy who is also a former cage fighter. Got it? If you're still confused, Know Your Meme breaks it down in an easily digestible 3-minute video.

Amanda Palmer - Double Rainbow Song [originally by The Gregory Brothers featuring Yosemitebear]
"What does this mean?!?"

Covering CCR

2010-07-20T08:55:00.002-06:00

I've been on a Creedence Clearwater Revival kick lately and that's as good a reason as any to share some good CCR covers. This may also have something to do with the recent 12-pack of CCR DLC for Rock Band (oodles of fun!) that's also spurred on the clearly corresponding revival of Creedence on the ol' iPod.

Girl Trouble - Commotion [originally by Creedence Clearwater Revival]
Shortstack - Commotion [originally by Creedence Clearwater Revival]
One of my favourite all-time CCR songs, the killer guitar intro gets me every time.

Chris Farlowe - As Long As I Can See the Light [originally by Creedence Clearwater Revival]
A sweet bluesy take on another one of my CCR favourites.

Maxine Weldon - Lodi [originally by Creedence Clearwater Revival]
Steve introduced me to this horn-infused Lodi cover in a Cover Freak post a couple months ago. I dig it a lot and it's worth revisiting.

Chicory Tip - Lodi [originally by Creedence Clearwater Revival]
Another solid Lodi cover.

James Last - Proud Mary [originally by Creedence Clearwater Revival]
James Last covers always make me chuckle at first, then I inevitably get caught up in their relentlessly upbeat singing and big band arrangements. Cheesy but awesome.

Dread Zeppelin - Born on the Bayou [originally by Creedence Clearwater Revival]
From The Fun Sessions, a Dread Zeppelin album of (gasp!) non-Zeppelin classic rock covers... but, of course, this cover of Born on the Bayou is anchored on the riff from Led Zeppelin's In the Light.

The Living End - Lookin' Out My Back Door (Live) [originally by Creedence Clearwater Revival]
A truncated live cover from the 2001 Lowlands Festival in the Netherlands.

Roxy! Roller!

2010-07-08T11:01:00.002-06:00

Long before I learned about the long and storied history of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, I only knew "Sweeney Todd" as the glam rock band (from Vancouver, by the way) whose hit Roxy Roller is a staple of classic rock stations across Canada. From their self-titled debut album, the song went to #1 on the Canadian charts in 1976 and won a Juno for Single of the Year. Around that same time though, Sweeney Todd's lead singer Nick Gilder and guitarist Bruce McCulloch both left the band to pursue solo careers. In fact, Gilder would later win Junos for Single of the Year and Most Promising Male Vocalist in 1979. Meanwhile you might be surprised to find out who was recruited to replace Gilder as Sweeney Todd's new vocalist: a 16-year-old Bryan Adams! Fun fact: it was Bryan Adams who attended the Juno ceremonies in Gilder's place when Sweeney Todd actually won their Juno. The band recorded a second album If Wishes Were Horses with Adams before ultimately breaking up. Although it's not on the album, they also re-recorded Roxy Roller with Adams on vocals.

Sweeney Todd - Roxy Roller
Sweeney Todd - Roxy Roller (with Bryan Adams on vocals)
In between Gilder and Adams, Clark Perry had a short stint as lead vocalist. Of course, they re-recorded Roxy Roller with him too, though I couldn't track that down.

On Nick Gilder's 1977 solo debut You Know Who You Are, the record company included Roxy Roller on the US release, though whether it was re-recorded or not I can't tell since they sound exactly the same. But I'm curious if American listeners know Roxy Roller more as a "Nick Gilder" song rather than a "Sweeney Todd" song. I just noticed too that the recent soundtrack to The Runaways movie features Roxy Roller as the lead-off track, as performed by Nick Gilder...

Nick Gilder & Time Machine - Roxy Roller
Gilder did re-record Roxy Roller (with altered lyrics) for his 1999 album Longtime Coming.

Crash Kelly - Roxy Roller [originally by Sweeney Todd]

Suzi Quatro - Roxy Roller [originally by Sweeney Todd]

Jimmy Zee - Roxy Roller [originally by Sweeney Todd]
The best cover of this lot, Jimmy Zee switches gears and serves up some swaggering blues rock.

The 100th anniversary of the PNE (Pacific National Exhibition) is coming up here in Vancouver and Bryan Adams is kicking off the festivities with a Brian Wilson-less Beach Boys. Almost tempted to go.

Sodom - Kids Wanna Rock [originally by Bryan Adams]
This metal cover is good for a chuckle.

New Danny Michel album for Canada Day!

2010-07-01T11:51:00.002-06:00

Coinciding with Canada Day, Danny Michel's new album Sunset Sea is being released today! Available now from iTunes, Zunior.com, Maplemusic.com, or his website dannymichel.com where you can also check out an album sampler or watch the behind-the-scenes production diaries. Fellow Ontarian Sarah Harmer guests on the track Binary Star. Starting tomorrow, Danny will be hitting the road for a cross-Canada tour. See you on September 18 at the Biltmore!

July 02-05 Canso, NS Stan Rogers Folk Festival
July 10 -11 Sudbury, ON Northern Lights Festival
July 29 Toronto, ON Art of Time Ensemble
July 30 Ottawa, ON Art of Time Ensemble
Aug 14 Guelph, ON Riverside Park Amphitheatre
Aug 20 - 22 Owen Sound, ON Summerfolk Festival
Aug 28 Meaford, ON Irish Mountain Music
Sept 11 Winnipeg, MB West End Cultural Centre
Sept 15 Duncan, BC Duncan Garage Showroom
Sept 16 Courtenay, BC Joe's Garage
Sept 17 Victoria, BC Hermann's Jazz Club
Sept 18 Vancouver, BC The Biltmore
Sept 22 Canmore, AB Communitea Café
Sept 23 Alberta TBA
Sept 24 St. Albert, AB Arden Theatre Brenda
Sept 25 Calgary, AB TBA
Sep 26 Lethbridge, AB Geomatic Attic
Oct 06 - 07 Waterloo, ON Starlight Club
Oct 08 - 09 London, ON London Music Club
Oct 11 Saskatoon, SK TBA
Oct 12 Prince Albert, SK TBA
Oct 14 St. Catherines, ON Brock Centre for the Arts
Oct 15 Toronto, ON Glenn Gould Theatre
Oct 16 Toronto, ON Glenn Gould Theatre
Oct 20 Guelph, ON Dublin Street Church
Oct 21 Peterborough, ON Gordon Best Theatre
Oct 22 Kingston, ON Chalmers United Church
Oct 23 - 24 Wakefield, QC The Blacksheep Inn
Nov 13 Bayfield, ON Bayfield Town Hall

Here's Danny covering another national treasure:
Danny Michel - After the Gold Rush [originally by Neil Young]

Don't forget to get your dose of CanCon today!

Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'

2010-06-29T11:36:00.005-06:00

For a few years, my most coveted cover album was Rollin' by Kenny Rogers & The First Edition, the soundtrack to their variety show from the early 1970s that was filmed in Toronto. As far as I can tell, it was only released on vinyl so it was quite a task to get a hold of it, which I finally did in April 2009 from an online music seller in Montréal (search musicstack.com to find your own vinyl copy!). The main reason I hunted this down so vigorously was my obsession with finding covers of Elton John's Border Song, but the band's propensity for Beatles covers was an added incentive. Their spirited, horn-infused cover of Get Back is my favourite of the album.

Kenny Rogers & The First Edition
Rollin'
Jolly Rogers 5003

1. Good Vibrations [originally by The Beach Boys]
2. The Long and Winding Road [originally by The Beatles]
3. Sylvia's Mother [originally by Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show]
4. Joy (Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring) [originally by J.S. Bach; arrangement by Apollo 100]
5. Paperback Writer [originally by The Beatles]
6. Get Back [originally by The Beatles]
7. Border Song [originally by Elton John]
8. I Need You [originally by America]
9. Coconut [originally by Harry Nilsson]
10. Morning Has Broken [originally by Eleanor Farjeon; arrangement by Cat Stevens]
ZIP FILE

Tasty cover samples from eTown

2010-06-23T08:28:00.001-06:00

I briefly talked about the eTown radio show in a February post when I posted the Barenaked Ladies and The Ditty Bops teaming up to cover Johnny Mercer's I'm an Old Cowhand from the Rio Grande (merged with the theme to Welcome Back Kotter, no less). What I neglected to mention was that these cover collaborations are more the rule than the exception in eTown, where they generally play host to two musical guests who play separate sets then are brought together for a big cover finale alongside the house band, The eTones. This part of the show reminds me of a CBC radio show that was regrettably canceled a few years ago called Fuse that also brought together unlikely combos to make wonderful music.

eTown, based in Boulder, Colorado, was founded by the husband and wife team of Nick and Helen Forster in 1991, a socially conscious radio show recorded live as a sort of variety show with musical performances and in-depth conversations with the artists and other guests that range from authors to scientists to politicians to citizens in the community. Another aspect of the show is the E-Chievement Award, a listener-nominated award to "remarkable individuals who are working hard to make a positive difference in their communities and beyond".

There's a bittersweetness to these covers since every one of them is accompanied by the end-of-show patter over an instrumental break and in a few cases, the song is prematurely truncated. But it's a small price to pay to hear some wonderful, wonderful covers! Needless to say, I also dig the Canadian content that makes its way into the show via guest artists or the cover choices. You can subscribe to the eTown podcast in iTunes with a new show every Wednesday and visit etown.org to peruse the extensive show archives.

These are just some of the awesome cover collaborations that have blessed the eTown stage:

Cake & Chuck Prophet - Sympathy for the Devil [originally by The Rolling Stones]
This is the one I most regret not being able to hear in its full unedited glory.

Barenaked Ladies & Catie Curtis - Yellow Submarine [originally by The Beatles]

Big Head Todd and the Monsters & Kathleen Edwards - Long May You Run [originally by Neil Young]

Michelle Shocked & The Bad Plus - Heart of Gold [originally by Neil Young]

Crash Test Dummies & Celeste Krenz - Theme from Gilligan's Island [originally written by Sherwood Schwartz and George Wyle]

Imogen Heap & Gregory Alan Isakov - We Will Rock You [originally by Queen]

BeauSoleil & Ben Kweller - Have You Ever Seen the Rain? [originally by Creedence Clearwater Revival]

DeVotchKa & Au Revoir Simone - Tender [originally by Blur]

Jakob Dylan & Danny Barnes - The Letter [originally by The Box Tops]

Random Blender of Randomness

2010-06-15T11:29:00.006-06:00

Once again, blogging has fallen by the wayside as I've recently found myself spending unhealthy amounts of time in the wide world of Red Dead Redemption while also plowing my way through the third part of Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Blah Blah Blah trilogy (this time she kicked the hornet's nest!). The continued DMCA crackdown and migration of mp3 bloggers off of Blogger also does little to muster my waning enthusiasm.

Anyway, here's a grab bag of covers that have caught my attention recently. The Boss covering Bryan Adams? Kenny Loggins covering Feist? Joseph Gordon-Levitt covering Tom Waits? I'm not making these artist-cover combos up!

Bruce Springsteen - Cuts Like a Knife (live) [originally by Bryan Adams]
Last month, an all-star cover of Don't Stop Believing by Springsteen, Lady Gaga, Elton John, Sting, and others made headlines. Lost in all the OMGs and LOLs was that it was 80s nostalgia night at Sting's Rainforest Fund benefit and there were a bunch of random cover pairings such as Elton John doing a Material Girl/Like a Virgin medley, Sting dong She Drives Me Crazy, and perhaps the least likely, Bruce Springsteen adding horns and a rambling story about a girlfriend who left him to a nearly 10-minute version of Bryan Adams' Cuts Like a Knife.

Garfunkel and Oates - One More Minute [originally by Weird Al Yankovic]
Garfunkel and Oates (AKA Kate Micucci and Riki Lindhome) were recent guests alongside Weird Al on an episode of the Comedy Death-Ray Radio podcast. In tribute, they performed a cover of one of Weird Al's best originals, One More Minute, with added cussing.

Kenny Loggins - 1234 [originally by Feist]
Finally got a listen of Kenny Loggins' All Join In album from last year, more or less a cover album sung more often than not with his kids. On the whole, the album may be a little too saccharine (it is on the Disney label after all), but I do enjoy how the coda to his Feist cover gets the Beatles treatment, incorporating bits of Penny Lane, All Together Now, and Two of Us, the latter two of which were also covered on the album.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt - Blind Love [originally by Tom Waits]
Admittedly there's a huge hole in my music upbringing when it comes to Tom Waits, so I don't really know how this rates as a cover, but it sounds pretty decent to me. I am super stoked for Gordon-Levitt's turn in Inception though!

Keller Williams & The Keels - The Switch and the Spur [originally by The Raconteurs]
Keller Williams recently released Thief, a bluegrass cover album with an eclectic tracklist from Amy Winehouse (Rehab) to Marcy Playground (Sex and Candy) to The Presidents of the United States of America (Bath of Fire. Major kudos for covering this sweet track from The Raconteurs' Consolers of the Lonely.

The Oneups - Rainbow Road [originally from Super Mario Kart]
Last month, video game cover band The OneUps released their long-awaited (by me) Super Mario Kart cover album. Ah, Rainbow Road sure brings back the memories.

Evelyn Evelyn - Lean on Me (live) [originally by Bill Withers]
Via krewechief's Live Music Blog, the conjoined twin cabaret act Evelyn Evelyn fittingly covered this classic song live in Toronto. The twins are the brainchild of Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley and ironically I've seen them each "separately," so I was totally bummed to miss their Vancouver show while I was in Toronto.

Merry Merry Lou

2010-06-04T13:35:00.001-06:00

A quick one for you. Last week, I featured Hello Mary Lou, written by Gene Pitney. I also mentioned that the co-writing credit given to Cayet Mangiaracina has its own story...

In short, Mangiaracina (now Father Mangiaracina, a Dominican priest), was in a New Orleans rock band out of high school called The Sparks that had a local hit with Mangiaracina's Merry Merry Lou, written in 1954. A few years later after he had left the band to study for priesthood, The Sparks won a talent competition and got to record with Decca Records in New York, the result being a Merry Merry Lou/Ol' Man River 45 record in 1957. Ricky Nelson's recording of Hello Mary Lou was released in 1961, Decca quickly sued, Mangiaracina was given a co-writing credit, and he still receives royalties to this day.

It didn't take long for the first cover to surface, recorded and released by fellow Decca artist Bill Haley in the same year under the name Mary Mary Lou. Sam Cooke also had his own version on his Encore album in 1958.

The Sparks - Merry Merry Lou

Bill Haley and His Comets - Mary, Mary Lou [originally by The Sparks]

Sam Cooke - Mary, Mary Lou [originally by The Sparks]

Hello Mary Lou!

2010-05-28T11:46:00.004-06:00

Hey folks, I'm back. As usual, there's a backlog of hundreds of e-mails and thousands of RSS entries to wade through to catch up on the happenings in the past few weeks. A couple notable changes in the cover world:

Cover Me has moved off the blogspot to covermesongs.com with a slick new interface. Update your bookmarks accordingly!
Covering the Mouse is also back in business with a little revamp of its own after a couple weeks of technical difficulties brought on by Blogger's discontinuing of FTP publishing
EDITED TO ADD: While I was gone, Leopold Stotch of Versions Galore was unceremoniously dumped by Blogger and has resurfaced at http://www.versionsgalore.com

Here's a trio of covers I love and don't really know why I've put it off for so long... three of the greatest all-time rock bands putting their own personal touches on 1961's Hello Mary Lou, originally performed by Ricky Nelson and written by Gene Pitney and Cayet Mangiaracina, whose songwriting credit has its own interesting story.

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Hello Mary Lou [originally performed by Ricky Nelson]
This is the first version of the song that I ever heard and fell in love with. Of course, as with many cover songs, it would be years before I realized it was not the original.

Queen - Hello Mary Lou [originally performed by Ricky Nelson]
From their Live at Wembley '86 album. In a 1998 interview with Guitarist magazine, Brian May listed James Burton's guitar solo in Hello Mary Lou as one of his top 10 guitar solos.

Led Zeppelin - Hello Mary Lou [originally performed by Ricky Nelson]
Non-Zeppelin fans may balk at a 23-minute live Whole Lotta Love, but in their scorching live shows the band would often use the song as a springboard for a set of R&B and blues covers. The phenomenal How the West Was Won live album, culled from two 1972 California gigs, featured perhaps my favourite rendition of Hello Mary Lou sandwiched between Elvis Presley's Let's Have a Party and St. Louis Jimmy Oden's Going Down Slow.

Off to Chicagoland!

2010-05-12T06:16:00.000-06:00

Blog break. Revisiting Chicago for a few days, the T-Dot for a few more, then E-Town for a wedding. See y'all in a few weeks.

Tonight: Meaghan Smith live in Vancouver!

2010-05-06T19:30:00.004-06:00

After work, I'll be hopping over to the Media Club a block away to catch Meaghan Smith. Up until a week ago I had only vaguely heard of the Halifax-based singer-songwriter, but I was googling something about Kid Koala (who's latest project The Slew with two former members of Wolfmother hits the Vancouver Jazz Festival in June) when I stumbled on this music video:

It sounds like a retro throwback a la Jill Barber, but with a modern flourish courtesy of Kid Koala and I love the tribute to 1920s/30s cartoons. I was further sold on Meaghan when I watched her wonderful animated biography and found out that she had actually gone to school for animation before becoming a singer and that her producer on her debut album The Cricket's Orchestra was none other than Les Cooper, who (surprise, surprise) produced Jill Barber's latest Chances. Fortunately when I checked her upcoming tour dates I was just in time finding out about the Vancouver show tonight. [Post-Show Edit: she played awesome covers of If I Only Had a Heart and Fly Me to the Moon, the latter on her omnichord!]

Meaghan Smith - Here Comes Your Man [originally by The Pixies]
Meaghan recorded this cover for the soundtrack to last year's (500) Days of Summer.

