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.
[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? Nosurprise. 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)
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.
I just need to clear my plate of a bunch of blogworthy things coming through my e-mail and RSS feeds. There are also a handful of half-formed posts that just going to have to wait including a Tarantino cover tribute ('twas to coincide with the release of Inglourious Basterds, alas) and an ABBA cover post that I owe a reader (soon!).
Jordan Galland Coverage: My inbox is filled with a ton of PR stuff everyday and some folks are quite sneaky about pretending to read the blog, but every now and then someone actually takes to effort to actually send something relevant to what I usually post about and tailors the PR schtick enough for my personal benefit that I will ignore my little inner cynic and post about it. In my early blog days I would naïvely respond to most enquiries and now I sadly know better. Anyway, someone kindly asked me to give some blog love to Jordan Galland and I'm more than happy to oblige. Not only did he play piano and electric piano on Mark Ronson's Version (a Fong Songs cover fave), in July he contributed TWO great covers for the Cover Commissions series on over at Cover Me. If you somehow missed it, definitely go there to download his covers of Pulp's Bad Cover Version (HA!) and Duran Duran's Hungry Like the Wolf. Not only is he a talented musician, but he's also a filmmaker with his debut feature film Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead currently doing the film festival circuit. It stars Jake Hoffman (son of Dustin) and features an original score by Galland's longtime collaborator and childhood friend, Sean Lennon.
Speaking of Cover Me, he's got a logo design contest going on right now until Tuesday's midnight deadline (er, that'd be tonight). Prizes involved.
I Want More POZ-OR: Nine months after my initial exposure to the PoZitive Orchestra's unique brand of recycled songs, I'm still loving it and was compelled Sunday to see if there were any updates to their website. No new covers I'm afraid, though they still play the occasional gig in Russia (d'oh!). Coincidentally, a review also popped up Sunday to reiterate that fact that everyone needs to listen to the PoZitive Orchestra. I wholeheartedly agree and you know what? So does Neil Gaiman, so there. To get my fix, I found the website of Gin-Tonic, another band lead by POZ-OR's vocalist/guitarist Cyril Kukharenko, and downloaded three-and-a-half albums of free music. It shouldn't be shocking that this music is pretty awesome too, all in Russian, and FREE. I'm currently listening to a bizarrely jaunty song about Osama Bin Laden called Враг №1 (Enemy No. 1). Go here for Gin-Tonic downloads!
Big List o' Covers Reader John passed along this article he wrote for Esquire entitled 1,892 Cover Songs Men Could Listen To. I'm assuming women could listen to these cover songs too. While your brain might explode trying to peruse this list, he does offer takes on 10 of his favourites including one of my faves too: Lulu Hughes' rendition of Pink Floyd's Time.
All You Need is Ukuleles: I hope you're all still keeping up to date with the astounding Beatles Complete on Ukulele project wherein all 185 Beatles songs are being covered and released once a week...for nearly three more years! How can you argue with that much great music for free? I'll admit I was skeptical when first hearing of the project with visions of amateur youtube ukulele players (not that there's anything wrong with that), but I've been continually blown away by the quality and diversity of the covers, which are all linked but not limited to the ukulele. Although they are arguably the most covered band of all time, good to great Beatles covers are in a minority. We're only 31 covers in and most of these are pretty fantastic, a few legitimately great. And you can't accuse any of them of being predictable. Adam Green's I Will is my favourite so far. The project is also having the side effect of exposing me to the incredible Beatles back catalogue, of which I'm fairly unlearned as it turns out despite considering myself a pretty big Beatles fan. If you're an artist, you can even look into joining the project for future unclaimed covers. Last year, project masterminds and arrangers, Roger Greenawalt and David Barratt performed all 185 songs live with guests at a 14-hour benefit show in New York. They're at it again this year, performing the entire Beatles catalogue on December 6th and 7th (All Lennon’s Eve) at Spike Hill in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. If I was in the neighbourhood, I'd consider going for all 14 hours just for the experience.
Squirrel Nut Zippers Lost at Sea: The Squirrel Nut Zippers have got a new album due October 27th, their first in nine years and first live album ever! Previously (I think) the only official live material came from a promo VHS tape I once found on eBay or bootlegs. These are mostly live versions of old favourites as recorded (I'm assuming) over the past two years of touring since their reunion, though I do see one track name I don't recognize. 1. Memphis Exorcism 2. Good Enough For Grandad 3. It Ain't You 4. Prince Nez 5. Put A Lid On It 6. Fat Cat Keeps Getting Fatter 7. Danny Diamond 8. Suits Are picking Up The Bill 9. My Drag 10. Happens All The Time 11. Bad Businessman 12. Hell 13. Ghost Of Stephen Foster 14. You Are My Radio 15. Blue Angel 16. Do What 17. Missing Link Parade
They're taking the tiered package approach: download only, download & CD, download & LP, and (DROOL.) a deluxe version that includes "extra tracks from [their] deep dark past along with exclusive video and photos all delivered to your computer". Superfans, myself included, will be able to buy the album early from their official website in September!
