After the Gold Rush

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)

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!

888

Today the Olympics kick off in Beijing at 8:08:08pm on 08/08/08. You can bet it's Chinese wedding day central as well since 8's are lucky in Chinese culture-- the more the better. I myself am flying back to Edmonton today to attend a family wedding, not so coincidentally missing the wedding of a friend too. I imagine lots of Chinese will also be buying lottery tickets today, though they just missed the Wednesday 6/49 jackpot of $45 million dollars, the 2nd largest jackpot in Canadian lottery history to be split by the staff of a car dealership in Ontario and an as yet unclaimed winner in Québec. So what's the deal with eights? In Cantonese, the word for eight sounds similar to the word for "prosperity" or "fortune". And we're a superstitious bunch who'll favour addresses, phone numbers, license plates, or whatever with as many 8's as possible. It'll be another 80 years before we get a date this awesome.

On the flipside, 4 is a very unlucky number since it sounds like word for "death". Now think about how there's no 13th floor in most high-rises, right? Well when I was in Hong Kong, the elevator for the 50+ story apartment we were staying in was "missing" floors 4, 14, 24, 34, 44, not to mention the 7th floor (also unlucky). And that's somewhat conservative because some buildings outright jump from the 39th floor to the 50th, skipping all the 40's.

Two songs that have permanent Olympic associations for me are Annie Lennox's Walking on Broken Glass and Paul Simon's You Can Call Me Al. Whenever I hear either of them I'm instantly transported to opening ceremonies, flag bearers, and torch lighting though it took me forever to figure out why. I asked my friend, a Paul Simon buff, if You Can Call Me Al was ever used as an Olympic theme song and the answer was assuredly no. Google wasn't much help either. I finally figured it out earlier this week when I heard David Foster's theme written for the 1988 Calgary Olympic games, Winter Games.

I hadn't quite yet turned 5-years old when my mum drove my sister and I three hours south from Edmonton to take in the atmosphere of the Olympics in Calgary. The significance of this was completely lost on me and I have nearly no memory of the trip, though the David Foster theme song must have been imprinted in my head. Until this week, I hadn't heard that song in 20 years, yet echoes of the song have bounced around in my head for years, latching on to the similar sounding Walking on Broken Glass and You Can Call Me Al.

Am I crazy? Listen to these:
David Foster - Winter Games (1988)
Paul Simon - You Can Call Me Al (1986)
Annie Lennox - Walking on Broken Glass (1992)

Sam Roberts - You Can Call Me Al [originally by Paul Simon]
Music store A&B Sound, home of once legendary Boxing Day sales, is on the verge of completely shutting down in the face of the competition from Future Shop & Best Buy. Founded in downtown Vancouver, the chain expanded outward and through Western Canada including two stores in Edmonton, which is how I was familiar with the chain. I bought my first Sony walkman there for $15 at one of those Boxing Day sales. In fact now that I think about it, our family's first ever DVD player came from an A&B Sound Customer Appreciation Sale too (first DVD ever: Ronin). In general, A&B Sound always had the best deals on music and the stores would always be packed. The big chains seem to have these almost fake sales, but you could always count on big deals at A&B Sound. A couple weeks ago, nearly every CD/DVD in the downtown Vancouver location was 50% off for a sale of "indefinite length", a close-out sale by any other name. Sigh. While we scoured the CDs, my friend found this Paul Simon tribute album I had never heard of. Blandly titled Tribute to Paul Simon, this was actually recorded at a tribute concert at the 2006 Montréal International Jazz Festival when Paul Simon played there that year. Featuring mostly Canadian artists such as Jim Cuddy of Blue Rodeo, Colin James, and Sam Roberts, Elvis Costello was also there to perform a couple Simon covers. Leonard Cohen even performs an unlikely spoken-word tribute/half-cover of The Sound of Silence... I'll definitely have to post that later.

Noah & The Whale - You Can Call Me Al [originally by Paul Simon]
A unique cover performed live on BBC's Dermot O' Leary show by English band Noah & The Whale. And in case you're wondering like I was, it's no coincidence the band's name sounds like a combination of film The Squid & The Whale and its director Noah Baumbach.