6 May 2010 Vancouver, BC
7 May 2010 Victoria, BC
12 May 2010 Canmore, AB
14 May 2010 Calgary, AB
15 May 2010 Edmonton, AB
27 Jun 2010 Montreal, QC
16 Jul 2010 Lilith Fair St. Louis, MO
17 Jul 2010 Lilith Fair Chicago, IL
18 Jul 2010 London, ON
23 Jul 2010 Montreal, QC
29 Aug 2010 Kensington, PEI

Official Site
Myspace

Star Wars Day 2010

2010-05-04T05:04:00.008-06:00

Happy Star Wars Day! May the 4th be with you and all that. This is my fourth year in a row of posting Star Wars covers and the supply is dwindling. Well, actually there are endless covers, just few very good ones. Next year, I may have to pull a George Lucas and start recycling old posts, zing!

Voice Male - Twentieth Century Fox Fanfare [originally composed by Alfred Newman]
Originally composed by Alfred Newman in 1933, I think it's fair to say that the 20th Century Fox fanfare is strongly associated with the Star Wars series. I may be mistaken, but I think the extended version was specifically orchestrated for the films. Voice Male is an all-male a cappella group from ~~the Netherlands~~ Belgium... not to be confused with the all-male a cappella group from Utah of the same name.

Brooke Sofferman - Imperial March
A fine cover from jazz drummer Brooke Sofferman's album Fine Whines, which also contains a cover of Led Zeppelin's Kashmir.

The Alexandria Kleztet - Cantina Band
I've always wanted a klezmer Cantina Band cover and now thanks to The Alexandria Kleztet, my life is complete.

Sex Wing Starfighter - Yub Nub
Sex Wing Starfighter is a Star Wars-themed punk band with a free album on their bandcamp site. This cover of the Ewok celebration song is featured as a bonus track.

...and Farewell to Codeine Velvet Club

2010-05-03T00:07:00.005-06:00

[EDIT: re-posted with link removed]

Well then, that didn't take long. The album just came out in Canada less than two weeks ago and it's already time to say goodbye to Codeine Velvet Club, not even a week since I found out about the end of The Fratellis. Reports from the UK have announced that Jon Lawler has ended the band to continue working on his solo career. According to the article, his cohort Lou Hickey was in shock after "reading about it online". Although not entirely true and there are some quotes apparently taken out of context, the result is the same: the upcoming 9 or so gigs will be their last. Mind you, the album's been out in the UK since November and they've been touring around there since at least last April, but it's still extremely disappointing that there'll be no follow-up album and no full North American tour (other than the few US dates in March). As I've mentioned before, they were my favourite new band in quite a while. Alas!

Maybe someday Codeine Velvet Club will be... resurrected?
Codeine Velvet Club - I am the Resurrection [originally by The Stone Roses]

Farewell to the Fratellis

2010-04-30T13:07:00.002-06:00

Last week, The Fratellis made a low key announcement in their fan forums that the band has found themselves making music "but just not together". And with that, The Fratellis confirmed that the band members had moved on to other projects with no plans to get back together anytime in the foreseeable future.

The Fratellis - Ooh La Hot Love [Ooh La La originally by Goldfrapp, Hot Love by T. Rex]
The Fratellis - Solid Gold Easy Action [originally by T. Rex]
The Fratellis - Hotel Yorba [originally by The White Stripes]

The Billy Rubin Trio - Chelsea Dagger (feat. Lady S) [originally by The Fratellis]

. . . meanwhile Jon Lawler (AKA Jon Fratelli) has been making sweet, sweet music with Lou Hickey as Codeine Velvet Club, my favourite new band (as seen as here). Incidentally, their album just came out last week in Canada.

Kudos to K'naan!

2010-04-23T08:05:00.004-06:00

[EDIT: reposted minus the offending mp3 links.]

Junos were last weekend and I was completely oblivious to the fact they were even happening until I saw the newspaper the next day with Juno juggernaut Michael Bublé brandishing wins in four of the six categories that he was nominated for. The two he did lose were both to K'naan who won Artist of the Year and Songwriter of the Year. Just a couple months ago, some friends and I saw him do a phenomenal show at the Orpheum as part of the Cultural Olympiad (2nd row seats!). He's definitely a must-see if you get the opportunity to see him live. He's such a powerful and moving performer, I can guarantee even the uninitiated would come away impressed.

I'm not really sure how the "Songwriter of the Year" category works, but his nomination specifically mentions three tracks from his Troubadour album: Wavin' Flag (co-written with Bruno Mars, Philip Lawrence, and Jean Daval), Take a Minute, and If Rap Gets Jealous (co-written with Gerald Eaton and Brian West). As I'm sure you may know by now, Wavin' Flag was chosen by Coca-Cola as the official song of the 2010 World Cup. Amusingly, K'naan chose to alter the lyrics for this "Celebration Mix" of the song and it was actually Coke that was worried about messing with the original song. I learned this from his in-depth interview yesterday on Q with Jian Ghomeshi, in which he discussed Wavin' Flag, his aversion to being labelled "political", his arrival in Canada from war-torn Somalia, and his life as a teenager in a Toronto gang where he arrested 15 times and spent time in jail(!). Listen to the full hour-long interview uncut on the Q website. [EDIT: you can watch it on Q's youtube channel too]

Wavin' Flag was also re-recorded as a charity single for Haiti relief efforts with a supergroup of Canadian performers (billed as Young Artists for Haiti) including K'naan himself, Nelly Furtado, Sam Roberts, Avril Lavigne, Emily Haines, Serena Ryder, Hawksley Workman, Broken Social Scene, and tons more. Receiving a plum role with the final line of the song is this Justin Bieber character I keep hearing about these days, though I'm not so sure we'll be calling him freedom when he gets older. I'll admit I find it hard to be too cynical while listening to this all-star version even though it shares all the trappings of an overproduced charity single. Another guest on the single with a featured rap solo was Drake who actually won the Juno for Rap Recording of the Year over K'naan while also taking New Artist of the Year (over Bieber, natch). Of course, you can find this single on iTunes where it's been number one on the Canadian charts since its release last month.

Eric Ayotte - Wavin' Flag [originally K'naan]
Eric Ayotte offers up soothing acoustic guitar rendition on his free self-titled album, which is available from the music site If You Make It.

Bedouin Soundclash - Fire in Freetown
Fellow Canadian artists Bedouin Soundclash covered this Troubadour track for The Voice Project, in support of women in Northern Uganda who have banded together in song as part of a peace movement in a country that has been ravaged by war for over two decades. Read more about The Voice Project here. Incidentally, Bedouin Soundclash's Jay Malinowski was also part of the chorus of singers on the Wavin' Flag Haiti re-recording.

Jarvis Church - One [featuring K'naan] [originally by U2]
Seems like so long ago when I first heard K'naan rapping on the tail-end of this U2 cover (one of my all-time faves) from the War Child compilation Peace Songs released in 2003. Jarvis Church (AKA Gerald Eaton of The Philosopher Kings) went on to produce K'naan's 2005 debut The Dusty Foot Philosopher and parts of Troubadour.

Record Store Day '10!

2010-04-16T16:12:00.004-06:00

Record Store Day 2010 is imminent, so it's time to make plans to head on over to your local indie record store(s) and celebrate! Live band performances, giveaways, and general merriment will take place over the course of the day. Be sure to check out the Official Record Store Day website to see if there are any happenings going on in your city/town. Tons of limited and exclusive Record Store Day releases will be available too including a Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings/The Budos Band split 7" vinyl with covers of Daytripper and Money. Me want so bad! I'll be celebrating in spirit... at work. :(

A small serving of BBC covers

2010-04-14T08:51:00.001-06:00

A few random covers collected from Dermot O'Leary's BBC Radio 2 show including one with Dermot himself joining Mika on a laughably bad Journey cover that doesn't even make it to the chorus.

Ben's Brother - Love [originally by John Lennon]
Kill It Kid - Black Horse and the Cherry Tree [originally by KT Tunstall]
Goldheart Assembly - Way Out West [originally by Big Star]
Local Natives - Cecilia [originally by Simon & Garfunkel]
Ellie Goulding - Jolene [originally by Dolly Parton]
Mika - Don't Stop Believing [feat. Dermot O'Leary] [originally by Journey]

Corinne Bailey Rae Live Tonight in Vancouver!

2010-04-09T18:24:00.002-06:00

I'm super excited to go in a couple hours to see Corinne Bailey Rae perform tonight at the Commodore Ballroom in support of her excellent sophomore album, The Sea. As one might expect, my initial exposure to her music was through a cover song, specifically a smokin' jazz version of Led Zeppelin's Since I've Been Loving You. Of course, she once again popped up on my music radar a year later when she covered The Raconteurs' Steady As She Goes for a BBC covers compilation. Since then she's emerged into one of my favourite voices to listen to and fortunately she's quite prolific on the covers front too, ranging from Björk to Editors to Jimi Hendrix to John Lennon. Not only does she have impeccable cover choices, Rae never fails completely nail them and make them worthwhile to listen to. She also provided guest vocals on Joni Mitchell's River for Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters, which won Album of the Year Grammy for 2007.

Corinne Bailey Rae - Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be) [originally by Doris Day]
Rae and her band performed this incredible showstopping cover of Que Sera Sera (by way of Sly & The Family Stone) at Tuesday's tour kick off at the Virbiana Cathedral in Los Angeles, a benefit concert for KCRW, which was partially recorded for today's airing of Morning Becomes Eclectic. Listen/watch to the rest of the show here, which includes her cover of Jimi Hendrix's Little Wing.

Corinne Bailey Rae - Since I've Been Loving You [originally by Led Zeppelin]
Corinne Bailey Rae - Steady As She Goes [originally by The Raconteurs]
Corinne Bailey Rae - Creepin' [originally by Stevie Wonder]
Corinne Bailey Rae - Sexyback [originally by Justin Timberlake]
Corinne Bailey Rae & John Legend - Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) [originally by Marvin Gaye]
Corinne Bailey Rae - I'm Losing You [originally by John Lennon]

Opening for Rae is Daniel Merriweather, probably most known (at least to me) from his contribution to Mark Ronson's Version covers album, performing The Smiths' Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before. He also recorded this oddly delightful White Stripes cover, seemingly filtered through Sweet Home Alabama.
Daniel Merriweather - You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told) [originally by The White Stripes]

The Spirit of CBC Radio 2

2010-04-07T08:23:00.002-06:00

I've occasionally alluded to and raved about CBC Radio 2's Concerts on Demand archives and I'm about to again. I keep on close eye on the site because they are constantly recording great concerts across Canada and post at least a few every week. Just in the past couple days they've posted Metric Live at Massey Hall in Toronto (recorded in October) and a recent gig with Gordon Lightfoot and The Tragically Hip's Gord Downie singing songs and telling stories. Here are some other highlights from the archives:

Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame 2010
The Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame gala took place just over a week ago, honouring and celebrating Canadian songwriters. One of this year's "Modern Era Inductees" was Rush. In tribute, The Spirit of Radio was performed by Primus singer/bassist Les Claypool, a disappointing cover (out of sync AND out of tune?) that is overshadowed by an excellent rendition of Subdivisions by Jacob Moon, who was actually recruited from his youtube cover.

Les Claypool - The Spirit of Radio

Jacob Moon - Subdivisions

The Art of Time Ensemble: Abbey Road
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of The Beatles' Abbey Road last year, The Art of Time Ensemble performed the entire album in order with their own unique stylings, joined by guest singers including Sarah Slean, Steven Page, and John Southworth. Speaking of which, Steven Page's cover album with The Art of Time Ensemble, A Singer Must Die was released in February featuring covers of Radiohead, Elvis Costello, The Magnetic Fields and others (buy it from Maple Music or his official site).

Steven Page - Oh! Darling

Kevin Hearn & Steven Page - You Never Give Me Your Money

Sarah Slean - Something

Owen Pallett with Symphony Nova Scotia
Having recently shed his Final Fantasy moniker, Owen Pallett is currently touring in support of his most recent album Heartland. After playing in Toronto tomorrow, his tour continues throughout the States including a stop at Coachella, eventually winding his way back up to Vancouver in early May where I'll be seeing him at the Vogue Theatre. During the 2009 Halifax Pop Explosion, Pallett teamed up with Symphony Nova Scotia to perform some of his newest tracks and this delightful cover of Van Dyke Parks.

Owen Pallett - Palm Desert

First post: you go, me.

2010-04-01T09:04:00.003-06:00

Ok, here's my blog. Since one of my favourite hobbies is imposing my musical tastes on others, I decided it was about time I jumped on the proverbial bandwagon and started an mp3 blog. As I understand it, sharing music on a blog is sketchy in terms of copyright/fair use policies, but most blogs have an average audience of 12 people and the record companies don't really care because it's free advertising. So, it's not a big deal as long as I encourage you to buy music, which you do. Yeah, support your favourite bands... I do.

As my friends found out on a winter roadtrip, I have a disturbing amount of cover songs on my iPod. Until this was pointed out to me (and I was mocked), I did not think of it as being particularly odd... collecting covers, that is. I only have a few hundred, but apparently that's more than the average schmuck.
[EDIT: upon further review of my itunes collection and some re-labelling, it's actually closer to 12000+ covers... yikes!]. So the main focus of my mp3 blog shall be (drum roll please) cover songs! Now there are already a number of cover blogs, which i'll talk about in another post sometime. I'll try not to rip them off too much (or cover them, ho ho). But in addition to cover songs, I'll post whatever I so fancy.

For instance, I recently had the insane pleasure of attending back-to-back White Stripes shows in Vancouver. These are some photos I took from my 6th row seat (rock!).

Today's mp3 is of Boll Weevil, a White Stripes cover of a Ledbelly song, which typically closes out the night at their concerts (including both shows I went to). The highlight of this version from the Roseland Ballroom (NYC, 11-19-2003) is Jack stops mid-song twice to rant and swear at the moshers in the crowd. I think this is awesome because I find moshers are pretty annoying at concerts. I guess it's fine at punk shows and stuff, but I find it weird that people go to concerts specifically to get drunk and shove people around. So Jack gives them a little piece of his mind... I also think it's funny because he sounds a bit like Steve Buscemi when he's mad.

Jack's Boll Weevil Rant

That's all for now. Let's see how often I update this blog...

"Everybody got their teen angst out over here?!?"

Comic Book Rock Stars #1: Bryan Lee O'Malley

2010-03-29T08:30:00.001-06:00

Comic Book Rock Stars: Yet another ongoing and infrequently updated feature, in which we cover crossover comic book artists/musicians.

Back in September, I was wondering aloud about the under-researched realm of comic book artist/musicians. This came about when I went to see the final Harvey Danger shows in Seattle and the opening act for one of the shows was Can You Imagine? which featured cartoonist Peter Bagge (to be covered in a later installment). My research dug up a surprising number of crossovers and a planned single blog post spiraled out of control until it got stuck in draft hell. In accordance with my new year's blog resolution (simplify, simplify, simplify), we'll be kicking off this feature by focusing on one such artist, which perfectly ties in with my CanCon biases: London, Ontario-born cartoonist and creator of Scott Pilgrim, Bryan Lee O'Malley.

If you aren't already familiar with Scott Pilgrim, the mass awareness campaign is well underway. In brief, Scott Pilgrim is a twentysomething slacker who must defeat his girlfriend's seven evil ex-boyfriends to win her heart. With its manga-style illustrations, the series is also riffs on video games, indie rock, and pop culture at large, all the while unabashedly set in Toronto. The first volume of the acclaimed series came out in 2004 with the 6th and final installment hitting stores in July, just a few weeks before the film adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs. The World hits theatres with Michael Cera in the title role and helmed by Shaun of the Dead/Hot Fuzz director Edgar Wright.

The promotional machine is starting to kick into high gear. A couple weeks ago they released the teaser poster ("An epic of epic epicness.") followed by the recent trailer, which had the internet a-buzzin'. I'm sure it's not lost on pop culture geeks that we get to see George Michael Bluth vs. Superman (Brandon Routh), The Human Torch and future Captain America (Chris Evans), Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman), and even George Michael's ex Ann ("Who?") Veal (Mae Whitman). Even the inevitable video game tie-in looks promising with retro graphics and music from 8-bit punk rockers Anamanaguchi.

Music plays a big role in Scott Pilgrim (even his name comes from the song of the same name by 90s Halifax band Plumtree) with numerous references to bands, both real and fictional, and scenes taking place in actual Toronto show venues. Scott plays bass in a band called Sex Bob-Omb whose music in the film, it was recently revealed, is written by Beck. Music for the other fictional bands in the story will be provided by Metric, Broken Social Scene, and presumably others yet to be revealed making for probably the most anticipated soundtrack this year. Even Chris Murphy of Sloan, who were referenced in the books, is serving as the film's musical director, coaching the actor's musical performances. Yes, the inherent Canadianess of the comic is faithfully being infused into the film.

Anyway, this is all a long introduction to something I learned in my comic book artist/musician hunt, that Bryan Lee O'Malley played keyboards in some Toronto bands (Imperial Otter and Honey Dear) and he also has a collection of solo recordings under the name Kupek that even includes (gasp!) a few cover songs. As he states succinctly on his site: "Kupek is a band, and I am the only member of the band".

Kupek - Nautical Disaster [originally by The Tragically Hip]
I used to love this song from The Tragically Hip's Day for Night but it kinda got ruined over the course of several parties during university when some friends I know would repeatedly crank it and drunkenly sing along karaoke-style. Now whenever I hear it, that image immediately springs into my head. Still a great song though. In my mind, The Hip are pretty much the quintessential Canadian band and it's a shame they weren't a part of the Olympic opening or closing ceremony, though judging by the latter's line-up the producers weren't that keen on exuding Canadian pride anyway.

Kupek - Nothing Compares 2 U [originally by Prince]

Go check out http://www.radiomaru.com/kupek to download up to seven albums of his music for free!

Jamie Cullum Live in Vancouver!

2010-03-25T08:28:00.003-06:00

Jamie Cullum blew through town last Saturday night and his show at the Commodore Ballroom immediately vaulted into my top five all-time concerts. My sister flew in from Edmonton to join me at the show and we went an hour before the doors opened, but there were still about 40 people in front of us in line. Fortunately when they finally let us in, most of them were clamoring for the tables and booths while I made a beeline for the stage. Even before we went in, I knew I wanted to be parked left of centre stage right in front of Jamie's piano and that's exactly the spot we got. I think the pictures speak for themselves! The opening act was also a treat with rockabilly vocalist Imelda May revving up the crowd with an energetic performance (she recently teamed up with Jeff Beck at the Grammys in tribute to Les Paul & Mary Ford). Then it was on to Jamie Cullum and I was in awe from the moment he started pounding his new single I'm All Over It through to his second encore, his cover of Radiohead's High & Dry. I've been patiently waiting years for my opportunity to see him live ever since first hearing his 2004 album Twentysomething and the show blew away my already high expectations. It was a perfect storm of excellent sound, a diverse setlist, an unbelievable vantage point, and, of course, a phenomenal artist and performer.