Last. Shows. Ever. On Friday, I'm hopping on a train to Seattle to catch the last Harvey Danger shows ever. The past few weekends have been last shows in Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles and now they're back in their hometown Seattle at the Crocodile Club to finish it off basically where it all started. You might be thinking "who cares?" since, after all, they're widely known as a late-90's one hit wonder for Flagpole Sitta. Longtime readers of Fong Songs know that I am part of a small, very devoted group of Harvey Danger fans. I've said it many a time, but their commercial disaster and hiatus-inducing sophomore album King James Version is one of my favourite albums of all-time. Their third and final album Little By Little... is no slouch either, being available as a free download since its 2005 release coinciding with a physical release. I finally got the opportunity to see them live last year for their 10th Anniversary Public Spectacle where they played all three of their albums + b-sides/covers/rarities over the course of two nights. And now I'll be there to say my goodbyes and thanks to one of my favourite bands.
you can read lead singer Sean Nelson blogging about the first couple tour stops on EW.com with presumably more to come
at this past weekend's show at the Largo in L.A., Jon Brion was on hand to play lead guitar on Wine, Women, and Song and Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard (Mr. Deschanel, sigh) sang HD's Why I'm Lonely
for the HD faithful, a very limited edition CD Dead Sea Scrolls consisting of unheard songs and other rarities was made just for the final shows (only 300 copies I think)
There are three shows in Seattle: an all-ages show Friday at the Vera Project, an early show at the Crocodile, and The Last Show Ever
Cartoonist Peter Bagge ("Hate") apparently has a band called Can You Imagine? and will be opening for Harvey Danger at the early Saturday show
That'll probably be it for this week. Later folks!
My summer of concerts officially got underway in the last few weeks with gigs from Ellen McIlwaine and Danny Michel, but those were just the appetizers. I figured my concert-going in general might be on the decline as my concert bucket list is down to just one hand, though I guess I'm in trouble if Jack White keeps starting new bands. There are some major gigs coming down the pipeline, which makes me glad to be just a quick hop away from Seattle. Expect more on these shows later... but for now, a tasty preview of my summer lineup.
June 26 - The Lost Fingers June 27 - Alice Russell June 28 - Ndidi Onukwulu & José González
It'll be a busy concert weekend as I hit back to back to back shows during the Vancouver International Jazz Festival. First up, the Lost Fingers, the Juno nominated gypsy-jazz cover band from Québec I mentioned a few months ago. i (heart) music is still hosting mp3s of a live show recorded for CBC, which includes a cover of Belleville Rendez-Vous from The Triplets of Belleville and much more!
I caught British soul singer Alice Russell at Schuba's in Chicago when I visited in March. Since then, she was invited by David Byrne to sing on his and Fatboy Slim's forthcoming concept album (other singers on the album include Sharon Jones, Tori Amos, Santigold, and Martha Wainwright). She was so good I couldn't pass up seeing her gig here in Vancity!
Lastly I'm going to see local blues singer Ndidi Onukwulu who impressed me during her few songs at the Juno Songwriter's Circle a few months back. She's playing with Swedish indie folk artist José González, who I'm honestly rather indifferent towards even though he's certainly friendly on the cover front.
The Lost Fingers - Straight Up [originally by Paula Abdul]
Alice Russell - Crazy [originally by Gnarls Barkley]
The CBC Radio Orchestra with Ndidi Onukwulu - American Woman [originally by The Guess Who] Full CBC Radio 2 concert streaming here.
José González - Love Will Tear Us Apart [originally by Joy Division] Speaking of which, a local exhibition recently opened in Vancouver with a cover version of a different variety: Love Will Tear Us Apart being "sung" in sign language.
July 3 - Jason Webley & Friends
I'm heading down to Seattle for what's sure to be a fun-filled weekend, Jason Webley's 11-Year Elevanniversary Celebration and Camp Tomato 2009. Jason Webley's relationship to the number 11 is not unlike Jack White's obsession with the number 3, hence the unconventional anniversary. The cost? $11. Seriously, when was the last time you went to an $11 show? That's less than the fees from Ticketmaster! Tickets still available here.
