Blowin' Your Cover

We got another new neighbour in the cover blog community: blowin' your cover. The blog has been up since November, but what's new to me may be new to you. We welcome new sources for covers... a little cover diversity, if you will. Some of the last few posts include features on The Mountain Goats, Ida, Buzzcocks, and The Magnetic Fields. So if that sounds like your thing, definitely keep your ears on blowin' your cover because you probably won't find that stuff on Fong Songs, simply due to my relative unfamiliarity with those artists. Plus, the site is much more aesthetically pleasing than mine. It almost makes me want to revamp (almost).

As per Fong Songs tradition with new cover blogs, we welcome you with a cover:
Bree Sharp - We're Going to Be Friends [originally by The White Stripes]
Previously this spot has been occupied by a cover of Randy Newman's You've Got a Friend in Me, but I'm running low on those and don't really like what's remaining. Plus, I always feel a little guilty posting a Disney cover when all your Disney cover needs are nicely handled by Kurtis.

Some other blogworthy news:

• Neil Gaiman's American Gods is available to be read online for the next month. You know, if books and libraries ain't your thing.
  
• I'm going to keep directing your attention to stuff I find on Amie Street... this is US only, but all their Bauhaus albums are free, which includes covers of Bowie and the Velvet Underground in there. Dick "Misirlou" Dale also has a free album with covers of Fever and Jimi's Third Stone From the Sun.
  
• This Sunday as part of the WFMU fundraising marathon, Yo La Tengo takes your cover requests! I somehow always seem to miss this every year, but this time for sure I'm making a effort to tune in online.

Cover Me

There's yet another cover blog on the block (we're practically a neighbourhood!) simply called Cover Me. Cover Me blogger Ray has actually had his cover blog up for over a month now, but what's new to me may be new to you as well. By the way, he's over at Covering the Mouse today with a guest Disney post. On Cover Me, Ray posts thematically-linked covers with commentary and we all know there's plenty of cover songs to go around. If a thousand monkeys on a thousand keyboards wrote a thousand cover blogs, would we run out of cover songs? Probably not. And in that teeny-tiny profile photo, is that Jack & Meg I see hovering over the boy clawing at his own face? That's 10, 000 bonus points, good sir. Welcome to the club!


Steve Tyrell with Dr. John - You've Got a Friend in Me [originally by Randy Newman for Disney's Toy Story]
As per unofficial Fong Songs welcome policy, new cover blogs are greeted by this modern classic from Toy Story. Important notice for any prospective cover bloggers: I've only got 7 more of these covers left. This is from jazz musician Steve Tyrell's album of Disney standards, unimaginatively named Steve Tyrell: The Disney Standards. Here, he's joined by Dr. John whose distinct voice and ivory ticklin' I'm a fan of.

Jamie Cullum - Seven Nation Army (live) [originally by The White Stripes]
This is my cover find of the week. I've been a big fan of Jamie Cullum since he burst on the scene scaring jazz and cover purists everywhere. And to find him covering another of my favourite bands is exciting indeed. I knew Jamie covered Seven Nation Army at his concerts many times including some terrible quality youtube videos. Sometimes it's part of a medley of other covers, but this was the first time I got my grubby hands on a quality live recording of the whole song. Using one of those sample and looping machines, Jamie builds up the distinct riff with his voice then proceeds to jingle jangle on the keys while singing one of the better cover versions of this song that I've heard.

Cover Lay Down

There's another new cover blog on the block: Cover Lay Down. His niche is folk cover songs, folks. Already the first post and planned future posts will cover (no pun intended) artists and songs that would not likely find their way to my blog simply because of my relative unfamiliarity with the genre. The inaugural post deals with a Richard Shindell cover album (See? Already an in-depth article on someone I've never heard of!) with covers of Springsteen, Dar Williams, REM, and more. If you scroll down to his intro post, I was positively delighted to read about my "incredible ability to compile cross-genre coverlists the likes of which I've never seen". WOO! I should make a banner and hang it on my blog permanently like a thumb's up from Ebert.


As per my unofficial welcome policy, here's a cover from Toy Story.
Riders in the Sky - You've Got a Friend in Me [originally by Randy Newman]

...and a folk cover for you too:
Brewer & Shipley - All Along the Watchtower [originally by Bob Dylan]
From the folks that brought you the wonderful One Toke Over the Line, a cover of the oft-covered Bob Dylan classic. It's been covered so many times, I'm surprised at how much this one stood out. Different, but I like it.