Setlist:
I’m All Over It
Don’t Stop The Music [Rihanna]
Just One Of Those Things [Cole Porter]
Get Your Way
Not While I’m Around [from Sweeney Todd by Stephen Sondheim]
Frontin’ (Solo) [Pharrell]
Photograph
Wheels
I Got a Woman intro [Ray Charles]
These Are The Days
I Get a Kick Out of You [Cole Porter]
London Skies
Mixtape
What a Difference a Day Makes [Dinah Washington]
If I Ruled The World [Leslie Bricusse and Cyril Ornadel]
Mind Trick
Cry Me A River [Julie London]
All At Sea

Encore:
The Wind Cries Mary [The Jimi Hendrix Experience]

Encore 2:
High & Dry (Solo) [Radiohead]

Jamie Cullum - After You've Gone [originally recorded by Marion Harris]
Jamie recorded this snappy version of the standard for the BBC series of the same name.

Jamie Cullum - Seven Nation Army [originally by The White Stripes]
Recorded live at the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands, Jamie tackles the White Stripes anthem with his piano and looping pedals. Speaking of which, their Under Great White Northern Lights super box set came out last week and I was finally able to get mine from the post office yesterday. The whole package is a thing of beauty. It was practically a ritual as I unwrapped it and sifted through each of the components, which includes two DVDs, a CD, a double LP, 7" vinyl, a Rob Jones silkscreen print, and a book of photographs chronicling the tour. Woo, Christmas is March!

Jamie Cullum - I Get a Kick Out of You [originally by Cole Porter]
This is from Jamie's Live at Blenheim Palace DVD, which is where I first got a taste of his dynamic live show.

Jamie Cullum - The Wind Cries Mary [originally by The Jimi Hendrix Experience]
This solo live version of the Jimi Hendrix classic comes from the live 5-song EP Twenty Zero5 Live. A full band studio rendition appears on Twentysomething.

Video evidence of our brilliant vantage point

For the past five years, I've had "Must see Jamie Cullum someday" as a blog label. . . Mission accomplished with a vengeance!

================

Here's a little postscript to my Addicted to Codeine Velvet Club post from last week... according to my Last.fm profile, Codeine Velvet Club are now:

My #1 Top Artist of the last 7 days

My #1 Top Artist of the last 3 months

My #1 Top Artist of the last 6 months
and

My #5 Top Artist of the last 12 months

Pretty spectacular considering I first heard them only 20 days ago. Yep, must see Codeine Velvet Club someday! I told you I was addicted.

Addicted to Codeine Velvet Club

2010-03-15T11:38:00.005-06:00

I'll admit, I'm a terrible music blogger when it comes to new music. To catch my attention amidst the sea of PR e-mails in my inbox, I generally have to have some sort of pre-existing inclination towards a new band or project, which is probably why I usually stick to the covers beat. So it's a pretty rare set of circumstances when a press release will float through my mailbox and actually pique my attention enough to download the promo copy of the album, then actually listen to the whole thing . . . repeatedly . . . for 10 days straight. Such is the case with the self-titled debut from Codeine Velvet Club.

Codeine Velvet Club is a side project from Jon Lawler, lead singer/guitarist of The Fratellis, and Glasgow songstress Lou Hickey. The reason this particular e-mail happened to strike a chord with me was because I've been recently rediscovering The Fratellis' 2006 debut Costello Music and racking up the playcounts. The Fratellis also have penchant for covering T. Rex and have previously covered The White Stripes on the BBC, which obviously gives them brownie points in my books. I skimmed the e-mail and the phrase "jazz-noir, big-band duet" jumped out at me and decided to give it a try. Lo and behold, my new favourite album of the year.

The album emanates a 60s orchestral pop vibe complete with lush big band backing and retro boy/girl duets with perhaps a little more polish and a rock 'n roll edge. Lawler and Hickey (a real find!) smoothly trade off verses and sing gorgeous harmonies (particularly in the dreamy Nevada), though it's Hickey that really shines in her solo bits like Time or the rousing chorus of The Black Roses. The orchestral score was composed by Mick Cooke of Belle & Sebastian fame. During my first play through the albu I thought to myself that some of these have the feel of a Bond film, so perhaps it shouldn't have been a surprise to find out later that it was part of Lawler's vision for Codeine Velvet Club to sound like "John Barry playing with a rock ‘n roll band”. The horn section even includes acclaimed trumpeter Derek Watkins who, get this, has played on EVERY James Bond theme including the classic "Wah WAH-WAH Wah's" on Goldfinger! More recently you've probably heard Watkins' trumpet solo that opens the 2004 film Chicago, a soundtrack I'm well acquainted with.

Codeine Velvet Club - Hollywood

Fortunately the track I'm cleared to stream is one of my favourites from the album. I'm seriously addicted to the whole disc, but some other standouts for me include The Black Roses, Like a Full Moon, Time, and Vanity Kills, the track that initially spurred on the collaboration between Lawler and Hickey (they had originally teamed up to do a song for her solo album). I haven't even mentioned that the closing number is a great cover of The Stone Roses' I Am the Resurrection, which you can fortunately download for free from the members section of their official website (requires registration). I barely even want to think about it this far in advance, but I know Codeine Velvet Club will be guaranteed a spot in my next year-end review.

Me blathering on about tracks you can't hear doesn't do you much good, so you can check some of the tunes out for yourself on their myspace or official youtube channel, which has some live versions and a couple music videos.

Album is out in North America April 6th!

===================

Upcoming live dates for Codeine Velvet Club include a handful at SXSW and then some West Coast shows supporting Metric. Come to Vancouver soon!

3/17 The Parish (SXSW) Austin, TX
3/18 Austin Convention Center (SXSW) Austin, TX
3/19 Rusty Spurs (SXSW) Austin, TX
3/20 Cedar Street (SXSW) Austin, TX
3/21 Showbox SoDo (w/ Metric) Seattle WA
3/22 Roseland Theater (w/ Metric) Portland, OR
3/24 Fox Theater (w/Metric) Oakland, CA
3/26 Hollywood Palladium (w/ Metric) Los Angeles, CA

Can't leave without mentioning Lou Hickey's Twitter since she's gotta be the only Scottish singer who tweets about her love of hockey. Mind you, ice hockey does have some Scottish roots historically...

Alligator Pi, Alligator Pi

2010-03-14T01:59:00.004-07:00

Happy Pi Day! Today we celebrate all things pi and, because it's tastier, pie. Apple pie, blueberry pie, pumpkin pie, banana cream pie, pizza pie, shepherd's pie, chicken pot pie, and so on and pie forth. In celebration, I'm going to share a little slice of Canadiana with you, a slice of Alligator Pie.

Alligator pie, alligator pie,
If I don't get some I think I'm gonna die.
Give away the green grass, give away the sky,
But don't give away my alligator pie.

Alligator stew, alligator stew,
If I don't get some I don't know what I'll do.
Give away my furry hat, give away my shoe,
But don't give away my alligator stew.

Alligator soup, alligator soup,
If I don't get some I think I'm gonna droop.
Give away my hockey stick, give away my hoop,
But don't give away my alligator soup.

Alligator Pie

Alligator Pie has been consistently entertaining scores of Canadian children since it's introduction over 30 years ago in the popular and award-winning collection of children's poetry of the same name by Toronto-born poet Dennis Lee. As Canadian as Alligator Pie, one could say.

While Alligator Pie is a modern Canadian classic, it's actually Lee's later 1983 collection Jelly Belly that's nearest and dearest to my heart, his upturned nursery rhymes combined with fascinatingly detailed (sometimes grotesque) illustrations by Juan Wijngaard. It's been a long while since I've read any, but the whimsical humour, sometimes delicious nonsensicalities, and effortless sing-songy nature of his poems recalls the likes of Shel Silverstein, Ogden Nash, or A. A. Milne.

Eddie Douglas - Alligator Pie [based on the poem by Dennis Lee]
Carole Peterson - Alligator Pie [based on the poem by Dennis Lee]

These are two different versions of Alligator Pie put to music. The first is a wonderful folk interpretation from Ontario singer-songwriter Eddie Douglas whose children's album Alligator Ice Cream - Jelly Delight! is completely based on poems written by Dennis Lee. The latter is a sing-a-long for pre-schoolers from Chicago music specialist and educator Carole Peterson. Peterson and a group of kids even make up later verses about alligator cake and alligator pizza. Amusingly, both artists' websites refer to themselves as "a Pied Piper with a guitar" (Douglas) and "the Pied Piper of children's music" (Peterson). I was fascinated to learn that pied (meaning: multi-coloured) and pie (meaning: YUM!) are probably both derived etymologically from magpie...

Rowlf the Dog - Cottleston Pie [based on the poem by A. A. Milne]
From the rare album Ol' Brown Ears is Back, Cottleston Pie is introduced as the little song Winnie-the-Pooh sings to himself when his brain felt fluffy, fittingly another pie-related nonsense poem as sung by Rowlf the Dog AKA Jim Henson.

B. A. Baracus Band - Fraggle Rock [originally written by Dennis Lee/Philip Balsam]
On a related note, Dennis Lee wrote lyrics for Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock television series including the classic opening theme! Henson and Lee also collaborated together on the story for Labyrinth.

Of course, we can't leave without my favourite all-time π song...
Hard 'n Phirm - Pi

Max Vernon's Silent Sirens

2010-03-11T08:27:00.002-07:00

It's been a few months since we last checked in with Max Vernon. Here are two from his upcoming Silent Sirens EP and you'll notice musically he's going with a more electronic vibe, yet it's still unmistakably Max Vernon. I love his willingness to dabble in different genres and you gotta kinda hate that he's so über-talented that he pulls it off with no apparent effort! Not to mention he does his own surreal album art... Dig these:

Max Vernon - Silent Sirens
Max Vernon - Bound

Max is doing a gig at Joe's Pub in NYC on April 5th with Dan Fishback. Win a pair of tickets via The Music Slut. Or buy 'em, tix are only $12.

Listen to more at
http://www.thesixtyone.com/TheMaxVernon
or
http://www.myspace.com/maxvernon
You can follow him on Twitter too.

New Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings in April

2010-03-07T21:45:00.002-07:00

Ah, now here's a press release I can get behind. Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings' new album I Learned the Hard Way is due April 6 and can be pre-ordered immediately directly from Daptone Records. 15% of all pre-order sales from the official site will be donated to Doctors Without Borders’ Emergency Relief Fund, which will directly contribute to Haiti relief efforts. The first 1000 orders of the CD or LP will receive a bonus 45 single and the ~~first 100 LPs will also be signed~~ (oops, sold out of those). LPs come with a code to download the full album, which is how it should be for all LP releases. Pre-order from the Daptone online store.

Sharon Jones - This Land is Your Land [originally by Woody Guthrie]
From Triple J's Like a Version 3, this acoustic cover uses the arrangement from their album version except without the trademark backing horns. But it's still awesome. Speaking of which, the Dap-King horn section will be guests on The New Pornographers' new album Together due in early May. Can't wait to hear that unlikely combo!

Feed Your Head

2010-03-05T08:59:00.002-07:00

I'm more curious than really excited about this latest Tim Burton experiment. Cautiously optimistic . . . or is cautiously pessimistic more accurate?

The Damned - White Rabbit [originally by Jefferson Airplane]
God the Band - White Rabbit [originally by Jefferson Airplane]
Call Sign Cobra - White Rabbit [originally by Jefferson Airplane]
The Murmurs - White Rabbit [originally by Jefferson Airplane]

A new White Rabbit cover by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals accompanies a recently released compilation called Almost Alice, songs "inspired by the film". While featuring a new single by Avril Lavigne (yeeha.), the album intriguingly features Robert Smith covering Very Good Advice from the original Disney animated version and Franz Ferdinand putting music to The Lobster Quadrille, a song from the original book. A new Wolfmother track too.

After the Gold Rush

2010-03-03T07:02:00.002-07:00

So it's been a while since I last blogged and there are a couple reasons for that. First and foremost was, of course, the Olympics came to town and I've been indulging in non-stop celebrations and festivities over the past few weeks, blogging the last thing on my mind. Of course, the e-mail backlog built up and the RSS feeds got clogged. When I did actually check-in I read this article about music blogs being deleted and was hardly in a rush to get back. Meanwhile, I got another DMCA notice for my year-end post, which I had previously edited and re-posted a while back thinking I could leave up the links to mp3s from the artist's official websites. Oddly enough, before I made any movement to repost it a second time, I got another notice for the same post while it was sitting in draft mode... I know I'm not exactly stringent on my mp3 posting policy in the first place, so if Fong Songs ups and disappears for repeat violations... well, it was fun while it lasted. 4.5 years and counting--ZING!

I did make it out to one Olympic event with my family, the women's freestyle moguls at Cypress Mountain where we were rooting for our Jennifer Heil, who had triumphantly won gold at the Turin games. Just before the games started it was blared all over the news that Canada had never actually won a gold medal on home soil during the previous Olympics in Calgary and Montréal (news to me!). Heil ended up winning silver, Canada's first medal of the games, finishing in between Americans Hannah Kearney and Shannon Bahrke who took gold and bronze respectively. It was thrilling to have the opportunity to see such an event live, though it was one of those experiences you wouldn't want to relive due to the hours spent in the cold rain, freezing toes, crazy 2 hour+ lines for food, and the 2 hour line to catch a bus back into the city. At the same time we were fortunate because a day or two later, the general spectator tickets for many if not most of the events at Cypress were cancelled due to the dangerous conditions of standing area, which had basically turned into a mud pit with all the rain.

The very next day Canada's home soil gold medal shutout came to a triumphant end as Alexandre Bilodeau suddenly became a national hero, taking the gold in the Men's Freestyle Moguls! In a stroke of amazing luck, the Victory Ceremony tickets my family had purchased months ago turned out to be the very one where Bilodeau would be awarded his gold medal. Needless to say it was an amazing experience to be right there when for the first time ever at our Olympics the Canadian flag was raised above the podium and our national anthem played, which of course was proudly sung at the top of everyone's lungs. By the end of the games, this spectacle would be repeated again and again as our Canadian athletes won a record-breaking number of gold medals and surpassed our previous highest medal count.

The biggest win was saved for last with the epic men's hockey final. With Canada leading the USA 2-1 into the final minute of the game, American Zach Parise (whose dad incidentally played for Team Canada in the '72 Summit Series) gave our country a collective heart attack, tying the game with only 30 seconds left. As the clock ran out and we prepared to enter sudden-death overtime, we held our breath hoping our boys would pull through to make history while trying in vain to avoid thinking about the alternative outcome. After about 7 minutes of tense back and forth play (we'd gurgle and scream every time the puck came close to our net), Sid the Kid scored the goal of a lifetime. On home soil, in front of a sea of screaming fans in red, with the entire country watching, Sidney Crosby scored the overtime, gold medal-winning, record-breaking goal against Team USA, the freaking dream goal that every kid from now on will re-enact in their backyard rink. It was an unbelievably perfect ending to the games that more or less shut down the country in celebration. It was so much like a fairy tale, even the clouds parted and the sun gloriously came out as people poured out into the streets and marched downtown in joyous glee.

Then there was the Closing Ceremonies, which I will try not to rant about too much. After all the formalities of speeches, flag passing, and a Sochi 2014 preview, the music portion began. Much like he sent Conan O'Brien off the air, Neil Young extinguished the Olympic flame with a moving rendition of Long May You Run. From what I've heard, NBC's coverage of the Closing Ceremony cut out early to debut a new reality show, which had American viewers livid, though I was thankful that most didn't have to watch the organizers march out a terrible line-up of Canadian music acts that left me more embarrassed than proud to be a Canadian. Nickelback, Avril Lavigne, Simple Plan, Hedley... this was the best you could come up with? Were The Tragically Hip, perhaps the most quintessentially Canadian band, not answering phone calls? Rush, The Arcade Fire, Metric, Feist, K'naan, Blue Rodeo, Hawksley Workman, The Guess Who, Stompin' Tom Connors, Paul Anka, heck Anne Murray... so many choices but no, you called up Hedley and asked them to sing Cha-Ching, of course very much in the Olympic spirit. Sigh. And the Canadian stereotype mega-spectacular... um, very Springtime for Hitleresque. I'll leave it at that.

Now it's back to business as usual and we're all already feeling a little Olympic withdrawal...

k.d. lang - After the Gold Rush [originally by Neil Young]
The Euphorics - After the Gold Rush [originally by Neil Young]
The CBC Radio Orchestra with Veda Hille, Ndidi Onukwulu, and Michel Rivard - After the Gold Rush [originally by Neil Young]

Wait, bring on the Paralympics!

Yippie-yi-o-ki-yay (Mr. Falcon)

2010-02-09T00:28:00.002-07:00

I've been frantically cleaning house the past two days in preparation for the family coming over to bunk during their Olympic stay. Of course, the 2010 Winter Games kick-off here in Vancouver on Friday so blogging's not really on my mind at the moment... though do look for my Olympic-themed guest post on Covering the Mouse on Wednesday! So here are a couple covers I've been meaning to share for a while...

Barenaked Ladies & The Ditty Bops - I'm an Old Cowhand From the Rio Grande/Welcome Back Kotter
["Cowhand..." by Johnny Mercer; "Kotter" by John Sebastian]
I discovered this unlikely cover combo from the archives of the eTown radio show, a public radio broadcast hosted by Nick and Helen Forster that spotlights a diverse range of accomplished musicians and also recognizes community leaders. This particular episode from 2006 featured sets from Fong Songs faves The Ditty Bops and The Barenaked Ladies with the two acts teaming up to do a cover over the closing show credits. There's some talking and sponsor thanking over the instrumental break, but it's worth it to hear this great cover medley. I'm an Old Cowhand was originally performed by Bing Crosby in the 1936 film Rhythm on the Range and it became one of songwriter Johnny Mercer's earliest successes. For your Olympic tie-in, the Barenaked Ladies will be performing next week (Feb. 16) at one of the Victory Ceremonies and also a free show in Whistler (Feb. 17).