Originally I was planning a trip to catch Jim Henson's Fantastic World, a traveling exhibition of Muppet mayhem created by the Smithsonian. As usual, I tried to coincide my visit with a show when I found an e-mail from Jason Webley lingering in my inbox with details on his big show. In Jason's words: "Come celebrate eleven years of screaming, stomping and squeezing across the planet. A one-night extravaganza featuring most all of the musicians and artists that I have worked with over these past eleven years." Then I got a nice surprise earlier this week when he revealed one-time collaborator Amanda Palmer would be joining the festivities. Another surprise yesterday when I read Ms. Palmer and Neil Gaiman are officially an item! And if I'm not mistaken, they were introduced to each other by Mr. Webley.... but that's enough geek gossip for this blog. Now that I think about it, I first heard Jason Webley when Neil linked to his music video for Eleven Saints about three years ago.
Jason Webley - Eleven Saints
Amanda Palmer - I Google You [lyrics by Neil Gaiman]
Neil Gaiman - Who Killed Amanda Palmer? [Neil's spoken word intro for her WKAP tour]
August 6 - 9 Edmonton Folk Music Festival
I figured it was time for a trip back home (my first since Christmas) and as a bonus, I pulled some work strings to head back for the Edmonton Folk Fest which is celebrating its 30th year. I also easily convinced my whole family to come for some or all of the festival. I was sold when I found out Danny Michel would be playing the 4-day fest. Of course I've seen him several times, but it'll be a thrill to see him mix it up at the daily sessions where anything goes. They just announced the full line-up last week and the E-Town folk fest organizers scored a major coup by booking Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings to headline Saturday night. WOO! Festival goers unfamiliar with them will be in for a huge treat when they takeover the Main Stage. Other performers include:
Neko Case
Kathleen Edwards
Chumbawamba (a revelation when they played in '06)
Béla Fleck & Toumani Diabate
The Wailers
Steve Earle (just realized that's him in The Wire! I'm into Season 5 now.)
Iron and Wine
Pavlo
Loudon Wainwright III (heh heh, "Dead Skunk" for my dad! My mum hates that song.)
Joel Plaskett
Tift Merritt
Boz Scaggs (Lido Shuffle!)
...and of course plenty, plenty more, many of whom I'm unfamiliar with. Another headliner is the no-longer-Barenaked Lady, Steven Page who's currently in the middle of mixing an album of his collaboration with the Art of Time Ensemble from last year, an all-covers affair (streaming here) that included one of my favourite incarnations of Paranoid Android. Curious if he'll play any of that stuff at the Folk Fest. Can't wait 'til August!
Chumbawamba - Her Majesty (live at Edmonton Folk Fest 2006) [riff on The Beatles]
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - This Land is Your Land (live from Radio City Music Hall [originally by Woody Guthrie] From last month's Dark Was the Night benefit concert. The end of the show featured most the night's artists including Feist, Dirty Projectors, Bon Iver, My Brightest Diamond, and others gathering to pay tribute to Pete Seeger with a goofily earnest rendition of This Land is Your Land. That is, until Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings cut in and proceed to bring down the house. Google the youtube video... it's pretty priceless. This crisp audio is from the NPR broadcast (whole show on iTunes).
August 21 & 22 - The Dead Weather
Vancouver was spoiled last year when the Raconteurs came through town twice last year, ostensibly on the same tour. And now we're being treated to back-to-back shows from The Dead Weather come August. Gee, Jack must love it here or something. The first White Stripes shows I ever saw were back-to-back Vancouver shows in 2005.
What I'm really pumped for is the film chronicling the White Stripes 2007 cross-Canada tour, titled Under Great White Northern Lights, which is expected by year's end on DVD and possibly even in theatres. Logic dictates that the main feature will be the epic Glace Bay show, for which yours truly was in attendance (gloat!), hopefully with footage from the secret shows performed in almost every city on the tour.
The Dead Weather - Treat Me Like Your Mother [File deleted, but get it free from the official site for the cost of a dummy e-mail]
August 28 & 29 - Harvey Danger
Though it was announced last week, I just found out the bombshell news last night that Harvey Danger are officially calling it quits with a handful of farewell shows. They've got shows planned for Schuba's in Chicago, the Largo in L.A., and two shows in their hometown Seattle. This just coming a year and a bit after their big 10th Anniversary brouhaha, which I was lucky enough to attend. While previously the band was on an indefinite hiatus for 4 years, the finality of this recent announcement is a bit of a gut punch. Their sophomore album King James Version, front-to-back is one of my favourite all-time albums. Though mostly known to the average joe for their one-hit wonder Flagpole Sitta in the 90s, they've got a small but intensely devoted fanbase that are already booking trips from across the US (and abroad!) to see what is 99% likely their final shows as Harvey Danger. Fortunately it's not much of a hassle for me to drag myself down to Seattle for the last two shows, an all-ages gig at the Vera Project (tickets here) and back where it all started at the Crocodile Club (tickets here). I've booked my tix, now to get off work...