Bob Walkenhorst - One Toke Over the Line (live) [originally by Brewer & Shipley]
I fell in love with this song as a kid even though it was way before my time and references to "tokes" sailed clear over my short head. I remember my dad used to buy these Solid Gold cassette tapes from gas stations and these would provide the soundtrack to long camping roadtrips. The Solid Gold series (probably one of those Time-Life compilation series) covered the gamut of music from the 50's through the 70's. Now that I really think about it, those cassettes left a huge mark on my impressionable mind. That was literally my first exposure to the Beach Boys, Jerry Lee Lewis, Mamas & the Papas, Roy Orbison, Big Bopper, The Guess Who, Eagles, Buddy Holly.... I could go on and on. It was a real lesson in music history, even if I didn't realize it at the time. Brewer & Shipley's One Toke Over the Line stands out as a song I rushed to rediscover once file-sharing became prevalent.


It's great to have a new face on the cover block since I will be MIA for the next month. In fact, I leave tomorrow for China! I'll be gone for 5 weeks and when I return I'll be making my big move to Vancouver. You may have noticed a dearth of posts in the past couple weeks as I've prepared for this big trip to visit the mother country for the first time. I'll get the opportunity to explore some of my heritage with my grandmother, check out my dad's birth village, and have many other exciting adventures in spite of the fact that I myself speak no Chinese whatsoever (except for counting to 10 in Cantonese).

In the meantime, my blog will not go completely silent. Fong Songs will temporarily turn into a travel blog, assuming I have internet access. To get your cover fix, I've also given Kurtis from over at Covering the Mouse the Heigh Ho to fulfil whatever non-Disney cover desires he so chooses. Speaking of which, it's Jungle Book week over there right now and there'll be a guest post from me coming up on Thursday, by which point I should be reaching Hong Kong! In some blogger griping news, when I added Kurtis as a contributor it wiped off my profile link from the sidebar and due to to the "convenient" automated process of the blog layout, I couldn't add it back in. I actually had to use the Internet Time Machine to find some old source code to slip back into the template. Yet more Beta Blogger Blues... my god, it's been 10 months and it's still incompatible with Macs.

Have a good October, folks! See you in November.

P.S. I didn't win Led Zeppelin tickets. :(
The Hold Steady - Hey Hey What Can I Do? [originally by Led Zeppelin]
Hey Hey, what can I do to get face value tickets? And Hey Hey, what can I do to make this guy sing in time with the music? The Hold Steady must be an acquired taste. The last minute of this song makes me want to rip my ears off. But... you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the facts of life. Or in Zeppelin's words: Good times, bad times, you know I've had my share... Good times are on their way.

A Whole New Blog

There's a new face in the Covers neighbourhood this week: Covering the Mouse. That would be reason enough to celebrate, but even moreso due to the fact that this new music blog devoted to Disney cover songs. I repeat, DISNEY COVER SONGS. The music of Disney films and television shows has been ingrained in our collective childhoods across the globe, which makes it a prime source for cover songs. I've been known on more than one occasion to post Disney covers myself since it is one of my favourite sub-categories of cover songs, so naturally it's my new favourite blog. And the blogger's a fellow Canuck to boot, which is totally irrelevant but makes me happy nonetheless.


Now to celebrate, this would be brilliant time to pull out my non-existent cover of The Unbirthday Song. Instead here's a couple gems from my Disney covers collection:

The Bedroom Orchestra - You've Got a Friend in Me (live) [originally by Randy Newman from Toy Story]
Here's a great acoustic cover from BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge, a show known for getting its guest to perform unlikely covers. It also has a grating host in Jo Whiley who gushes over her guests to a degree that makes me cringe, or at least that's the impression I get from the snippets of dialogue that often surround the live lounge recordings. Luckily, you won't hear any of her in this cover of the beloved Toy Story song performed by The Bedroom Orchestra, who by all accounts is a one-man band. Is this disconnect between band names and number of band members a recent trend?

Watkins Family Hour - Not in Nottingham (live) [originally from Robin Hood]
This song is wonderfully bittersweet song from Robin Hood, one of my fav's of the Disney catalogue. I can just picture the slow pan across the sad animal residents of Nottingham shackled up in the town jail. Ooh, that rascally Sheriff! To find a cover of this at all is exciting, let alone a live cover by the Watkins Family Hour. At the core, the Watkins Family Hour is Sean and Sara Watkins, two-thirds of Nickel Creek, playing host to a variety of musical guests (predominantly at The Largo in LA) that have included the likes of Grant-Lee Phillips, Jon Brion, Fiona Apple, Glen Phillips, and many more. The fact that The Ditty Bops accompanied them on that particular night at The Largo is just icing on the cake.

So add Covering the Mouse to your bookmarks immediately! And there's even an accompanying Facebook group you can join, if you're so inclined (and I am). Welcome, welcome!

Cover Freak

Hey, there's a new cover freak on the block and his site is aptly called Cover Freak. Check out his first post, a cover tribute to Country Dick Montana.

Alright! Another ally in the on-going campaign to spread cover-mania. A toast:
Robert Goulet - You've Got a Friend in Me (Wheezy's Version)
[originally by Randy Newman for Pixar's Toy Story]