Terra Hazelton - I'm an Old Cowhand [originally by Johnny Mercer]
This cover is from Canadian jazz singer Terra Hazelton's sophomore release Gimme Whatcha Got. She used to be a featured vocalist with the late great Jeff Healey and his Jazz Wizards, which is when I first heard and saw her at a 2004 show in St. Albert. She is joined in this rendition by Alberta folk/jazz/swing/etc. band The Polyjesters, who just so happen to be playing a couple free Olympic shows as well, Feb. 25 at the Alberta Plaza (Robson & Beatty) and Feb. 26 at LiveCity Yaletown.

There are a TON of free shows (and not free shows) in and around Vancouver all Olympics long. Way too many to even attempt to summarize. Wilco, Sloan, Sam Roberts Band, Jill Barber, Damian Marley, Feist, Stereophonics, Matisyahu, Nelly Furtado, The Lost Fingers, K'naan, Blue Rodeo, Hawskley Workman, Chromeo, Jeremy Fisher, Randy Bachman, INXS, and on and on and on... they'll all be performing over the next few weeks. Even Jonathan Coulton's playing a show at the Rio, though I think that's more a happy coincidence than Olympic-inspired. There also Hal Willner's epic Neil Young Project, an all-covers concert featuring Lou Reed, members of Broken Social Scene, Ron Sexsmith, Sun Kil Moon, and many more.

Check The Georgia Straight's google calendars for Vancouver shows and Whistler shows. That doesn't even cover the free shows going on at the Richmond O-Zone or Surrey's Holland Park (Serena Ryder and Hot Hot Heat are performing over there). If you're ready to do some major research, this guide to the various Houses and Pavilions may be the best jumping off point I've come across for all sorts of free Olympic activities.

Countdown's on!

2009.

2010-01-31T22:09:00.003-07:00

[EDIT 02/05/2010: Most song links removed after a Blogger takedown notice, though at least they're civil enough to now simply revert the post back to draft mode instead of outright wiping it out...]

[EDIT 03/01/2010: Okie dokie, ALL mp3 links removed after another notice. I'm 90% sure I removed the offending mp3 previously since I only left up the mp3s that were hosted on the artists' website. Of course, the identity of the offending mp3 is indiscernible to all, but if you're curious how these complaints come about, here's the official complaint to Google as sent by the IFPI, a form letter with a long list of URLs attached in cluding this here year-end post. I'm guessing some sort of robot "read" my post and deemed it complaint-worthy.]

Time for my belated and bloated annual look back at the past year... yes, we're mere hours away from February, but I started a dangerous precedent last year when I posted my year-end review at the end of January. Last year saw a dramatic drop in my post count, less than half the posts of 2008 and my lowest total since 2006. I partially blame the lingering effect of that blogger crackdown, but another contributing factor is the new job I started around the same time in late '08. Now I'm more or less happy with one post a week with maybe some really short ones in between. I joined Twitter last February and I'm surprised to find myself still updating it fairly frequently. An unexpected side effect of joining Twitter is that it reinvigorated my interactions with Facebook since my tweets are automatically used as my status updates. Travelwise, I visited Chicago for the first time last March and due to a fortuitous set of circumstances, I'll be heading back there with parents in May for a quick jaunt. I hopped down to Seattle at least thrice for concert-related reasons (Jason Webley, Harvey Danger's last shows ever, Ben Folds + symphony) and went to San Francisco/Mountain View for the Bridge School Benefit concert with my dad. I also went to Vegas for my best friend's bachelor party and served as Best Man at his wedding in July. My new baby cousin was born in June and around the same time I welcomed a new fuzzy friend into my home, my cat Jaboo:

It's funny, after looking back through my old posts I realize that I inadvertently fulfilled my new year's resolution last year: reading more books. This has been helped by joining goodreads.com in November, which fulfills my obsessive compulsive need to quantify my existence by cataloguing everything I see or do. Typically, I have a more or less constant flow of incoming material through library requests, but last week for the first time in a long time, I found myself with nothing to read and was getting kinda anxious about it... like I was having reading withdrawal symptoms. Good sign, I suppose. I didn't exactly read up a storm last year, but it was probably the most books I've read in a while. Currently I'm reading the Chinese classic Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en, translated and abridged as Monkey by Arthur Waley in 1942, which is the version I'm reading. I'm surprisingly well-versed in the tale based entirely on a book from the public library I loved and re-read constantly as a kid, Adventures of the Magic Monkey Along the Silk Roads, a comic adaptation by Evelyn Nagai-Berthrong and Anker Odum that was commissioned by the Royal Ontario Museum in 1983. A couple years back, I flukily ended up with my very own used copy of the comic long after I had forgotten about it... and it turns out I never really did forget it. Hopefully this year will see the publishing of the long-awaited non-fiction travel book by Neil Gaiman, Monkey and Me, which sees Neil follow the same path as Monkey's journey through China.

Top Covers/Cover Albums:

The Leisure Society - Something [originally by The Beatles]
As arguably the most covered act of all-time, I'm impressed when I come across Beatles covers that sound new to me. This pretty much proves that no matter how over-covered a song is, all it takes is one inspired artist to make some cover magic. This beautiful cover by The Leisure Society was the standout from Mojo's track-by-track cover tribute to Abbey Road, which actually featured a few other great covers too (Jeffrey Lewis's Octopus's Garden comes to mind). The Leisure Society also registered on my radar with a similarly wonderful cover of Gary Numan's Cars in '09. Definitely a band to keep an ear out for.

Adam Green - I Will [originally by The Beatles]
Last year saw the beginning of the epic Beatles Complete on Ukulele project, which will be providing a bountiful supply of Beatles covers for another 2 years. This irreverent but sweet cover by Adam Green reframes the song as a sort of warped lullabye to his love who OD'ed on pills and is in a coma...

Project Jenny, Project Jan - Self Control [originally by Laura Branigan]
Last year, the Buffetlibre DJs lived up to their name with their covers smorgasbord, Buffetlibre Rewind 2 (still available for free!). The sheer amount of covers is actually quite overwhelming, but I unexpectedly found myself singling out this cover of Laura Branigan's 1984 hit Self Control for repeated listening.

Marco Benevento - Friends [originally by Led Zeppelin]
Benevento's second solo album Me Not Me consisted mainly of jazz reinventions along the lines of The Bad Plus or Brad Mehldau. He covers Beck, The Knife, Leonard Cohen, and others, but it's his version of the rarely covered Friends from Zeppelin III that caught my attention. Benevento also does a brilliant rendition of Nobody Does it Better on his Live at Tonic album.

DeVotchKa - Hot Burrito #1 (I'm Your Toy) [originally by The Flying Burrito Brothers]
I hadn't heard of the original when I fell in love with this cover from last year's Sweetheart compilation from Starbucks. Say what you want about the coffee giants, but their music people manage to attract some major and sometimes unheralded talent to fill out these compilations. This year's batch was recently released and features the likes of José Gonzáles covering Kylie Minogue, The Long Winters covering ZZ Top, and The Shins' James Mercer joining his brother Robert for a Bob Dylan cover. Guess I'll have to make my way to a Starbucks soon to pick this up.

Chromeo - I Can't Tell You Why [originally by The Eagles]
Montréal-based electrofunk artists Chromeo do an modern, but faithful cover of The Eagles track from 1979's The Long Run. There is actually a surprising dearth of good to great cover of Eagles... I can't tell you why. [EDIT: You can get the free MP3 from their official site with your e-mail]

The Lost Fingers - Belleville Rendez-vous [originally from The Triplets of Belleville]
The Lost Fingers followed their 2008 debut of 80s covers with Rendez-vous Rose, an album of Francophone covers in the same gypsy jazz style. All the covers are, of course, great, though I suppose the significance (or humour) of some of the French pop song choices is lost on me. In some cases, they managed to recruit some of the original artists to join them such as Plastic Bertrand on Ça plane pour moi or Nanette Workman on Lady Marmalade (she had a hit with the same song in Québec in the 70s). I was absolutely thrilled to discover they covered the theme song from the animated film The Triplets of Belleville.

Anamanaguchi - Holiday [originally by Weezer]
8-bit cover songs, which have become their own subgenre, are hit or miss with me. They're cute in a retro sense, but then after hearing a bunch of classic rock songs performed as instrumental chiptune songs, I feel like I'm back in the 90s listening to midi translations of popular songs, novel but unexciting. The (free) 8-bit Tribute to Weezer, remakes a collection of Weezer songs as if they're the soundtrack to NES end boss fights, which syncs up nicely with Weezer's nerd aesthetic. My favourite of the bunch is Anamanaguchi's cover of Holiday, combining the sounds of a hacked NES with actual live instrumentation and singing.

Retro Remix Revue - Super Mario Brothers 3 - Overworld BGM, Athletic BGM [originally by Koji Kondo]
The brainchild of Davis Jones and Blaine McGurty, Retro Remix Revue revisits the music of classic Nintendo and Sega games such as Mario, Sonic, Zelda, Donkey Kong, and more. Retro Remix Revue, Vol. 2 was released last year and featured this brilliant and wonderful medley of a couple very familiar tunes from Super Mario 3 as performed by a jazz trio. Unfortunately, there aren't more jazz arrangements like this on the album which is a grab bag of styles favouring synth rock, though there is a Spanish themed guitar cover of the Gerudo Valley Theme from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time that's very good. If you go back to Retro Remix Revue, Vol. 1, you can find another amazing jazz cover incorporating themes from Super Mario World.

Booker T. - Hey Ya [originally by Outkast]
Hey Ya has been covered numerous times but never as a Hammond organ instrumental romp backed by Neil Young on electric guitar. [EDIT: hey, the album won a Grammy tonight! And, uh, Neil Young won his first ever Grammy... for box set packaging]

Michael Bublé featuring Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - Baby (You've Got What It Takes) [originally by Dinah Washington and Brook Benton]
I'm a big fan both Michael Bublé and Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings so it's almost a given that I'd love this cover they did for Bublé's Crazy Love album last year. Coincidentally, they performed this on last night's Saturday Night Live, horn and string section intact.

Pomplamoose - Beat It [originally by Michael Jackson]
When Cover Me's Ray tweeted Pomplamoose's Beat It as potentially the best post-death Michael Jackson (RIP) cover yet, I expected to hear a good cover but I wasn't expecting to stumble on a new favourite band. Pomplamoose has been around since 2008, building their fanbase through a series of "VideoSongs", youtube music videos that visually show every single sound, voice, and instrument you hear as they were performed live (example: Beat It). The duo of Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn reached a new apex of popularity when their VideoSong of Beyoncé's Single Ladies went viral with over 3 million views since September. I quickly discovered that all their covers, which also include Simon & Garfunkel's Mrs. Robinson and Feist's Gatekeeper, can be downloaded for free from their myspace while their originals are $1 each. Even without the visual gimmickry, the songs more than stand on their own as great music. Their Christmas original Always in the Season cemented my appreciation for the music they're creating. Pomplamoose is officially on my music radar permanently.

Danny Michel - Straight to Hell [originally by The Clash]
With its sampling in M.I.A's Paper Planes in 2008, I couldn't help but notice a covers revival of The Clash's Straight to Hell in 2009. Whether it was Elvis Costello & Jakob Dylan teaming up on Costello's Spectacle, an acoustic version by Bill Janovitz for his cover of the week series, or Lily Allen (Joe Strummer's goddaughter!) covering it with Mick Jones for the War Child Heroes covers compilation, there was a definite, if unconscious, effort to let the kids these days know the musical origin of Paper Planes. This is my extreme bias showing, but my favourite rendition is by Danny Michel, a noted aficionado of The Clash and reggae. This comes from the Strummer dub tribute album Shatter the Hotel released in late '09 and featuring a number of Canadian artists.

Favourite Songs/Albums of '09:

The Very Best - Kada Manja [from Warm Heart of Africa]
The full length debut of The Very Best (AKA Esau Mwamwaya and Radio Clit), Warm Heart of Africa, more than lived up to the promise of the free mixtape they released the year before. I was super disappointed that their gig I was set to go to in San Francisco was cancelled... come to Vancouver!
Sleepy Kitty - Gimme a Chantz! [from What I Learned This Summer]
While it was bittersweet to say goodbye to Harvey Danger after their last ever shows in August, I became an instant fan of Chicago-based Sleepy Kitty, the duo of Paige Brubeck and original Harvey Danger drummer Evan Sult, who were playing some of their first ever shows as the opening act. This was my second most played song in 2009 and I can wait to hear what they've got lined up for 2010.
Rodrigo y Gabriela - Buster Voodoo [from 11:11]
On their third album 11:11, each of the 11 tracks pays tribute to one of Rodrigo y Gabriela's musical influences ranging from Pink Floyd to Pantera's Dimebag Darrell to virtuoso jazz pianist Michel Camilo. This one pays tribute to Jimi Hendrix and you might catch hear a quick riff from Voodoo Chile in there.
The BPA - ToeJam [feat. David Byrne & Dizzee Rascal] [from I Think We're Gonna Need A Bigger Boat]
Technically this single was from '08, but the album wasn't released until the beginning of '09. The Brighton Port Authority was a project headed by Norman Cook (AKA Fatboy Slim) joined by a bevy of artists like Iggy Pop, Martha Wainwright, Danger Mouse, Jack Penate, and more. This track featuring David Byrne and UK rapper Dizzee Rascal kept randomly surfacing on iTunes shuffles until I was force to acknowledge and love it.
Says She's Ms. Blat - Poseurs [from Says She's Ms. Blat]
This was a blog submission that I never got around to writing about, but I definitely got hooked on the single Poseurs from the New York duo Says She's Ms. Blat. Lottie Leymarie (keyboards/vocals) and Bret Puchir (drums) perform in the vein of The Dresden Dolls evoking the vocals of Chrissie Hynde or Fiona Apple. [EDIT: download full album including Poseurs from bandcamp site.]
The Dead Weather - So Far From Your Weapon [from Horehound]
It's hard to believe that a year ago today The Dead Weather didn't officially exist and their second album is expected this year. Cool, yes, but will we get to hear a new White Stripes album anytime soon?
Pet Shop Boys - Pandemonium [from Yes]
It was a treat to catch the Pet Shop Boys when they came to Vancouver in September and hear them run through a setlist of some of my favourite all-time songs. While I haven't exactly been paying attention to their output since the 1991 Discography compilation of singles, after the show I became addicted to Pandemonium from their most recent release. The Smiths' Johnny Marr makes a guest appearance on guitars and harmonica.
Zee Avi - Poppy [from Zee Avi]
My favourite new artist of the year. I wrote more about Zee Avi here when she came to Vancity in December. An auspicious debut for sure.
Andrew Bird - Oh No [from Noble Beast]
What, Andrew Bird on a Fong Songs year-end list? No surprise. If he puts out an album, it's a guaranteed inclusion.

2009 in concerts:
2009/02/20 A.C. Newman with Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele Biltmore Cabaret Vancouver, BC
2009/03/13 Alice Russell with The O'My's Schuba's Tavern Chicago, IL
2009/03/14 Sammy Fender and others, featuring Buddy Guy Buddy Guy's Legends Chicago, IL
2009/03/27 JunoFest: Elizabeth Shepherd Rossini's Vancouver, BC
2009/03/29 Juno Songwriter's Circle 2009 (Hawksley Workman, Doc Walker (Chris Thorsteinson and Dave Wasyliw), Jim Cuddy, Jacob Hoggard, Sarah Slean, Ndidi Onukwulu, and Buffy Sainte-Marie) The Centre Vancouver, BC
2009/03/30 Serena Ryder Stanley Industrial Alliance Theatre Vancouver, BC
2009/04/17 Unwigged & Unplugged: An Evening with Christopher Guest, Michael McKean & Harry Shearer The Centre Vancouver, BC
2009/04/25 54·40 Cambie All Access Vancouver, BC
2009/04/30 k-os with Jay Malinowski (of Bedouin Soundclash) Commodore Ballroom Vancouver, BC
2009/05/16 Ellen McIlwaine St. James Hall Vancouver, BC
2009/05/28 Danny Michel with Carolyn Mark and Hannah Georgas Vancouver, BC
2009/06/24 The Tragically Hip Orpheum Theatre Vancouver, BC
2009/06/26 The Lost Fingers Performance Works Vancouver, BC
2009/06/27 Alice Russell Biltmore Cabaret Vancouver, BC
2009/07/03 Jason Webley's 11 Year Elevanniversary Celebration with Amanda Palmer, Reverend Peyton, Andru Bemis, Jay Thompson, Jherek Bischoff, Michael McQuilken, Alex Guy, and more Town Hall Seattle, WA
2009/08/06 - 08/09 Edmonton Folk Music Festival (Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Jill Barber, Chuck Brodsky, Neko Case, Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson, Chumbawamba, Alex Cuba, Fred Eaglesmith, Steve Earle, Kathleen Edwards, Johnny Flynn, Patty Griffin, Hanggai, Sierra Hull, Danny Michel, Steven Page, Joel Plaskett, Boz Scaggs, The Wailers, Loudon Wainwright III, and many more) Gallagher Park Edmonton, AB
2009/08/21 The Dead Weather with Tyvek Commodore Ballroom Vancouver, BC
2009/08/22 The Dead Weather with Tyvek Commodore Ballroom Vancouver, BC
2009/08/28 Harvey Danger with Sleepy Kitty and Ships The Vera Project Seattle, WA
2009/08/29 Harvey Danger with Can You Imagine? The Crocodile Seattle, WA
2009/08/29 Harvey Danger with Sleepy Kitty The Crocodile Seattle, WA
2009/09/12 Summer Sessions with Sarah McLachlan, Neil Young, Sheryl Crow, Luke Doucet, Melissa McClelland, and more Ambleside Park West Vancouver, BC
2009/09/19 Pet Shop Boys The Centre Vancouver, BC
2009/10/20 Ben Folds & The Seattle Symphony Orchestra Benaroya Hall Seattle, WA
2009/10/24 - 10/25 Bridge School Benefit with Neil Young, No Doubt, Chris Martin, Jimmy Buffett, Adam Sandler, Fleet Foxes, Monsters of Folk, Wolfmother, and Gavin Rossdale Shoreline Amphitheater Mountain View, CA
2009/11/25 The Swell Season with Doveman The Centre Vancouver, BC
2009/12/09 Zee Avi with Christopher Smith & The Beckon Call The Media Club Vancouver, BC

I set a new record for concert-going in '09, albeit with a fair number of repeats even within the same year. I went from A to Z, kicking off the year with A.C. Newman and ending with Zee Avi. In between, I doubled up on Dead Weather, Danny Michel, and Alice Russell (in Chicago and Vancouver). Spinal Tap "Unwigged & Unplugged" was a treat, as were The Lost Fingers and The Swell Season (i.e. Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, stars of the film Once). I couldn't pass t up the opportunity to see the Pet Shop Boys and was not disappointed. Same goes for Ben Folds who performed with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. Of course, Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit shows were a once in a lifetime experience... that is, until the next ones. Probably the ultimate shows for me personally were the three final Harvey Danger shows. I mentioned this recently but it deserves re-mentioning... the best single song live performance I witnessed in 2009 was Hawksley Workman at the Juno Songwriter's Circle:

Hawksley Workman - Safe and Sound (Live at The Juno Songwriter's Circle 2009)

2009 in film:
See here.