Harvey Danger - Save it For Later [originally by The English Beat] Harvey Danger - Oh! You Pretty Things [originally by David Bowie]
If you can handle Flac files, check out their New Year's gig from a few years back where they performed side 2 of Abbey Road straight through.
Hope you all had a nice Easter weekend. I had an unbelievable Sunday surprise when the Easter bunny appeared in the form of cheery leather jacket-clad author bearing a basket full of blog hits. I knew something was up when visitor traffic quadrupled on Sunday, which is not altogether uncommon when I get get some link love from anybody, but my little geek heart nearly exploded when I saw the source of the incoming traffic: twitter.com/neilhimself.
neilhimself: @donttrythis Adam, billybob's erratic interview is completely and delightfully explained at http://bit.ly/nUsUa
NEIL GAIMAN TWEETED MY BLOG, BWAHAHAHA! Then my nearly exploded little geek heart melted into a warm puddle of goo when I doubly realized he was tweeting my blog to ADAM SAVAGE. Yep, who-ya-gonna-call-Mythbusters Adam Savage! I don't care what you say, I am at complete liberty to geek out all I want (and I have). I took great comfort in Neil's later tweets that he would have totally geeked out during his interview on Q back in March had he known beforehand that Jian Ghomeshi was in Moxy Früvous. Neil, a closet Frühead? Priceless! He even has a Bargainville cassette that is long overdue for a CD upgrade.
Some related linkage:
Video of Neil's interview on Q by Jian Ghomeshi during press for Coraline (notice he does not freak when referred to as an "author")
A friend visiting from out of town gave me the heads up on this eerily relevant video bit I was unaware of: Jeremy Fisher's cover of the Q theme with made-up lyrics! The original theme was created by fellow Canuck musician Luke Doucet.
some recent rumour-mongering is pegging Emmy Rossum as a possible candidate in a Neil Gaiman Death film...
In a few weeks (on my birthday in fact) a musical adaptation of Coraline opens in New York with music by Magnetic Fields' Stephen Merritt. It runs from May 7 to June 20th, ticket info here. "What's There to Be Afraid Of? A conversation with the artists behind Coraline" including Merritt, David Greenspan (book writer), Leigh Silverman (director), and Jayne Houdyshell (Coraline) will be held Tuesday April 21st, debuting some songs from the musical. Info on that here.
Adam's informative Q&A with fellow Reddit users in conjunction with the new season of Mythbusters which premiered last week
if you have an hour to spare, Adam's talk on the nature of obsession is fantastically fascinating
This video of Adam channeling Penn Jillette makes me laugh every time
And because I Just.Cannot.Let.This.Go.At.All... The AV Club just posted their "24 musicians who aced acting roles. Funnily enough Dwight Yoakam made the list for his role in fellow musician Billy Bob Thornton's Sling Blade. However, Billy Bob's hero Tom Petty did not make the list for his turn in Kevin Costner's The Postman. No, I would not ask Tom Petty about that.
Moxy Früvous - Maple Syrup Time [originally by Pete Seeger] The joy of this song more or less describes accurately how I felt the other day. Also makes me want to boil and boil and boil tree sap all day long. Note: along with "Here comes the gravy!", "It's maple syrup time!" is a popular Canadian exclamation commonly shouted before hockey fights.
Moxy Früvous - Love Potion #9 Medley [originally by The Clovers] As always, the Internet Live Archive is an invaluable resource for Moxy Früvous live, most of it with impeccable audio quality. This is one of my favourite live recordings, a spirited medley of Love Potion #9 that includes snippets of CSNY, The Bee Gees, Alanis Morrissette, and more.
Unfortunately, their heyday of live shows was around the age for me where the possibility of going to shows of your favourite bands was a completely foreign concept. The one opportunity I had was at the 2000 (I think?) Edmonton Folk Fest where I saw them perform Johnny Saucep'n on the main stage in between the set-ups of another band. Then I missed all their side stage workshops because of work, although I did have a friend who'd never heard of them rave how great they were (gee thanks!). Then of course came the indefinite hiatus that I'm still waiting to end. Maybe we can hope for a 25th anniversary tour in 2014... I'll mark my calendar. A couple years ago I did get to see half of the Früv perform as The Great Atomic Power at a free show in Toronto. Amusingly, this entire show was taped and I remember sitting right behind the taper with my cousin who I had dragged there. There seemed to only be about 40 people sitting around the public square and even then they just happened to be there because it was lunchtime. Regardless, great music.
I haven't been blogging as regularly as I'd hope, so here's a grab bag post of links that have filtered through my inbox/RSS reader recently that deserve a click. That Chicago post is still coming, hopefully tomorrow...
Covers by German band derpferdheissthorst including Funkytown.
Neil Gaiman visits The Colbert Report. Canadians click here, Americans here. And I guess the rest of the world is on it's own. Gee, ain't the internet swell these days?
Jason Webley's latest EP, a collaboration with Sxip Shirey is ready to ordered. You'll get a 2-song 7" vinyl EP, a full length CD with all of the music from the 7" and much more, lyrics, and "an extra special gift". Preview the title track Days With You and you may just be inclined to snap it up. As with his previous EPs, it's a limited run of 1,111 copies. After that, it's sold out forever!
If you're a Scrubs fan, The Blanks (aka Ted's band) are performing in random towns around the US throughout 2009/2010... and Cairo, Egypt.
If you happen to be in Nashville on April 17th, you should try to score tickets to the world premier of William Shatner's Gonzo Ballet at the Nashville Film Festival. The documentary follows the making of a ballet based on Shatner's 2004 album Has Been, produced and co-written by Ben Folds. Just imagine the sequence set to his cover of Common People, which is actually the name of the ballet that was performed in 2007. Bill and Ben are both expected to be in attendance and you can check out a preview here. Common People (the ballet) will actually be making a return to the stage May 14-17 in Milwaukee.
Judging by this semi-cryptic photo from Edgar Wright, the Scott Pilgrim movie is shaping up to have a great soundtrack chockfull of CanCon. The film is currently being shot in Toronto, which is the setting of the graphic novels too. How novel, Toronto playing itself for once! Broken Social Scene and Metric have both confirmed involvement I think. Chris Murphy of Sloan has also been seen jamming with Michael Cera as Scott Pilgrim. Right now this is pretty near the top of my Want to See list... though I have no idea when it's projected release date is.
There's an ambitious project going on called The Beatles Complete on Ukulele, in which every single Beatles original (all 185 of them!) will be covered by various artists on ukulele with one being released every Tuesday. This started a few weeks ago and will continue every week up until July 24, 2012, which roughly coinciding with the start of the London 2012 Olympics. WOW.
The Beatles Complete on Ukulele was devised by music producers Roger Greenawalt and David Barrett after they had organized and performed in a benefit concert in December where over 100 singers and musicians performed all 185 Beatles songs over 14 hours. Then they took the "HUNDREDS of dollars" they raised, put it in a brown paper bag, and handed it over to philanthropist/World's Richest Man, Warren Buffett. What he intended to do with the money may surprise you. Warren's son, Peter, is one of the contributing artists who put forth a nice cover of You Never Give Me Your Money from Abbey Road for last week's cover. These are more than your average bedroom ukulele youtube covers (not that those aren't great) and you may be surprised to discover Beatles covers actually worth listening to.
So far... Week 1: Dandelion Wine - While My Guitar Gently Weeps Week 2: Kathena Bryant - Oh! Darling Week 3: Peter Buffett - You Never Give Me Your Money
Definitely check out thebeatlescompleteonukulele.blogspot.com each week or add it to your RSS feed reader. Don't miss the liner notes either, which include info on the artists and a mini-essay about each song. You're in a for a real treat on Tuesday when a wonderful cover of Run For Your Life is posted (if you poke around the site, you may just stumble upon it early like I did).
With the whole project set up on Blogspot, I really hope their posts don't mysteriously start disappearing... speaking of which, a few days ago the LA Weekly ran an article about the Google blogger takedowns, an ominous read for bloggers.
Also, I haven't taken my own advice yet, but you should all go see Coraline, the Henry Selick (Nightmare Before Christmas) directed stop-motion adaptation of Neil Gaiman's book since by all accounts it's awesome (as expected).
I should have mentioned this earlier: www.whokilledamandapalmer.com has been taking pre-orders since last Monday for the new album, which is released this Tuesday. As is more and more common with dwindling CD sales, artists are getting more creative with tiered packages. All packages come with the physical CD and link to instantly download the whole album as MP3s. So, of course, I've been spinning this on my iPod since last week and it's pretty great.