2010:
With 2010 already well underway, some good stuff has already been released like new albums from Vampire Weekend and Hawksley Workman. Just last week the mailman brought new cover album Turn Ons from The Hotrats (AKA Gaz Coombes and Danny Goffey of Supergrass). Other stuff I'm looking forward to this year:

Debut from conjoined twin sisters Evelyn Evelyn (due in March). Produced by Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley.
Speaking of Supergrass, they've got a proper new album due in early 2010 called Release the Drones
Out already but haven't picked up Corinne Bailey Rae's The Sea yet
The surreal sounding Here Lies Love concept album from David Byrne and Fatboy Slim. Guests include Sharon Jones, Alice Russell, Tori Amos, St. Vincent, and more. Due in late February.
Muppets Revisited cover album... Fall 2010?
Peter Gabriel's Scratch My Back covers album and reciprocal I'll Scratch Yours
possibly a new Mark Ronson album in 2010
New Weird Al! Though honestly his parodies mean less and less to me as I lose touch with whatever current act he's parodying...

Concertwise, I'll be checking out cover stars Nouvelle Vague when they come to town next week. I'll also being seeing K'naan as part of the Olympic festivities and (don't laugh) Canadian children's icon Fred Penner playing at a pub on UBC campus! March will finally see my concert bucket list dwindle to near nothingness as Jamie Cullum comes to town.

Over and out.

Little Wing in the Sea

2010-01-26T23:21:00.005-07:00

Corinne Bailey Rae's new album The Sea came out today and her cover of Jimi Hendrix's Little Wing accompanies the iTunes release, though fortunately it can be purchased separately. Here's her performing it last year in the BBC 1Xtra Live Lounge:

Corinne Bailey Rae - Little Wing (Live on the BBC) [originally by The Jimi Hendrix Experience]

The Power of The Apples

2010-01-26T14:28:00.003-07:00

I've recently become enamoured with The Apples, a 9-piece instrumental funk band from Israel whose cover of Rage Against the Machine's Killing in the Name is, well, killer. It sounds as if the Dap-Kings horn section enlisted a couple turntablists to create a unique fusion of retro funk and modern hip hop. In fact, if you look at their line-up, The Apples consist of a four-piece horn section, drums, double bass, two turntablists, and someone on "Sound Console & Live Effects". Yeah, no guitars, no keyboards. After a few tasty samples, I immediately ate up the rest of their debut 2008 release Buzzin' About from eMusic. Mmmmm... sweet, delicious Apples.

The Apples - The Power [originally by Snap!]
Check out their cover of early 90s hit The Power, which I falsely remembered as being C&C Music Factory. Also make sure to head on over to Versions Galore to hear The Apples' funktastic rendition of Killing in the Name.

http://www.myspace.com/theapplesmusic

Hawksley Workman Covered

2010-01-19T09:34:00.002-07:00

2010 is set to be a banner year for Hawksley Workman with his 11th and 12th albums on the way. In fact, Meat hits stores today while singles from its immediate follow-up Milk will be gradually released digitally over the next 5 months. Hawksley first captured my attention at the 2006 Edmonton Folk Festival. I had heard his name here and there previously, but the first time I actually heard him was his Friday night performance around midnight. In fact, from the hillside I was so far away I could barely make him out on the main stage, but he did a commanding set with no backing band except for the inimitable Mr. Lonely on piano. Then over the next couple days I checked out a couple of his side stage sessions (including one with Feist) and was repeatedly impressed. I saw him again at the 2007 Calgary Folk Fest then once more at last year's Juno Songwriter's Circle show, yet somehow I've never been able to catch one of his own designated shows. In addition to his prolific solo work, he's also produced albums for the likes of Sarah Slean, Hey Rosetta!, Tegan & Sara, Great Big Sea, Jeremy Fisher, and Serena Ryder.

Hawksley Workman - Safe and Sound (Live at The Juno Songwriter's Circle 2009)
My single favourite concert moment of 2009 was watching from the third row of The Centre as Hawksley and Mr. Lonely silenced the audience with this stunning version of Safe and Sound, thankfully immortalized in a CBC radio broadcast. This live version was by far my most played song of 2009.

Hawksley Workman - Striptease (Live at CBC Radio 3)
Hawksley performs the single Striptease from his 2001 album (Last Night We Were) The Delicious Wolves and slips in a bit of Beyoncé's Crazy in Love at a 2008 CBC Radio 3 session.

Last Friday I had the fortuitous opportunity to check out Hawksley Workman perform a short intimate acoustic set at The Peak, a local rock radio station. The day before, Hawksley had tweeted a chance to win tickets to the show. Even though I got an e-mail that night that they were probably full, the next morning I got another e-mail that I'd been added to the guest list. Woohoo! The gig took place in the Peak Performance lounge, what seemed to be a converted meeting room filled with a mini elevated stage and about 4 plush sofas and a few seats. I nabbed a primo seat on a front row couch and buckled in for a four song set: Smoke Baby, We Dance to Yesterday (new Milk single), Your Beauty Must Be Rubbing Off, and Devastating (another Milk song). This was followed by a Q&A, photos, and autographs. Good times.

Here are the dates of his upcoming cross-Canada tour, which conspicuously skips over Vancouver. This was actually one of the questions posed to Hawksley and he reassured us that he's pencilled in for some Olympic performances but even he doesn't know the exact dates yet. I did a little checking and he's supposed to play free shows at the Richmond O-Zone and up at Whistler (Feb. 16).

March 05 - Cumberland BC - Sid Williams Theatre
March 06 - Victoria BC - Alix Goolden Theatre
March 07 - Kelowna BC - Kelowna Community Theatre
March 08 - Trail BC - Charles Bailey Theatre
March 10 - Red Deer AB - Memorial Centre Theatre
March 12 - Banff AB - Eric Harvie Theatre
March 14 - Edmonton AB - Winspear Centre
March 17 - Calgary AB - Jack Singer Hall
March 18 - Saskatoon SK - Odeon
March 19 - Regina SK - Darke Hall,
March 20 - Winnipeg MB - Burton Cummings Theatre
April 07 - Saint John NB - The Blue Olive
April 08 - Fredericton NB - Playhouse Theatre
April 09 - Halifax NS - Rebecca Cohn Theatre
April 10 - St. John's NL - Holy Heart Auditorium
April 12 - Charlottetown PEI - The Guild
April 13 - Charlottetown PEI - The Guild
April 15 - Quebec City QC - Le Cercle
April 16 - Montreal QC - La Tulipe
April 17 - Ottawa ON - Bronson Centre
April 20 - St. Catharines ON - Sean O'Sullivan Theatre
April 21 - London ON - Music Hall
April 24 - Toronto ON - Massey Hall

Hawksley Workman - I've Got the World on a String [originally by Harold Arlen & Ted Koehler]

Hawksley Workman - Love Will Tear Us Apart [originally by Joy Division]

Hawksley Workman - Bankrobber [originally by The Clash]

Hawksley Workman - The Ocean [originally by Led Zeppelin]
Hawksley likes to warm up in a new studio by unleashing some Zeppelin with his bandmates. He shared this recording in a recent episode of his podcast HAWK radio, which is all Hawksley Workman, all the time.

Donovan Woods - Ice Age [originally by Hawksley Workman]

Chris Mills - Don't Be Crushed [originally by Hawksley Workman]

The Great Canadian Vocal Music Project - Hey, Hey, Hey (My Little Beauties) [originally by Hawksley Workman]
This was an unofficial sequel to the Langley Schools Music Project with Belleville, Ontario's Centennial Secondary School Choir singing covers of only Canadian artists including Bruce Cockburn, Feist, Blue Rodeo, Sloan, and more. It's a little more pro and polished than the Langley Schools Music Project, but I suppose it helps when your high school music teacher is David Reed whose debut album featured help from Danny Michel, Andy Maize, and Hawksley Workman to name a few. The Great Canadian Vocal Music Project, Vol. 2 was recorded in 2007 and pressed as CDs for the students and their families, but there are plans to release the album through Maple Music and Zunior. Until then, you can listen to them on their myspace site.

Last year, Hawksley was also part of the 60+ artists who re-did Midnight Oil's Beds are Burning for the Time for Climate Justice campaign. Music video here and song download here.

His great one-take video for Jealous of Your Cigarette:

A new one inspired by wacky Japanese game shows for the single We Dance to Yesterday:

The Kleptones present Uptime/Downtime

2010-01-17T07:53:00.005-07:00

The Kleptones - War of Confusion [Genesis vs. Edwin Starr]
This was one of my favourite mash-ups of 2007 from The Kleptones, brainchild of Brighton DJ Eric Kleptone. His mash-ups are among the ambitious I've ever heard, combining elements of rock, hip hop, electro, movie samples, and whatever into a wholly cohesive new music creation. Often it's hard to simply label his mash-ups as "X BAND vs. Y BAND" because of the sheer amount and diversity of samples used.

The Kleptones kicked off the new year by releasing a brand new double CD mash-up album, Uptime/Downtime. Download the whole thing here. Someone's even started a sample breakdown on wikipedia, so you can get a sense of the broad scope of the source songs. From my initial listens, highlights so far include Can't Be Paranoid (Garbage vs. Genesis) and MKY Da HVN (Pixies, Rage Against the Machine, Cream, Iron Butterfly, and more).

Reliving the 90's in Utah

2010-01-16T02:43:00.001-07:00

Drew Danburry and other Utah artists are teaming up to relive the 90s with a series of YouTube video covers to be released monthly. First up, Katie Brandeburg doing her cover of Lisa Loeb's Stay. At first it stays dangerously close to the original, then it evolves into a heart-lifting group romp through the ubiquitous 90s hit. You know, it's a bit refreshing to hear an irony-free take on the 90s. Can't wait to hear what they've got lined up next.

Live from Australia!

2010-01-15T06:37:00.001-07:00

A recent tweet from Cover Me's Ray tipped me off about the Australian website Moshcam.com, whose goal is to bring live music to the masses through quality video recordings for free. They've got hundreds of FULL concerts and there are definitely some gems in there. A selection for your consideration with, of course, a covers breakdown:

2007/12/17 Amanda Palmer
-lots o' covers here. Amanda takes on Jason Webley, Regina Spektor, Radiohead, Rihanna, and Leonard Cohen.
2008/02/21 Jeff Martin
-former Tea Party frontman Jeff Martin takes his solo show on the road. Partial covers of Love the One You're With and In My Time of Dying.
2008/09/27 The Living End
-no covers, but the "Instrumental Medley" (i.e. E Boogie) is always a thrill to watch.
2008/10/11 Casino Rumblers
-horn-infused cover of AC/DC's Whole Lotta Rosie
2008/10/12 The New Pornographers
-includes a cover of ELO's Don't Bring Me Down
2008/11/01 The Vines
-a slow-paced cover of Outkast's Hey Ya
2009/01/05 The Hives
-unexpected covers from the Swedish rockers of The Rolling Stones' Beast of Burden, The Saint's Lost and Found, and an interesting punk version of the standard Stormy Weather.
2009/01/08 Tegan & Sara
-Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark
2009/01/11 Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
-this was the only video that wasn't working for me, but they do a cover of Sam Cooke's A Change is Gonna Come.

Go get lost in the archives and drop a line with any recommendations!

Love & Arrows

2010-01-13T19:17:00.001-07:00

Head on over to Covering the Mouse to check out my guest post all about the love theme from Disney's 1973 animated Robin Hood. Stay tuned because I will be dropping by there monthly to share even more Disney covers.

The Wombats - (Everything I Do) I Do It for You [originally by Bryan Adams]

Fantastic Heroes & Fantastic Villains

2010-01-08T07:42:00.002-07:00

My unofficial new year's resolution (i.e. don't hold me to it) is to simplify my blog posts. One of many reasons my post count was at its lowest since 2007 is that I have a tendency to start working on posts that inevitably escalate as I get caught up in researching new covers in addition to getting lost on bizarre tangents as I make more and more trivial discoveries along the way. A covers-post on Quentin Tarantino's filmography and one on comic book artist/musicians are two fairly recent additions to blogger draft hell. Today's post is another one I started a few weeks ago after I saw Fantastic Mr. Fox, which got stymied as I went off on a wild goose chase to track down one particular cover. Well, no more, I say! If I'm inspired to throw together a post, I'm just going to go ahead and try to do it without my neurotic tendency to attempt comprehensiveness on some narrow, random topic.

Today's topic: Films of 2009. That's right, I'm not done with 2009 quite yet. I'm going to take a cue from Ekko over at Berkeley Place and do a quick rundown of everything I saw last year. By my tally, I saw 39 new films in 2009, which seems like a lot on one hand and not enough on the other.

The bottom 3:

Meh:

G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra; X-Men Origins: Wolverine; Ninja Assassin; Brüno, Kamui Gaiden, The Time Traveler's Wife; Taken; Angels and Demons; Terminator: SalvationWorth a Peek:

I saw it

On the never-ending, ever-growing to-do list:

Ponyo; Drag Me to Hell; Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans; The Informant; The Road; The Cove; An Education; Crazy Heart; Nine; Public Enemies; Funny People; Thirst; Duplicity; Whatever Works; Humpday; In the Loop; Knowing; Adventureland; State of Play
See, I've already blown my new year's resolution by spending half an hour going through wikipedia's 2009 in film to formulate these lists...

Top Ten:

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Less than an hour after seeing Fantastic Mr. Fox, I turned to my friend and said "That was probably the best movie I saw all year" and he wholeheartedly agreed. Conflicting schedules led to us going about three weeks after it had already opened and even though I'd been steadfastly avoiding reviews to that point, I couldn't help but notice the complete lack of buzz before or after its release. To date, the film has grossed just over $19 million of its $40 million production budget. If Avatar is earning a CEO's salary, Fantastic Mr. Fox is like a teenage kid flipping burgers for minimum wage (or worse). Heck, even Paul Blart: Mall Cop earned more in one weekend than Fantastic Mr. Fox in almost two months. Right now, it ranks 107th domestically for 2009 films, sandwiched between Under the Sea 3D and The Jonas Brothers 3D concert. Even though it's pretty much a given that terrible movies make a lot of money and great ones don't, to me this seemed like a pretty egregious box office offense. Sure enough, the theatre was nearly empty when we went. Other than our group of four, there was maybe ten other filmgoers, which made the cackling and giggling all the more pronounced in such an empty theatre.

I went in with mild reservations (mainly based on the lacklustre trailer), which is odd considering I'm a big fan of Wes Anderson, a big fan of stop-motion animation, and a big fan of Roald Dahl. So there was a lot at stake here, but I loved every second of this movie beginning to end. Fantastic Mr. Fox opens quite literally with the opening of the title book by little clay hands and I beamed as I noticed it distinctly carried a library spine label. Then a couple minutes later Wes Anderson sunk his meathooks into me when he underscored Mr. and Mrs. Fox's daring raid on a chicken coop with Heroes and Villains, my all-time favourite Beach Boys song. Not long after that, he even slips in Love, the Oscar-nominated song from Disney's 1973 animated Robin Hood, my favourite Disney film. The movie was barely underway and it was already resonating on a deep molecular level. You can feel the care and artistry that went into the impeccably detailed set decorations, handmade costumes, and props. The ringer cast of Anderson regulars is bolstered by George Clooney as the fast-talking title character who is always quickly thinking up schemes but rarely dwelling on the potential consequences. As the nefarious Bean, Michael Gambon (who has one of my favourite phonebook reading voices) gets probably the best and most quotable line in the movie when he chastises Jarvis Cocker, "That's just weak songwriting. You wrote a bad song, Petey!" and flicks a cigarette at him. The movie is filled with little moments like that, which is part of what I love about the script. These little asides are written as if it's a live-action film with little regard to the fact that each one probably took weeks to animate. You should definitely run out and see it before it leaves theatres. It's Wes Anderson's best since The Royal Tenenbaums, another all-time favourite.

There's a bit of a story to how Heroes and Villains inexplicably became my favourite Beach Boys song. Years ago, my dad had borrowed some sort of Best of the Beach Boys CD from the library and recorded it onto cassette tape. Like most greatest hits compilations, this had the usual familiar hits like Good Vibrations, Sloop John B, Wouldn't It Be Nice, and 5 songs about surfing. But this one had one that I'd never heard before and it would be years before I was able to find out what it was. You see, my dad had recorded it in such a way that most of Heroes and Villains was cut off by the end of side one of the cassette tape and when you flipped it over it continued with the next track as if nothing had happened. So I fell in love with the first minute of Heroes and Villains. I still have a distinct memory of scavenging the house, the basement, the glove compartment, trying to dig up this abandoned cassette tape since I all of a sudden needed OCD-style to find that song. My dad didn't know what the song was called and he helpfully did not bother to write any tracklist for the tape. I resorted to borrowing various Beach Boys greatest hits CD from the library and going through track-by-track but even this proved difficult since Heroes and Villains is not on the majority of them. Apparently, my dad had borrowed the one compilation album that considered it a hit. Then one day, I had the latest candidate in my discman and was dutifully listening/skipping through each track when the elusive track kicked off: "I've been in this town so long that back in the city I've been taken for lost and gone and unknown for a long, long time". I immediately flipped the CD case over and read the back. Heroes and Villains. SUCCESS! And that same moment of revelation and elation filled my heart as I watched it grace the soundtrack of Fantastic Mr. Fox.