1. For the casual fan ($14.99) -digipack CD -instant download link for the ENTIRE WKAP album in V0 MP3 format -code for instant download of two previously unreleased exclusive WKAP pre-order tracks, Straight (with strings) and the previously-only-available-as-youTube-bootleg I Google You (with lyrics by Neil Gaiman)
2. For the more than casual fan ($34.99) -digipack CD signed by Amanda Palmer & Ben Folds (limited to 5000 Amanda sigs and 250 Ben sigs...) -Instant download link for the ENTIRE WKAP album in V0 MP3 format (plus the two WKAP re-order tracks Straight and I Google You) -exclusive "I Killed Amanda Palmer" t-shirt -download code for an exclusive digital-only Amanda Palmer EP (delivered via e-mail on or before 12/24/2008) featuring 10+ demos and rarities culled from the WKAP recording archives. Includes some one-take demos recorded with Ben Folds at his Nashville studio.
3. For the Über-fan ($100.00, limited to 672) -everything from the middle package -limited edition WKAP lithograph signed and numbered by Amanda Palmer -WKAP book autographed by Amanda and Neil Gaiman -WKAP vinyl autographed by Amanda -Unique Amanda crime scene photo sets + surprise murder evidence - various sets with different photos, as well as trinkets which vary for each and every one of the 672 packages
Hmmm, which one did you think I went for? Yeah, so grab your credit card and clicky-clicky over here before Tuesday when prices go up and/or they run out of the super deluxe combo.
By the way, check out Voltaire on Amie Street for free (as of this writing) downloads of his album Ooky Spooky. Track 8, Stuck With You is a duet with Amanda Palmer. On the EP Zombie Prostitute and Other Ooky Spooky Hits, he's also got a cover of Bowie's China Girl. Voltaire's brand new album features Coin-Operated Goi, a parody of the Dresden Dolls song Coin-Operated Boy. It's not yet on Amie Street, but you can take a listen at his myspace site.
Neil Gaiman's off in China for 4 weeks, but his helper elf is still making updates... and I just couldn't help but notice that the title of the latest blog post is definitely a Moxy Früvous reference. Score!
"Clark Kent reached the highest height with the help of Perry White" Moxy Früvous - I Love My Boss An ode to bosses from the album known as B. One day while listening to an instrumental version of Brazil, my mind automatically filled in the lyrics "...he chased me three blocks with a gun." And that's when I came to the sudden realization that I Love My Boss, which I had listened to for years, is a take-off on Brazil. Not a cover mind you, just a slight variation.
The Arcade Fire - Brazil [originally by Ary Barroso] One of my favourite versions of the standard from 1939, originally known as Aquarela do Brasil (Watercolor of Brazil).
By the way, make sure you catch the lasttwo featurettes on Coraline.
September is gearing up to be an early Christmas for me with the release of Ben Folds' new album, Amanda Palmer's debut solo album (produced by Ben Folds), Neil Gaiman's new The Graveyard Book, and the Gaiman/Palmer photo book. Yes, all my favourite artists randomly got together and had babies. Now there's another release to add to that list: Nightmare Revisited.
Last year I got all excited when I found out Rodrigo y Gabriela had been tapped by Danny Elfman to record a cover of Oogie Boogie's Song for a special edition of the Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack. According to their official website at the time, "RyG to appear along side the Killers and Marilyn Manson on Nightmare Before Christmas Soundtrack reissue. Danny Elfman asked Rod and Gab to record Mr Oogie Boogie for a special edition release of the soundtrack." After months of nothing and no other source for this info, I chalked it up to another empty promise like when they told us at the Edmonton Folk Festival that they'd be back in October as part of their Canadian tour (didn't happen then nor the 2 years since). Well, now comes the official announcement and tracklist that is exciting and disappointing at the same time:
Nightmare Revisited (release date: September 30) 1. DeVotchKa - Overture 2. Danny Elfman - Opening 3. Marilyn Manson - This Is Halloween 4. All American Rejects - Jack's Lament 5. Amiina - Doctor Finkelstein/In The Forest 6. Flyleaf - What's This? 7. The Polyphonic Spree - Town Meeting Song (!!) 8. The Vitamin String Quartet - Jack and Sally Montage 9. Sparklehorse - Jack's Obsession 10. Korn - Kidnap The Sandy Claws 11. Rise Against - Making Christmas 12. Yoshida Brothers - Nabbed 13. Amy Lee - Sally's Song 14. RJD2 - Christmas Eve Montage 15. Plain White Ts - Poor Jack 16. Datarock - To The Rescue 17. Shiny Toy Guns - Finale/Reprise 18. Danny Elfman - Closing 19. The Album Leaf - End Title 20. Rodrigo y Gabriela - Oogie Boogie’s Song
Looks like The Killers were a premature announcement as they're nowhere to be seen, but The Polyphonic Spree are an exciting addition. We'll at last get to hear Rodrigo y Gabriela's take on Oogie Boogie's Song, an unlikely but intriguing choice for the Mexican folk-metal guitarists. My eyes roll at the inclusion of Korn, Rise Against, and All American Rejects but I invite them to prove me wrong like Fall Out Boy's surprisingly great cover of What's This?.