The Beach Boys - Heroes and Villains
There are numerous incarnations of this song which was originally intended for their legendary incomplete Smile album. It was eventually issued as a single and released on 1967's Smiley Smile album. Brian Wilson would eventually re-record the "complete" version when he resurrected Smile in 2004.

Geraint Watkins - Heroes and Villains [originally by The Beach Boys]
The Apples in Stereo - Heroes and Villains [originally by The Beach Boys]
The Rubinoos - Heroes and Villains [originally by The Beach Boys]
Malcolm Ross - Heroes and Villains [originally by The Beach Boys]

White Winter Hymnal

2010-01-06T08:10:00.001-07:00

Happy New Year, everyone! A quick one for you while I continue plugging away on another post . . . Boyhowdy from Cover Lay Down just dug up this most excellent cover of Fleet Foxes' White Winter Hymnal, though it's a wee bit too "rock" for his folk blog so he generously passed it along and I was more than happy to snap it up.

Panda Eyes - White Winter Hymnal [originally by Fleet Foxes]
Panda Eyes are a band from Aberdeen, Scotland and the cover was recorded for a Christmas charity album that could only be purchased from a little coffee shop in Aberdeen called Kilau Coffee ("Coffee, Crepes and Contemporary Art!"). You can download more Panda Eyes from last.fm or visit their myspace page.

Top Covers and Worst Film of the Decade

2009-12-31T08:30:00.001-07:00

Decembers in pop culture land are always filled with a glut of year-end lists, but this year is even crazier with everyone tossing out decade-end lists left and right. I didn't want this to get out of hand, so I've really narrowed the scope to just a flat-out list of my personal favourite cover songs of the decade and THE absolute worst film of the decade.

Attempting to rank these would be an exercise in futility, so this is purely based on iTunes playcounts. I have 6000+ covers tagged as being in the 00's, but of course it wouldn't surprise me if some poor covers were left out of the running based on incomplete tags. While posting all 50 songs would be overkill, not to mention an open invitation for a blogger crackdown, I've randomly linked to a few covers, some of which I've probably never even blogged about despite their high ranking. Here we go...

Top 50 Covers 2000 - 2009:
50. Dick Brave & The Backbeats - Freedom [originally by George Michael]
49. The Breeders - Wicked Little Town (Hedwig Version) [originally from Hedwig & the Angry Inch]
48. Bowling For Soup - The Bare Necessities [originally from Disney's The Jungle Book]
47. Ben Folds - Songs of Love [originally by The Divine Comedy]
46. The Bad Plus - Tom Sawyer [originally by Rush]
45. The Living End - I Get a Kick Out of You [originally by Cole Porter]
44. Tok Tok Tok - The Weight [originally by The Band]
43. The Phantom Of The Opera - Nightwish [originally by Andrew Lloyd Webber]
42. Rasputina - Rock and Roll [originally by Led Zeppelin]
41. Brad Roberts - Bette Davis Eyes [originally by Jackie DeShannon]
40. Pascale Picard - Shine On You Crazy Diamond [originally by Pink Floyd]
39. Devo 2.0 - Monkey's Uncle [originally by Annette Funicello with The Beach Boys]
38. The Wrong Trousers - Such Great Heights [originally by The Postal Service]
37. Lulu Hughes - Time [originally by Pink Floyd]
36. Hayseed Dixie - Holiday [originally by Green Day]
35. Fall Out Boy - What's This? [originally by Danny Elfman]
34. Mark Ronson - Oh My God (feat. Lily Allen) [originally by Kaiser Chiefs]
33. The Polyphonic Spree - Lithium [originally by Nirvana]
32. JerryC - Canon Rock [originally by Pachelbel]
31. The Bicycles - Cuddly Toy [originally by Harry Nilsson]
30. Serena Ryder - It Doesn't Matter Anymore [originally recorded by Buddy Holly; written by Paul Anka]
29. Motormark - Left To My Own Devices [originally by Pet Shop Boys]
28. Mark Ronson - Just (feat. Alex Greenwald) [originally by Radiohead]
27. Serena Ryder - Some Of These Days [originally by Shelton Brooks]
26. Chris Thile - Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground [originally by The White Stripes]
25. PoZitive Orchestra - Shine On You Crazy Diamond [originally by Pink Floyd] [DIRECT LINK]
24. Daniel Bedingfield - A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes [originally from Disney's Cinderella]
23. D-Sailors - We Built This City (feat. Wick Slick) [originally by Starship]
22. Danny Michel - Lady Stardust [originally by David Bowie]
21. The F-Ups - All the Young Dudes [originally by David Bowie]
20. Phantom Planet - Our House [originally by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young]
19. Blacklight Posterboys - Jet [originally by Paul McCartney & Wings]
18. Me First & The Gimme Gimmes - Nothing Compares 2 U [originally by Prince]
17. Jon Brion - Play the Game [originally by Queen]
16. Days of the New - L.A. Woman [originally by The Doors]
15. OK Go & Bonerama - Rock 'N' Roll Suicide [originally by David Bowie]
14. Mint Royal - Singin' in the Rain [originally written by Arthur Freed & Nacio Herb Brown]
13. The Polyphonic Spree - Wig in a Box [originally from Hedwig & The Angry Inch]
12. The Shins - Baby Boomerang [originally by T. Rex]
11. William Shatner - Common People [feat. Joe Jackson] [originally by Pulp]
10. Jamie Cullum - I Get a Kick Out Of You [originally by Cole Porter]
09. Harvey Danger - Oh! You Pretty Things [originally by David Bowie]
08. Manic Street Preachers - Can't Take My Eyes Off You [originally recorded by Franki Valli]
07. RLM & Katsuhiko Sakamoto & Ikuko Harada - 19th Nervous Breakdown [originally by The Rolling Stones]
06. Estradasphere - Super Mario Bros. 2 SuperBuckJazz [originally by Koji Kondo]
05. The Shins - We Will Become Silhouettes [originally by The Postal Service]
04. Ben Kweller - BK Baby [originally by Vanilla Ice]
03. The Bens - Wicked Little Town (Tommy Gnosis Version) [originally from Hedwig & The Angry Inch]
02. Ben Jelen - Wicked Little Town [originally from Hedwig & The Angry Inch]
01. Danny Michel - Young Americans [originally by David Bowie]

It shouldn't surprise any regular reader that Danny Michel's Young Americans tops this list since it's more or less my favourite cover of all-time. Perhaps a little more surprising, two covers by four Bens of two different versions of Wicked Little Town take the two and three positions. A third cover by The Breeders also made the cut, so quantitively you could say Wicked Little Town is my favourite song of all-time, cover or otherwise, and I wouldn't really argue. With five entries, David Bowie dwarfs the competition in having his songs covered lending some vague credibility to an argument I heard once that everybody does a better Bowie song than Bowie himself (not at all true, though he does inspire great covers).

======================

Thankfully, I managed to avoid almost all of Rotten Tomatoes' Worst 100 Films of the Decade, but a couple slipped by. While some bad films are merely boring or forgettable, these ones also inspired active hate.

5. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
4. The New Guy (2002)
3. August Rush (2007)
2. Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002)
1. Titanic: The Animated Movie (2001)

No, I'm not joking. This exists and I have seen it. I came across the DVD multiple times in the Chinese section of the public library before morbid curiosity got the better of me and I took it out. Oh boy, did I regret it. This incomprehensibly abysmal movie can basically be summed up with this clip of a rapping dog:

When discussing decade-end lists, my co-worker says this doesn't count because it's not even a movie and he's kinda right. While Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever is so terrible it's almost laughable, this abomination is so mind-blowingly atrocious that it makes you hate yourself for having watched it.

'Tis the Season to be Jolly

2009-12-24T09:20:00.001-07:00

One last gift to you all, my dear readers! The gift of laughter, ho ho ho. I've watched this dozens of times and it never fails to crack me up. Much joy to you and your loved ones wherever you are.

Every Season Has an End

2009-12-18T05:03:00.001-07:00

It's the end of the year, the end of the decade. So far, I've resisted the temptation to add to the plethora of decade-end lists, which isn't to say that it won't happen... but for now, four versions of The Greenhornes' There is an End, followed by a grab bag of random links to recent things of note.

"Spring brings the rain,
With winter comes pain,
Every season has an end."
The Greenhornes featuring Holly Golightly - There is an End
The Greenhornes collaborated with British singer Holly Golightly who performed lead vocals on There is an End, written by Craig Fox, the band's guitarist/lead vocalist. It originally appeared on their 2002 album Dual Mono, but later served as the de facto theme song to the 2005 Jim Jarmusch film Broken Flowers with Bill Murray. By a weird coincidence, the very same weekend that Broken Flowers came out, I happened to go to back-to-back shows of The White Stripes here in Vancouver for which The Greenhornes were the openers. After the second show, I hung around with some other fans in the vain hope of meeting Jack or Meg (neither showed) but The Greenhornes did and I shook hands with Patrick Keeler and got the band to autograph my ticket (which I promptly lost). Of course, Keeler and Little Jack Lawrence went on to join Jack White as part of The Raconteurs and Lawrence would also be part of The Dead Weather when they debuted earlier this year.

Holly Golightly - There's an End
This version sans The Greenhornes (and slightly altered title) appeared on Holly Golightly's 2003 album Truly She is None Other, which featured liner notes by none other than Jack White. Golightly also joined Jack and Meg for the duet (um, word for three-person duet??) It's True That We Love One Another from The White Stripes album Elephant.

Gnarls Barkley - There's an End (Live in Boston)
This was an early Christmas gift courtesy of fellow blogger Leopold Stotch of Versions Galore. I had been searching for this for the past couple years ever since finding out Gnarls Barkley had been covering There is an End during their summer '06 tour. I knew some sort of recording existed somewhere but I failed miserably in my attempts to track it down until it magically appeared in my inbox last month. Many thanks!! Funnily enough, that same summer The Raconteurs were frequently covering Gnarls Barkley's Crazy at their own shows!

Ronnie Spector - There is an End (featuring Patti Smith)
Last month saw the US release of The Last of the Rock Stars from the legendary Ronnie Spector, though the album actually came out in the UK in 2006. Backed by Keeler and Lawrence (no Fox?), this version also features fellow 2007 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Patti Smith on backing vocals. Running with this whole theme of White Stripes connections, this summer Meg White married Patti Smith's son Jackson in a double ceremony with Jack Lawrence and his fiancée in the backyard of Jack White's Nashville home.

=========================

Okay, so this is probably my last post until after the holidays, but I've got a bunch of news/links to share, as always, filtered through the tunnel vision that is Fong Songs.

The nominations are in and the Coverville Countdown is on! Brian's annual countdown of the top 40 covers of all-time is in the voting stage until December 22nd. This year's a little different with the newly instituted Coverville Hall of Fame, 10 perennial cover contenders taken out of the running to let some new blood in. Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah, Johnny Cash's Hurt, and Bill Shatner's Common People are among the elite covers that are no longer eligible. Last week, I submitted my five nominations for your consideration: Ellen McIlwaine's Higher Ground, Moxy Früvous's Psycho Killer, OK Go & Bonerama's Rock 'n' Roll Suicide, Danny Michel's Young Americans, and PoZitive Orchestra's Shine on You Crazy Diamond. Vote here!
Speaking of voting, Cover Me's latest cover commission is We Are the Willows. Vote what song he should cover! Right now, The Shins' Caring is Creepy leads the pack, but I went with The Zombies' The Way I Feel Inside.
In case you missed it, 2009 Polaris Prize winners F*cked Up recently released their cover of Do They Know It's Christmas on iTunes with 100% of the proceeds going to Canadian non-profit organizations. The eclectic cast of performers lending their support include Tegan & Sara, David Cross, Yo La Tengo, GZA, Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig, Bob Mould, Andrew W.K., Kyp Malone, and Kevin Drew. You can buy it on iTunes and read more about it here.
Fong Songs fave Alex Robinson's A Kidnapped Santa Claus is in bookstores everywhere and online if you're looking for a last minute stocking stuffer or just a plain great gift. Full disclosure: I know Alex reads my blog(!), but that won't stop me from an shamelessly plugging it without being asked to! A Kidnapped Santa Claus is a graphic adaptation of a 1904 short story by L. Frank Baum (he of Oz fame), which can be read for free in its entirety on Project Gutenberg. I'd honestly never heard of the story before this, but it's fun to notice the obvious influence it had on the plot of Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas. As always, Alex's drawings are great and it bears his distinct style even though it's his first adaptation, not to mention his first all ages book. There are hilarious hidden visual jokes throughout and I should definitely mention there are pugs in suits, ha ha. Highly recommended! Alex's epic Box Office Poison was also recently named one of The AV Club best comics of the past decade--congrats, Alex!
I've mentioned this before, but it's worth a revisit: Covered, the blog of comic book covers redrawn by other comic artists. Just like music covers, the best ones completely make it in their own style while still retaining the essence of the original. I'm consistently impressed by the output and occasionally I'll actually recognize a cover from my miniscule collection of single issue comics (somewhere in a box back home).
Pomplamoose made waves in the cover world with their relatively recent hit youtube video cover of Beyoncé's Single Ladies. And that's not all, they have great covers of Beat It, Mrs. Robinson, September, and more. The accompanying videos are must-see since the San Francisco duo are pioneers in the self-created movement of "VideoSongs". That is, every instrument, voice, and sound you hear can be seen in the video (this will completely make sense when you watch the videos). Even without the visuals, the music is fantastic and all the covers can be downloaded for free from their myspace page. Proving they're not just a one-trick pony (or one-trick moose), their latest triumph is the Christmas original Always in the Season. Watch the magic here. This time, the duo is joined by a mini orchestral section that includes Zoë Keating on cello! A new classic.
If you have some sort of crazy White Stripes fanatic on your Christmas list and you're extremely generous, well, Jack White just made your gift-giving decision very easy. Last week, it was announced that a limited edition box set for The White Stripes concert film Under Great White Northern Lights would be immediately available for pre-order and released in March. The film, which recently premiered at the Toronto Film Fest, celebrates The White Stripes unprecedented tour of every Canadian province and territory in 2007. The über boxset includes the DVD of the film, an exclusive DVD of the entire 10th Anniversary show in Glace Bay, the band's first ever live album on CD and double LP with songs recorded during the Canadian tour, a 208-page hardcover photo book with a foreword by Jim Jarmusch, 1 of 6 different silk screens designed by Rob Jones, a and a 7" vinyl with two live cuts included The Wheels on the Bus (uh, recorded on a city bus in Winnipeg). Naturally, I was all over it and pre-ordered it as soon as humanly possible, in spite of the hefty $200 price tag (watch it, it jumps $50 in the new year). If you're a long-time reader, you may remember me going on and on and on about the tour that whole summer on the blog. In addition to our hometown Edmonton gig, my friends and I managed to pull off a crazy pilgrimage to the Maritimes to see four shows included the ultimate gig in Glace Bay. I'll let you know if I make it on the DVD. :)
From the realm of unlikely cover collaborators, Montréal rocker Sam Roberts performed a cover of Kenny Rogers' The Gambler with the The Holiday Jam Players at a benefit show in Toronto a few days ago. Sharing the stage: Kathleen Edwards, Jim Bryson, City & Colour's Dallas Green, TSN's Dave Hodge, and CBC's Ron MacLean! Watch here.
In related hockey news, strictly for Oilers fans... country singer Corb Lund penned a celebratory Oilers anthem called The Oil's Back in Town. The song is peppered with classic calls from 630 CHED play-by-play man Rod Phillips during our dynasty years. Fun stuff and proceeds from the single's sale benefit The Edmonton Oilers Community Foundation. Buy it from iTunes today!
A silent short film directed by Neil Gaiman called Statuesque will make its debut on SKY1 in the UK on Christmas Day at 10pm. It stars the always reliable Bill Nighy and the lovely Miss Amanda Palmer. If I remember correctly, the score is by Sxip Shirey.
My ever-dwindling concert bucket list will get another check when Jamie Cullum drops by the Commodore Ballroom in March! Cullum will be touring select cities in the US (also Vancouver and Toronto!) in support of his first album in 4 years, The Pursuit. You may have seen his, ahem, explosive video for his cover of Rihanna's Don't Stop the Music, a song I admittedly only knew from the 30-second snippet that plays TWICE before every single movie I've seen in the past year.
Zunior.com, the "little digital music store" from Canada, recently released a full cover album of A Charlie Brown Christmas. Featuring recent Fong Songs fave Jill Barber crooning The Christmas Song, the whole 12 track album can be bought for only $8.88 with 100% of the proceeds going to the Daily Bread Food Bank.

Have a great holiday everyone!

Eh! to Zee Avi

2009-12-08T18:00:00.002-07:00

I am really excited to see Malaysian artist Zee Avi play at the Media Club here in Vancouver tomorrow night. Even though she's basically my favourite new artist of the year, I've somehow avoided blogging about her since first finding out about her music in April. My first exposure to Zee Avi was through a post on Ukulele Hunt with the chords to her song Just You and Me and a brief description of her heartwarming journey from YouTube uke picker to a US record deal. Admittedly the part that immediately grabbed my attention and had me dig deeper was the mention of her video being "discovered" by Raconteurs drummer Patrick Keeler.

Dating back over two years ago, she had been posting several original songs and covers (including The White Stripes' We're Going to Be Friends) under the username KokoKaina, but it was her original Christmas song No Christmas for Me that exploded in popularity, being featured on the YouTube front page and leading to a deluge of e-mails from well-wishers and label reps. One of those was from Ian Montone, manager of The White Stripes and The Shins among others, who had been shown the video by Patrick Keeler. This eventually led to her being flown to L.A. to record her self-titled debut album, which was jointly released this past May by Monotone Records and Jack Johnson's Brushfire Records. Her No Christmas for Me was also released on last year's Brushfire X-Mas compilation, This Warm December: A Brushfire Holiday.