Rodrigo y Gabriela - Diablo Rojo If you're not familiar with them, definitely seek them out. I saw them live 2 years ago in a truncated 30 minute performance and it is still a highlight concert for me.
Flip Kowlier, Gabriel Rios, & Michael Franti - What's This? [originally by Danny Elfman from The Nightmare Before Christmas] Outside of the covers from these official releases, Nightmare Before Christmas covers are pretty scarce. Here's a fun cover recorded for a Belgian radio station if I remember correctly.
Other related stop-motion news:
Henry Selick, who directed The Nightmare Before Christmas, is hard at work on his stop motion adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Coraline. All this week, IGN has been hosting a new behind the scenes featurette each day about the production of Coraline. I didn't realize the voice cast includes JoCo's buddy John Hodgman (i.e. "I'm a PC") and Ian McShane (Swearingen on Deadwood). There should still be more featurettes before the week is out. The film is due February 2009.
Wes Anderson's stop motion adaptation of Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr. Fox is chugging along. Originally a collaboration with Henry Selick who produced some animated scenes in The Life Aquatic, Selick actually left the film to direct Coraline. Though not due until November 2009, this is the most eclectic team I've seen assembled for ostensibly a children's film since Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers teamed up for Where the Wild Things Are (things aren't sadly not boding well for that film though...). The Fantastic Mr. Fox is scripted by Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach (The Squid & The Whale); featuring the voices of George Clooney (Mr. Fox), Cate Blanchett (Mrs. Fox), Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray (of course), Anjelica Huston, and Meryl Streep; with new songs and score written by Pulp's Jarvis Cocker. Cocker recently revealed that one track is finished and it's a "slightly hillbilly-sounding song" for what it's worth. It'll be a long wait for this one.
I'm patiently awaiting the arrival of the Dark City Director's Cut DVD in the mail. The 1998 sci-fi noir film directed by Alex Proyas received a much-needed special edition treatment that was released last week. The most anticipated special feature is the director's cut itself (11 minutes longer than the theatrical cut), which removes the opening voiceover narration (echoes of the Blade Runner), adds additional scenes, and other subtle changes. I read that some of the visual "tuning" effects are actually toned down, which is somewhat curious. One purely cosmetic change I'm hoping for is the removal of a blatant safety cable when John Murdoch is hanging off the side of a building. I'm not usually one to notice these sort of IMDb goofs, but I distinctly remember seeing that huge black cable in the theatre and it bugs me endlessly.
The original DVD release had an atrocious, ill-conceived Find Shell Beach interactive "game" that had the lamest payoff imaginable, a cheesy "animated" re-enactment of the film's finale (notice all these quotation marks I'm using). Another dubious special feature on that release: Neil Gaiman on Dark City, basically a glorified blurb. The new DVD contains two retrospective featurettes of substantial length and three audio commentaries from Alex Proyas, co-screenwriters David Goyer (Batman Begins) and Lem Dobbs, and Roger Ebert.
When Dark City originally came out, our local newspaper's entertainment section had a full-page splash with a 4-star review from Roger Ebert. This prompted me to see the film, which I hadn't even heard of prior to that day, one of the earliest times I remember actually being swayed to see a movie solely on its review. Since then, Ebert has become one of my "trusted reviewers", someone who is mostly right, sometimes wrong, but always writes a compelling review one way or the other (uh, one notoriously insane exception: Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties). The AV Club also falls in this category and most recently, I've added the entertaining Filmspotting podcast to it. It certainly says something positive about film criticism in the Windy City that Filmspotting, the AV Club, and Ebert are all based in Chicago.