If I'm not mistaken, this will be her first ever gig in Canada. Don't worry, we will refrain from referring to her as Zed Avi... Based on some of her tweets today, the gig was a little up in the air:

Huzzah! This is the third time this year she's been scheduled to perform a Vancouver gig and I would've been very disappointed to find out another show was scrapped. I was originally going to see her show here in July when I found out it had been canceled with no explanation. Then she was re-scheduled a month later as the opener for Pete Yorn, unfortunately on the same night as The Dead Weather's Vancouver debut. It turns out that Yorn gig never happened anyway for reasons unknown. So third time's the charm, right?

Even when you check out her early videos her on YouTube, it's easy to hear that star-making quality in her voice, which has a jazzy Norah Jones vibe. Though most of the songs are performed on guitar, she starts writing them all on ukulele. In an interview I read or heard somewhere, she describes The Velvet Underground as an influence, in the sense that she would write these happy, upbeat songs that belie the lyrical content. For example, one of the standout songs Poppy describes losing a boyfriend to heroin addiction with the head bobbing chorus "The poppy took my baby away from me". Another great song Kantoi jauntily flops back and forth between Malay and English while telling the story of two cheating lovers ("Kantoi" = "Busted!"). Some other ones I dig are Bitter Heart, Monte, Honey Bee, and a cover of Morrissey's First of the Gang to Die. Zee has also been doing the radio circuit this summer, which has produced some other sweet covers:

Zee Avi - First of the Gang to Die [originally by Morrissey]
From Zee Avi's self-titled album, available on Amazon, iTunes, and the usual spots.

Zee Avi - Slow Hands [originally by Interpol]
Zee Avi - Dream a Little Dream of Me [originally written by Wilbur Schwandt, Fabian Andre and Gus Kahn]
Live on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic, May 20, 2009.

Zee Avi - Summertime [originally by George Gershwin]
Live on the Acoustic Cafe, September 21, 2009.

Two dates left on the tour:
December 10th The Crocodile - Seattle, WA
December 11th Roseland Theater - Portland, OR

Check out Zee on the internet:

Beatles For Sale Covered!

2009-12-04T06:40:00.005-07:00

2009 has been a big year for the Beatles brand, from the stereo and mono remastered box sets to the release of The Beatles: Rock Band. It was also the 40th anniversary of the release of Abbey Road, so we saw some cover action from Mojo Magazine who put together a full album cover compilation and The Art of Time Ensemble who put covered the album live (listen here).

We also saw the beginning of the epic Beatles Complete on Ukulele project spearheaded by Roger Greenawalt and Dave Barratt, which started in January and will continue until July 2012, a new Beatles ukulele cover every week for free. Since I last mentioned the project, Megg Farrell's Dig a Pony has become my latest favourite. This very Sunday December 6th, The 2nd Annual Beatles Complete On Ukulele Festival will be performed in Brooklyn. Running from 11am to midnight, a ragtag band of singers and musicians will be performing all 185 original Beatles songs. You can get in, presumably at any point, for $10 admission, though free if you bring your own ukulele at 11am to join a ukulele playing mob. Notable among the multitude of performers are Guster's Ryan Miller (slated for Something and I'm Looking Through You) and The Zambonis, who any hockey fan would recognize from their ubiquitous I Wanna Drive the Zamboni played at NHL games everywhere [EDIT: it has been pointed out to me that the song is originally by The Gear Daddies, though The Zambonis have also recorded it]. Another exciting surprise is that Zee Avi, probably my favourite new artist of the 2009, is set to perform And I Love Her and Good Night at the show. I'm excited to see her live in Vancouver next week, so expect a Zee Avi cover post coming right up. More information including the hourly schedule for the Complete Beatles on Ukulele show is here.

Anyway, today marks another milestone that's particularly dear to my heart, the 45th anniversary of Beatles for Sale. Released December 4, 1964 in the UK, it's my all-time favourite Beatles album with arguably my all-time favourite Beatles song in No Reply-- arguably, since who can really pinpoint one favourite Beatles song to the exclusion of any other? In the US, songs from Beatles for Sale were split between the releases Beatles '65 and Beatles IV. After the all-original A Hard Day's Night, which was recorded and released in the same year (ridiculous!), The Beatles returned to the mix of originals and covers that marked their first two albums. Critics (and fans) have been pretty harsh on the album, noting the band's apparent weariness (ha, look at that album cover!), the originals to cover song ratio, and the cynicism of the title itself (the album was rushed for Christmas release). Even Lennon and McCartney consider several of the tracks as filler. But I say pshaw to all of that! Favourite Beatles album of all-time! That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Now on to the cover songs!

Yellow Matter Custard - No Reply [originally by The Beatles]
Yellow Matter Custard was a Beatles tribute supergroup made up of Mike Portnoy, Neal Morse, Paul Gilbert, and Matt Bissonette who only ever performed twice, though one show was recorded for a live CD and DVD. This cover isn't particularly great, but it supports something I've always believed, that No Reply basically has the greatest bridge of all time. When I was young, I used to repeatedly listen to that section of the song and immediately rewind it to hear it again, years before I even knew what the bridge part of a song was. When I first heard this version, I just had to laugh when the band finished the song but went back to replay the bridge part because it was so great. AMEN! The song is filled with bubbling rage, jealousy, and paranoia as the protagonist is repeatedly gets "no reply" from his lover. Or maybe it's all in his head and he's a stalker. Rubber Soul's Run for Your Life makes a particularly vicious sequel to this song.

Marianne Faithfull - I'm a Loser [originally by The Beatles]
The second in the so-called Lennon trilogy that kicks off the album, I'm a Loser carries on with the somewhat dark and dreary themes brought up in No Reply (just you wait 'til Baby's in Black!). Not along ago they were singing Love Me Do and All My Loving, but now John's repeatedly singing "I'm a loooooooooser". He's lost his girl and is now filled with self-loathing. Lovely! This peppy version by Marianne Faithfull has an air of tragedy if you listen to it while perusing her wikipedia article.

Punch Brothers - Baby's in Black [originally by The Beatles]
One of the darker themed Beatles numbers, here the protagonist is in love with a girl who is grieving the death of her man. "Though he'll never come back, she's dressed in black". Yikes! The song is also notable for John and Paul's great harmonies, which are admirably covered here by the Punch Brothers, a bluegrass band fronted by ex-Nickel Creek mandolinist Chris Thile. This is from their live performance on the Kent, OH online radio station Folk Alley.

The Beach Boys - Rock and Roll Music [originally by Chuck Berry]
The first of six covers on the album, The Beatles were reaching back into their catalogue of live covers from their days playing clubs in Hamburg and Liverpool. This was reportedly one of their favourites to play live and is one of several Chuck Berry covers they recorded. More than 10 years after The Beatles' version, The Beach Boys released this on their 1976 album 15 Big Ones, a bomb of an album (though a hit) that mixed covers and originals. Hmmm... sound familiar? Listen to the difference between the Beatles "cranking one out" and The Beach Boys trying to cash in on renewed public interest following the success of their Endless Summer compilation.

Glen Phillips - I'll Follow the Sun [originally by The Beatles]
This Glen Phillips cover comes from the 2009 Eddie Murphy film Imagine That. Has anybody even heard of this movie? Well, the film's soundtrack takes an I Am Sam all-Beatles cover approach, though the only other artists I recognize are Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs who perform Got to Get You Into My Life. From what I've heard of the rest of the album, the covers are very by-the-numbers though I dig this one's extended coda.

The Hollies - Mr. Moonlight [originally recorded by Dr. Feelgood and the Interns]
This has been called one of the worst songs the Beatles ever recorded. What can I say, I like it. A commenter on The Beatles Bible website said of this song: "Each time John sings 'And the night you don't come my way...', possibly totaling 10-15 seconds worth of Beatles history, is emblazoned in my mind as perhaps the best 15 seconds in musical history!" I've always thought so too and I'm glad to read someone else pinpoint the exact moments of greatness in this cover. John's raw delivery particularly on those eight words completely makes it work and this distinct vocal quality is missing on other covers and even the original. The Hollies cover actually predates the Beatles' by 11 months on their Stay with the Hollies album.

Count Basie - Kansas City [originally by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller]
The seventh track on Beatles for Sale was a medley of Kansas City and Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, the latter by Little Richard who usually performed this same combo live. This instrumental big band cover is from American bandleader Count Basie and his orchestra who released an album of Beatles covers in 1966, Basie's Beatles Bag.

The Undertakers - Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey [originally by Little Richard]
The Undertakers were contemporaries of the Beatles in Liverpool, led by Jackie Lomax who later became an Apple recording artist. His 1969 album Is This What You Want? was produced by George Harrison and also featured Paul, Ringo, and Eric Clapton.

Billy Preston - Eight Days a Week [originally by The Beatles]
The most outright pop song on the album, it's probably not a surprise that it was also the only song on the album to hit #1 on the charts. This upbeat organ cover is by Billy Preston, sometimes called the Fifth Beatle. Now just how many "Fifth Beatles" were there?? Answer: many. But Billy Preston made key contributions to several Beatles classics: electric piano on Get Back and Don't Let Me Down and Hammond organ on Something and I Want You (She's So Heavy). In fact, the Get Back single was credited to "The Beatles with Billy Preston", the only time an official Beatles single shared a credit with another artist. Another fun fact: Billy Preston's version of My Sweet Lord was actually released 10 months before George Harrison's!

Jessica Lea Mayfield - Words of Love [originally by Buddy Holly]
This austere, dreamy cover by Jessica Lea Mayfield is from this year's Sweetheart cover compilation from Starbucks and it's actually one of the stand-outs, although I suppose I am a sucker for Beatles for Sale covers.

Ben Folds Five - Honey Don't [originally by Carl Perkins]
As sung by Ringo for his one vocal spot, it was recorded during the final session for Beatles for Sale. Coincidentally, this would be the last song Ben Folds Five ever recorded together. It was featured in the PBS special Good Rockin' Tonight: The Legacy of Sun Records, although it was left off the accompanying CD release (Paul McCartney's That's All Right Mama made the cut). It was eventually released on DVD.

Yes - Every Little Thing [originally by The Beatles]
This might be one of the most drastic reinventions of any Beatles song, let alone one of their least covered ones. From the prog rock band Yes and their self-titled 1969 debut album, this cover starts off as an unrecognizable psychedelic instrumental that more or less sums up prog rock for me . . . then after a couple minutes of that, the lead guitar boldly blares the song's melody and even sneaks in the Day Tripper riff. Every single line in the chorus is punctuated by a musical exclamation mark and the whole thing is actually kind of awesome after a jarring first listen.

Rhythms of New Guinea - I Don't Want to Spoil the Party [originally by the Beatles]
I found this random CD at the library, which is a collection of songs recorded by artists from Papua New Guinea. There aren't really any liner notes to speak of nor any explanation of any sort, but it does randomly feature this Beatles cover! Apparently Papua New Guineans are equally capable of by-the-numbers cover songs as any other nation.

James Husband - What You're Doing [originally by The Beatles]
After No Reply, this is probably my next favourite original from the album. From James Husband of the band Of Montreal, this is actually the only cover of the song I found (excluding Beatles tribute bands).

Johnny Cash - Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby [originally by Carl Perkins]
This cover comes from the Johnny Cash's Unearthed box set, outtakes and alternate takes of songs recorded for his series of American Recordings. I didn't include it, but his daughter Rosanne Cash actually had a country hit in 1989 with her cover of I Don't Want to Spoil the Party.

Happy Anniversary, Beatles for Sale!

P.S. If you really want to see Beatles for sale, check out their official US webstore. For all your Beatles shot glass, fountain pens, and jigsaw puzzle needs. Sheesh.

New PoZitive Orchestra! And the Many Adventures of Vinni-Pukh.

2009-11-26T05:04:00.003-07:00

Firstly, Happy Thanksgiving to our American readers. Eat turkey, be merry, hang with your families, have fun, and let's not have any shopping-related deaths this year. Having celebrated our Canadian Thanksgiving last month, today is . . . Thursday. Yep, business as usual, though I might try to go for my H1N1 shot tomorrow. Now, to Russia for the rest of this post!

Huzzah! The PoZitive Orchestra's official site was updated sometime fairly recently with a new band photo, some upcoming gigs, and the jackpot: three new songs! With their same unique bossa string quartet sound, they tackle three homegrown Russian covers. I had to do some digging to find out exactly what songs were being covered, but don't let your unfamiliarity with the source songs dissuade you from eating these up since they're, naturally, brilliant. As might be expected, there are a few musical quotations of American classics sprinkled within, but I'll leave those for you to discover.

PoZitive Orchestra - Носки [originally by Sektor Gaza]
This was originally by the Russian punk band Sektor Gaza (in English: Gaza Strip) from their 1990 album, Ядрена Вошь. The track's title translates as "Socks". Check out this music video of the original song:

PoZitive Orchestra - Прощайте, скалистые горы [original music: Evgeny Zharkovsky; lyrics: Nikolay Bukin]
This one translates as Farewell, Rocky Mountains and was originally a WWII poem by Nikolay Bukin telling of the impenetrable Soviet defense of the Rybachy Peninsula against the Germans. Songwriter Evgeny Zharkovsky set the lyrics to music and it became popular among Russian army seamen. For a little more historical context, read this. There are numerous recordings of this song, but I found this youtube video particularly compelling:

PoZitive Orchestra - Смуглянка [original music: Anatoly Novikov; lyrics: Yakov Shvedov]
Here's another WWII-era song. The title translates as "Darkie" and it seems to be a love song. Youtube embedding is disallowed, but check out a performance of the song by the Alexandrov Red Army Choir here.

===============================

I was reminded of a discovery I made at the library a while back in the Russian children's section. Do you recognize these characters?

Why, it's Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet, of course! Confused? It's not the Disney incarnation and a long ways off from the E. H. Shepherd "classic Pooh" design. In 1960, Russian poet and children's author Boris Zakhoder introduced generations of Russian children to Winnie-the-Pooh with his liberal translations of A. A. Milne's classic Pooh tales (originally published in 1926). His design of Pooh and the other residents of the 100 Acre Wood may be jarring to us Westerners, but from what I gather, this is the lasting legacy of Pooh in Russia to this day. See if you can recognize some of these iconic moments and characters from the Winnie-the-Pooh stories:

Even more fascinating, Russian animator Fyodor Khitruk started a trilogy of Pooh short films in 1969, three years after the first Disney Pooh short, based on the translated books (Zakhoder co-wrote the screenplays). Now I'm an unabashed devotee of the Disney Pooh films, but these are quite brilliant in their own unique way. The voices, the hand-drawn quality of the animation, the music, and basically everything about it is a little mind-blowing. The first two shorts are each about 10 minutes and part 3 is about 20 minutes . If you've got some spare time (or even you you don't), definitely check these out!

Vinni-Pukh (1969)

Vinni-Pukh Goes on a Visit (1971)

Vinni-Pukh and the Day of Concern (1972) PART I

Vinni-Pukh and the Day of Concern (1972) PART II

It's Over Now, the Music of the Night... or not.

2009-11-17T08:51:00.002-07:00

Just over a week ago was the final performance of Ramin Karimloo in the title role of The Phantom of the Opera in London. In 2007, he became the youngest ever actor to play the Phantom in the West End and now he'll continue the part in Andrew Lloyd Webber's sequel Phantom: Love Never Dies, which begins previews in February at the Adelphi Theatre.

As preposterous as a Phantom sequel may seem (set 10 years later at Coney Island!), I can't help but feel some good ol' Canadian pride as the Iranian-born, Ontario-raised Karimloo tops the bill of the eagerly anticipated new musical. He even started off in a Tragically Hip tribute band(!) before lying about his age and singing on cruise ships for two years. And now he's bringing the Phantom back. I may just have to make some sort of pilgrimage to New York when it eventually opens there, not to mention the crazy spectacle that will be the U2/Julie Taymor Spider-Man musical-- I want to see it, no joke. Ah, the power of the Music of the Night!

Ramin Karimloo - New York State of Mind (with Hadley Fraser) [originally by Billy Joel]
From Karimloo's 8-song EP of musical numbers and a couple Billy Joel covers that can be purchased from his official site.

Nightwish - The Phantom of the Opera [originally performed by Sarah Brightman and Michael Crawford]
You just can't top this snarling, but soulful metal rendition by Finnish power metal band Nightwish.

Sammy Davis, Jr. - The Music of the Night [originally performed by Michael Crawford]
It's almost unthinkable now that The Phantom of the Opera has been seen by tens of millions worldwide, but it's wonderful to listen to Sammy Davis, Jr. describe the plot of the musical and set the stage for the Phantom's signature song before delivering an expressive performance as only he could do it. This is from a 1989 "Ultimate Event" with Frank Sinatra and Liza Minnelli in Detroit, but you can find youtube footage of him performing the same song during a Jerry Lewis telethon the previous year.

Belated Bridge School '09 Wrap-up

2009-11-13T08:01:00.002-07:00

It's been almost three weeks since I got back from The Bridge School Benefit shows and if I postpone this post any longer, it may end up like my never posted Calgary Folk Fest '07 Part II (sigh). Quickly, Ben Folds with the Seattle Symphony was awesome as expected (from the 2nd row!), but The Very Best show in San Francisco was unceremoniously cancelled on the day of the show since Esau Mwamwaya had passport issues getting into the US... very disappointing.

After the stage was blessed by native dancers, Bridge School founder Pegi Young introduced the students and alumni sitting at the back of the stage before introducing her husband (and school co-founder) Neil Young who kicked off both shows with Comes a Time before turning over the stage to the other artists. He also ended each show with Comes a Time with all the artists on stage, so in total we heard this song four times in less than 48 hours. Part of their inspiration for starting the Bridge School in 1986, which assists individuals with severe speech and physical impairments, was that their son Ben (in attendance) and Zeke (from Neil's previous marriage) were both diagnosed with cerebral palsy. It was very humbling to witness the students and their families enjoying the concert from the back of the stage and think of the major obstacles they've had to overcome in their lives. One remarkable alumni of the Bridge School recently graduated with a double major at the University of Berkeley!

Kate York - Comes a Time [originally by Neil Young]
From the tribute album Cinnamon Girl: Women Artists Cover Neil Young For Charity available on iTunes or directly from American Laundromat Records.

Gavin Rossdale was up first. He was fine, if a bit of a downer to start off the day. His set included covers of Fleetwood Mac's Landslide and Prince's Sometimes It Snows in April as well as several Bush songs.