From the get-go, Ebert was a major champion of the Dark City, eventually adding it to his pantheon Great Movies and including it as part of his annual Overlooked Film Festival in 2000. At the Conference on World Affairs in Boulder, Colorado, Ebert annually hosts an event (these last 2 years excepted due to his prolonged illness) called Cinema Interruptus, in which a film is dissected nearly frame-by-frame for 8 hours over the course of 4 days. Dark City was put through this extensive analysis one year and this informs Ebert's great commentary contained on the original Dark City DVD release. There are conflicting reports as to whether the new DVD release contains a completely new Ebert commentary (obviously recorded before his illness) or if it's a carry-over. At the very least, he seems to have expanded on the original commentary for the new footage.
All this and I haven't even really mentioned much about the film itself. If you haven't seen it, honestly I think it's best to go in cold turkey knowing as little about the plot as possible, like the protagonist John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) who awakes in a bathtub with no memory and a dead body in the other room. That's all you need to know, though there is that somewhat painful introductory voiceover from Dr. Schreber (wonderfully played by Kiefer Sutherland) to kick off the film, which I'm excited to see excised in the new cut.
Jennifer Connelly plays John's wife, Emma, a lounge singer who's strikingly introduced singing the song Sway, which in the theatrical cut was actually sung by Anita Kelsey. One of the changes in the Director's Cut is restoring Connelly's original vocals, for better or worse we'll soon find out. Yes, all this preamble about Dark City was just to post some Sway covers... and this was supposed to be a small post.
Anita Kelsey - Sway [originally popularized by Dean Martin] This version was my initial introduction to the song, as usual finding out it was a cover much later. Originally Sway was a 1953 mambo song ¿Quién será? by Pablo Beltrán Ruiz before Norman Gimbel wrote English lyrics and it became a hit for Dean Martin.
Dean Martin & Julie London - Sway [Remix] This surprisingly decent remix is from the generic looking Electro Lounge album of remixes, combining Dean Martin and Julie London's vocals from separate versions of the song.
Bobby Rydell - Sway [originally popularized by Dean Martin] A 1960 hit cover by teen idol Bobby Rydell with an amusing chorus of back-up singers.
Michael Bublé - Sway [originally popularized by Dean Martin] Probably my favourite arrangement of Sway.
The Puppini Sisters - Sway [originally popularized by Dean Martin] From the Andrews Sisters revivalists.
The Pussycat Dolls - Sway [originally popularized by Dean Martin] Likely the last time you'll be hearing the Pussycat Dolls on here... a slick but decent cover.
Björk Guðmundsdóttir & Tríó Guðmundar Ingólfssonar - Í dansi með þér [originally popularized by Dean Martin] This Icelandic jazz cover is an early Björk release from 1990's Gling-Gló, an album of jazz standards that predates her 1993 solo album Debut. I'm not exactly a Björk follower, so I was surprised to learn that her first album, which contains an Icelandic cover of Fool on the Hill, was recorded and released when she was 11 years old in 1977! Now that sounds like a cover to track down.
Sigh, I feel goofy constantly re-hashing stuff Neil Gaiman's linking to-- you should already be subscribed to his RSS feed anyway-- but lately I just can't help it, what with all this Amanda Palmer/Neil Gaiman/Ben Folds convergence.
From Photographer Kyle Cassidy's blog a few days ago: "We got finished shooting at about 2:00 a.m. and we're sitting in the kitchen in Neil's apartment and he says something like "blah blah blah I was sitting next to Paris Hilton once blah blah blah the lounge song I wrote blah blah" and we were all like "the lounge song?! so he sang it for us. Three times! because we kept applauding and shouting bravo! It's hysterical and infectious and I can't get it out of my head -- and Amanda's like "Oh I am so covering that!" So you may hear it too. It's funtabulous."
And she did. Here's Amanda covering Neil Gaiman's I Google You from a show last night in L.A.:
Audio's about as okay as one can expect from a youtube video, but it may be the only version we ever hear! According to this setlist, at the same show she also covered Cologne, a song from Ben Folds' upcoming Way to Normal [EDIT: turns out she actually lip-synched to Ben's studio recording]. Hmmm, I need that bootleg!
Spidiana jones by *DocShaner on deviantART This seems to be the end result of one of those "deep" conversations you have when you're 11 years old. What if Indy was bitten by a radioactive spider?
If you'd like to Cease and Desist me, I'd prefer that you didn't. In any event, you can contact me at [e-mail removed, see below], if you'd like me to remove a link (or if you want to tell me charming stories about your cat). In any event, MP3 links are generally deactivated after a couple weeks.
**UPDATE: In light of my blog going into retirement, I have removed my e-mail because I am still being bombarded with promo e-mails. If you still would like to contact me, ask a question, or whatever, feel free to hit me up on Twitter or simply leave a comment on any post. Cheers!
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.