Gavin Rossdale - Landslide [originally by Fleetwood Mac]
From a live "Stripped" session on iheartradio.com, which has a fair number of covers lurking in the archives.

The newly retooled Wolfmother brought up the energy level, ripping through a rockin' acoustic set consisting of earlier hits like Woman and Joker and the Thief mixed with several cuts from their latest release Cosmic Egg. Only lead singer/guitarist Andrew Stockdale remains of the original trio, which is now a foursome. On Day 2, they pulled out the Neil Young cover Don't Let It Bring You Down, which they recently performed in the SPIN offices.

team9 - Daddy and the Thief [Wolfmother vs. Gnarls Barkley]
Great mash-up of Wolfmother's Joker & The Thief and Gnarls Barkley's cover of the Violent Femmes Gone Daddy Gone from the 2006 team9 mash-up album for Stereogum.com, which is still available as a zip file here.

Fleet Foxes were next. To be brutally honest, they did almost nothing for me. The first day was pleasant enough with their CSNY-ish harmonies but the songs all started to bleed into each other, eventually lulling me into a mid-afternoon nap through parts of their set. The next day I couldn't even fight it, nodding off shortly into the first couple songs, occasionally opening my eyes to see if they were done yet. I do have to admit though, that I was captivated by their performance of a song called White Winter Hymnal. Maybe I wasn't in the right mood or they're suited to a more intimate venue or something, but I just had to laugh when I was at work last week and saw an old issue of Mojo with Fleet Foxes triumphantly on the cover as the "Best Live Act in the Entire World". And they put me to sleep, sigh.

Next were Monsters of Folk. Honestly I was expecting this to be a rather mellow set based on what I've heard from the individual artists, but I quite enjoyed their set which had some rock, folk, and even an old timey country vibe to it.

Sheryl Crow was never on my bucket list and now I've inadvertently seen her perform three times in less than two months. I took this opportunity to visit the facilities and roll my eyes at the concession stands prices. With $6.50 fries, I chose to skip dinner. Her sets on both days included a singalong cover of You've Got to Hide Your Love Away.

Sheryl Crow - Here Comes the Sun [originally by The Beatles]

I'm not familiar with any Jimmy Buffett songs, not even Margaritaville, which I heard here for the first time. Overall, his upbeat brand of "trop rock" music was pretty good, though his fans are fairly obnoxious... I'll leave it at that.

Jack Johnson - A Pirate Looks at 40 [originally by Jimmy Buffett]
From the soundtrack to the Jack Johnson directed surf film The September Sessions.

Day 2 featured Adam Sandler taking over Jimmy Buffett's slot. I like what he said when he came out: "I'm with you people, I don't what I'm doing here either!" While I knew more or less what to expect with all the acts on the bill, Adam Sandler was the one wildcard. Was he here to do stand-up in the middle of this concert, would he play a string of cover songs, the Chanukah Song? Backed by a full band, he jumped right in with a cover of The Doors' Break on Through (To the Other Side), followed by a string of original songs including the stellar Listenin' to the Radio, which treaded a fine line between funny, clever, and sincere while referencing seemingly every hit song about a girl in the last 50 years. Next, he said he was going to sing a song he "wrote for Led Zeppelin" and I was absolutely thrilled when I heard the opening chords of Hey Hey What Can I Do, one of my favourites.

He finished with two familiar originals Lunchlady Land and The Chanukah Song ("Mel Gibson: Not a Jew!"). Then the biggest surprise came when he brought Neil Young on stage to perform a duet on Powderfinger. This ended up being the only instance during the whole weekend where Neil joined another artist on stage. A Neil Young duet with Adam Sandler, go figure.

Adam Sandler - Listenin' to the Radio

Neil Diamond - The Chanukah Song [originally by Adam Sandler]
If you thought a Bob Dylan Christmas album was weird, how about Neil Diamond covering Adam Sandler on his latest disc of Christmas tunes, A Cherry Cherry Christmas?

Armed with just a piano, Chris Martin proved that sometimes less can be more with an impressive set of stripped down Coldplay songs and a couple covers. Oblivious to the fact that he even played the piano at all, I was quite impressed with his dangling particularly on his rendition of the Maple Leaf Rag, which led into Viva La Vida.

After a couple solo songs, he was joined by violinist Davide Rossi for the rest of his set. Coverwise, he did a rendition of Bruce Springsteen's My Love Will Not Let You Down and led the audience in a singalong version of his "favourite song from his favourite film", Earth Angel, played at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance in Back to the Future.

Red Hot Chilli Pipers - Clocks [originally by Coldplay]
If you like instrumental bagpipe covers, this one's for you. Also, check out Weezer's recent cover of Viva La Vida.

As the penultimate act of each night, No Doubt delivered a pair of fantastic sets filled with rare acoustic renditions of their hit songs. When they were first introduced, Gwen Stefani spent 90% of the first song Spiderwebs singing directly to the Bridge School kids at the back, a touching moment. The group was joined by a string quartet for the latter half of the set including Don't Speak and their cover of Talk Talk's It's My Life.

Lea Delaria - Just a Girl [originally by No Doubt]
In the Bridge School preview post, I shared a jazz rendition of this song by Shannon Butcher. Well, here's another jazz take by Lea Delaria. I wasn't kidding about it being a modern standard! No Doubt's acoustic rendition at the concert was a particular highlight of their set with just Gwen and guitarist Tom Dumont performing before the rest of the band, who had left stage, joined in one by one.

And, of course, Neil Young. Unlike the previous time I saw him for an austere solo set at Ambleside Park, here he was joined by a full band for most of the set with Sheryl Crow joining Pegi Young on back-up vocals (interestingly, I read Crow's first big break was as a back-up singer for Michael Jackson on tour!). For me, the highlight of his set and possibly the whole weekend was his performance of Harvest Moon complete with an old man "playing" the broom. Swish, swish.

Ben Kweller - From Hank to Hendrix [originally by Neil Young]
This cover is from Ben Kweller's visit to the Dermot O'Leary show last year.

Jean Jacques Milteau - Heart Of Gold [originally by Neil Young]
Neil didn't play this either night, but I couldn't resist posting this bluesy cover of his classic song.

I'll be back someday... maybe in 2011 for the 25th anniversary. Thanks for the music, Bridge School!

For no mere mortal can resist the evil of the Thriller

2009-10-31T07:06:00.002-06:00

Have a great Hallowe'en everyone!

A couple treats from Imogen Heap who recorded a timely cover last week on the Dermot O'Leary show and another for the soundtrack to Just Like Heaven.
Imogen Heap - Thriller (Live on Dermot O'Leary) [originally by Michael Jackson]
Imogen Heap - Spooky [made famous by Classics IV]

Ben Folds, The Very Best, and Bridge School Benefit

2009-10-20T03:37:00.002-06:00

It's going to be a busy week of music and traveling. First, I'm off to Seattle to see Ben Folds perform tonight with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra at Benaroya Hall! Then tomorrow morning I'm catching a flight to San Francisco to meet up with my dad. We're going to the Bridge School Benefit concerts in Mountain View on the weekend, a gift from my sister and I to celebrate his 60th birthday. He's a big Neil Young fan, though I'm pretty sure this will be the first time seeing him live. In between, I'll also be taking him to see The Very Best in San Francisco and see some sights including the new Walt Disney Family Museum in the Presidio. Busy, busy, busy.

With Someone Else's Money - You Don't Know Me [originally by Ben Folds featuring Regina Spektor]
You all know I'm a huge fan of Mr. Folds and this will be the third time I've seen him live, but the first time with a full orchestra backing him up! The music of Ben Folds (and Ben Folds Five) has long been fodder for college a cappella groups, so the only problem he had when assembling the album of covers released earlier this year as Ben Folds Presents: University A Cappella! was whittling down the deluge of submissions. The tracklist spans his solo and BF5 works, but leans heavily on the slower ballads. Ben himself contributes a cappella arrangements of his own Boxing and Effington. I would've loved to hear a cappella arrangements of the more rock-based numbers, though I'm sure it's just a youtube search away. This cover of the single from Way to Normal was arranged and performed by With Someone Else's Money from the University of Georgia. By the way, a demo of Levi Johnston's Blues from the forthcoming Ben Folds/Nick Hornby album debuted just over a week ago on the Huffington Post.

The Very Best - Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa [samples Vampire Weekend]
From last year's free mixtape, Esau Mwamwaya and producer team Radioclit completely reworked Vampire Weekend's Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa into a relentlessly upbeat but not cloying dance number. Delivering on the promise of that mixtape (which urged on the last track to "watch out" for the forthcoming album), The Very Best's Warm Heart of Africa was released earlier this month to universal critical acclaim. When I found out I'd be in San Francisco, I naturally scoped out the concert listings and was thrilled to discover one of The Very Best's few tour dates would coincide with my trip. Should be a blast!

It's an eclectic lineup this year with ska, hard rock, folk, and, uh, Adam Sandler on the bill. I'm curious to see how the different artists approach their setlists since past performers typically, as a tradition though not a rule, do acoustic sets. This will be my first Bridge School Benefit experience... but hopefully not my last!

Shannon Butcher - Just a Girl [originally by No Doubt]
Mississauga-born jazz singer Shannon Butcher's 2008 debut album Words We Both Could Say ranges from covers of Blondie, Tears for Fears, Glen Campbell, and this wonderful fast-paced rendition of No Doubt's Just a Girl that sounds completely natural as a modern jazz standard.

Pivot - Woman [originally by Wolfmother]
Wolfmother is expected to play an acoustic set at the Bridge School Benefit. We already got a taste of how this would sound when they played a 4-song set at the SPIN offices including a cover of Neil Young's Don't Let it Bring You Down (watch it here). Their upcoming sophomore album Cosmic Egg (guitarist/vocalist Andrew Stockdale is the only member of the original trio, now a foursome) is due to be released next week. Apparently a (studio?) recording of Don't Let It Bring You Down will be available on the Japanese edition of the album. This instrumental cover of their hit Woman by fellow Australian band Pivot is nearly unrecognizable, but a lot of fun.

Coldplay & Buena Vista Social Club - Clocks
I actually like this Latin reworking of Clocks better than the original. It's from the Rhythms del Mundo: Cuba album. A follow-up was released fairly recently called Rhythms del Mundo: Classics, which is chockfull of covers featuring the likes of The Killers, Amy Winehouse, Kaiser Chiefs, and Rodrigo y Gabriela. For the most part, they are previously recorded covers with new backing orchestration from a group of all-star Afro-Cubano musicians including members of the Buena Vista Social Club. I haven't given the CD a real thorough listen yet, but I did enjoy the last album.

Jets Overhead - Mr. Soul [originally by Neil Young]
Victoria band Jets Overhead was late addition to the Bridge School Benefit. They contributed this cover to the Neil Young double tribute album Borrowed Tunes II.

M. Ward, Conor Oberst & Jim James - Girl from the North Country [originally by Bob Dylan]
Before they dubbed themselves Monsters of Folk (along with Bright Eyes' Mike Mogis), the trio of M. Ward, Conor Oberst, and Jim James all toured together, playing triple bills that would include solo sets then all three of them together. This live cover is from Mojo's Dylan Covered compilation.

Sheryl Crow - Mother Nature's Son [originally by The Beatles]
Sheryl Crow was not exactly on my concert bucket list, but I will inadvertently be seeing her for the second time in just over a month. Judging from her performance at Ambleside Park last month alongside Sarah McLachlan and Neil Young, I know more of her songs than I'd care to admit, though I do unabashedly love her cover of Mother Nature's Son from the all-Beatles cover soundtrack to I Am Sam.

Neil Young - Imagine [originally by John Lennon]
I'll admit I was slow getting into Neil Young. I mean, his back catalogue is daunting even for people I consider big Neil Young fans. As a covers enthusiast, I just couldn't help being exposed regularly to his songwriting since everyone seems to have recorded a Neil Young cover at some point, a fact that especially holds true for any Canadian artist. But it's probably my best friend's occasional playing of Harvest Moon on his guitar that really opened my ears after years of listening indifferently to the frequently repeated Neil Young tunes on the local classic rock station.

Well, that's it for blogging for the next week, though you can follow me on Twitter and I'm sure I'll be updating that. I may even live tweet the concerts on the weekend since Google provides free wireless internet for all of Mountain View... Anyway, it's 3:37am and I've got a train to catch in a few hours. I can never sleep before these big trips and last-minute blogging sure doesn't help!

Max Vernon update

2009-10-15T02:00:00.005-06:00

It's been almost a year since I interviewed NY musician Max Vernon, a first and last for Fong Songs, ha ha. I get really stressed out over things like that and it makes my blogging feel like work when it shouldn't. In spite of all the PR e-mails in my inbox, the simple fact is I don't even really want to interview most artists, but Max was a rare exception and when the opportunity came up I jumped at it. Anyway, you can go back and read it here. Since then, my enthusiasm for his music has not diminished in the least. I've still been keeping tabs on the new music he's been releasing in the last year, which has included a cover of The Smiths' Headmaster Ritual (find it at The Music Slut). Max has been busy this past summer recording music in his "humble home studio setup" and the plan is to release the songs in multiple installments. The first installment of four songs is titled Manic Impression and these are my two faves:

Max Vernon - Around Your Finger
Max Vernon - Wait and See

EDIT: I should mention Max e-mailed me an update last month and I forgot to post about it. Whoops! Actually, I had already downloaded the individual songs earlier in the summer and given them plenty of spins before he passed along Manic Impression. Also, the other two tracks from this installment are Hunted and Your Girlfriend.

Listen to more Max Vernon at
http://www.thesixtyone.com/TheMaxVernon
or
http://www.myspace.com/maxvernon
You can follow him on Twitter too.

Gimme Gimme Gimme ABBA covers

2009-10-08T09:21:00.002-06:00

A few months back, I promised a reader an all-ABBA cover post and I may have dragged my feet, but it's finally here! Said reader provided me with an insanely comprehensive spreadsheet of ABBA covers in their collection and I took that as a challenge to share some that they hadn't heard. However, a couple of my favourite all-time ABBA covers were on that list so I'll include them anyway.

Damhnait Doyle - Gimme Gimme [originally by ABBA]
I've posted tracks from Doyle's Lights Down Low cover album before and as I've said, it was woefully underrated, even by me at first. Producer Danny Michel's fingerprints are all over the album and it'll probably the closest you ever get to hearing him cover Foo Fighters and ABBA.

Montefiori Cocktail - Hung Up [originally by Madonna]
This is not an ABBA cover per se... but Damhnait Doyle's cover of Gimme Gimme Gimme dropped the catchy instrumental riff of the original that was later sampled by Madonna in Hung Up, so I thought it'd be fun to include this cover by lounge duo Montefiori Cocktail who do a fine job reviving it here in an instrumental rendition that sounds like it escaped from a spaghetti western.

Regine Velasquez - Take a Chance on Me [originally by ABBA]
An a cappella cover from Filipino singer Regine Velasquez. She's unfamiliar to me, but judging by this extensive wiki article she's had an accomplished career in music, film, television, and more in a career spanning over 20 years. A long time ago, I remember reading about someone who thought they were chanting "Jackie-Chan, Jackie-Chan, Jackie-Chan" and I've never heard the song the same way again.

The Black Sweden - Mamma Mia [originally by ABBA]
Paying tribute to Sweden's biggest musical export, fellow countrymen The Black Sweden released an album Gold which paired ABBA's greatest hits with classic rock riffs. In this case, Mamma Mia gets mashed with Smoke on the Water. Other examples include Take a Chance on Me/Enter Sandman and Knowing Me, Knowing You/Heartbreaker.

Riff Raff - Mamma Mia [originally by ABBA]
A more focused continuation of that trend, Riff Raff is an AC/DC tribute band from Germany who recorded an entire album of ABBA covers in the style of AC/DC. I haven't listened to enough of the AC/DC catalogue to make any definite claim, but this reminds me of their (great) cover of Chuck Berry's School Days.

Moxy Früvous - Dancing Queen Medley (Live)
This live Dancing Queen cover starts off as Walk on the Wild Side, then throws in a couple unlikely song snippets from U2 and Hootie & The Blowfish. Full show is on the Live Music Archive.

The Dan Band - ABBA Medley
The Dan Band has cornered the market on covering mainly female-led pop songs with randomly inserted profanities. With appearances in Old School, Starsky & Hutch, and more recently The Hangover, they seem to have found a winning combo that works for audiences. I haven't seen it, but apparently they're also correspondents on Jay Leno's new non-late night show. It's a one-note joke, but part of the success (I think) is the thin line it walks between parody and sincerity. This ABBA medley is from their 2005 debut The Dan Band LIVE.

White Day - ABBA Medley
Let me hear those balalaikas ringing out!

Nation - Waterloo [originally by ABBA]
Glow - Dancing Queen [originally by ABBA]
These are probably my favourite ABBA covers and both come from the generically titled A Tribute to ABBA (alternatively released as ABBAmetal: A Metal Tribute to ABBA). If you had commissioned The Darkness to cover ABBA, I think the result would bear a strong resemblance to Nation's rocking rendition of Waterloo: campy and infectious. Glow obviously had fun revamping Dancing Queen, though I wouldn't even classify it as anything remotely metal... I might be completely off-base here, but it vaguely reminds me of a punkier Cake.

The Very Best - Warm Heart of Africa

2009-10-06T14:23:00.000-06:00

The Very Best's Warm Heart of Africa is out today! I've been eagerly awaiting this release since their (Esau Mwamwaya & Radioclit) free mixtape from last year. By a stroke of luck, I'll be able to see The Very Best live in San Francisco in a couple weeks when I head down there for the Bridge School Benefit concerts (yeah, that too!).

Here are their tour dates:
October 21 New York, NY CMJ Showcase—Le Poisson Rouge
October 23 San Francisco, CA 103 Harriet
October 24 Los Angeles, CA Echoplex
October 29 Chicago, IL Bottom Lounge
October 30 Toronto, ON Wrongbar
November 1 Boston,MA Great Scott
November 2 Washington, D.C. DC9
November 3 Philadelphia, PA Johnny Brenda’s

Tickets are under $20 and anyone in those cities should make an effort to be at the shows since I'm sure they'll be phenomenal. The album is available on Amazon, iTunes, and through the label Green Owl Records.