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.
-Dennis Lee Alligator Pie, 1974.
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.
Talk Pi! Sing Pi! Tweet Pi! Eat Pie! However you want, celebrate π! Also, Happy Birthday Albert Einstein!
Of course, we can't leave without my favourite all-time π song... Hard 'n Phirm - Pi
These are a few leftovers from last week's offering of Pet Shop Boys covers that deserved their very own post because they live in their own little world of cover wackiness.
Pet Shop Boys - We're the Pet Shop Boys [originally by My Robot Friend] What's weirder: the Pet Shop Boys performing a song called We're the Pet Shop Boys or the fact that it's a cover song? Amusingly, the Pet Shop Boys cover is essentially the same with Neil Tennant replacing the faux Tennant vocals of the original.
My Robot Friend - We're the Pet Shop Boys The original is from New York electronic artist My Robot Friend who produced the Pet Shop Boys tribute on his 2002 debut Hot Action!. One of the best bits is a monotone roll call of Pet Shop Boys song titles reminiscent of the coda of Madonna's Vogue.
Robbie Williams - We're The Pet Shop Boys (with Pet Shop Boys) [originally by My Robot Friend] Piling another yummy layer of meta, Robbie Williams covered this for his 2006 album Rudebox. It was produced by the Pet Shop Boys themselves, who also produced another track from the same album called She's Madonna. The Pet Shop Boys also remixed Madonna's song Sorry from her Confessions on a Dance Floor album and, if I remember the liner notes from Discography, their own song Heart was offered to Madonna before they kept it for themselves. If only we could get Madonna to cover We're the Pet Shop Boys.
West End Girls - Booglurbia [originally by the Pet Shop Boys] West End Girls are a Pet Shop Boys tribute band from Sweden who recorded a full album of PSB covers in 2006 called Goes Petshopping. To the untrained ear (like mine) it might sound like this particular cover of Suburbia was recorded in the duo's native language, but it has more in common with the Swedish chef than actual Swedish. No, this cover was recorded in Simlish, the nonsense language used by the Sims in the popular computer game. Specifically, this was featured in the expansion pack The Sims: Pets (ha, get it?) and even then, not in the US version.
By the way, if you missed the exciting news, it was announced a couple weeks ago at D23 (A Disney convention) that Muppet Studios would be releasing a covers album called Muppets Revisited. The track list isn't finalized and no release date has been set, but the announcement included these:
Yesterday Andrew Bird made an appearance on the Paris radio show Le Fou du roi performing a fantastic rendition of the Kermit the Frog standard Bein' Green, in French no less! He was accompanied by in-house pianist Richard Lornac.Andrew Bird - Bein' Green [originally by Kermit the Frog; written by Joe Raposo]
He also performed one of my faves from his latest album Noble Beast: Andrew Bird - Oh No (live on Le Fou du roi)
Tonight his European tour kicks off: 04/24 Bourges, France - Theatre Jacques Coeur 04/25 Rennes, France - Ubu 04/27 Paris, France - La Cigale 04/28 Nancy, France - L'Autre Canal 04/29 Nantes, France - Olympic 04/30 Lyon, France - Epicerie Moderne 05/01 Cologne, Germany - Luxor 05/03 Stockholm, Sweden - Strand 05/04 Copenhagen, Denmark - Lille Vega 05/05 Hamburg, Germany - Uebel & Gefahrlich 05/06 Berlin, Germany - Admiralsplast 101 05/07 Amsterdam, The Netherlands - Paradiso 05/09 Brussels, Belgium - Les Nuit de Botanique Cirque Royal 05/10 Bristol, England -Thekla 05/11 London, England - Shepherds Bush Empire 05/13 Manchester, England - Academy 2 05/14 Glasgow, Scotland - Oran Mor
Here's another cover of Bein' Green I love performed by fellow Muppet, Rowlf. Useless fact #37: Rowlf and Andrew Bird have both playeddoctors on TV.
Rowlf the Dog - Bein' Green [originally by Kermit the Frog] Yep, A Bird and a dog covering a frog. Sounds like the start of a Fozzie joke...
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts - Bird Dog [originally by the Everly Brothers] Wocka Wocka Wocka!
So last week I'm on the plane back to Vancouver working on the crossword in The Onion (HQ'd in Chicago) when I'm feel a tinge of sadness as I look at 32-down: "CN or Sears". You see the day before I landed in Chicago, this clue was invalidated when it was announced that this summer it will henceforth be known as the Willis Tower after Willis Group Holdings, a London-based Insurance broker, who are consolidating their offices there. Sigh, I guess. Apparently Sears vacated the building and moved to the suburbs in the mid-90's, though retained the naming rights until 2003.
Today we've got a fine selection of covers from the musical Chicago by John Kander & Fred Ebb sprinkled in with photos and blurbs about my trip.
Lea DeLaria - All That Jazz [originally by Kander/Ebb] I found this great jazz cover on a "Best Of" album by Lea DeLaria that combines covers of showtunes and modern songs from her first two albums. Her 2006 album Double Standards includes swing jazz covers of Green Day, No Doubt, The Pretenders, and more. The world of Broadway covers is woefully underpopulated, so while looking up Lea DeLaria I was absolutely thrilled to stumble upon an Avenue Q Swings album of jazz covers, to which she contributed an Ella Fitzgerald-esque take on The Internet is for Porn. I'm lucky to have seen Avenue Q twice in London and Toronto, the latter instance in front row dead centre (thanks to my sister!). If you haven't seen it, you should go out of your way to check it out.
Lil' Kim, Macy Gray & Queen Latifah - Cell Block Tango [originally by Kander/Ebb] As much as I love the music of Chicago, I don't really consider any of the songs from the film cover songs exactly... in the same way that multiple productions of plays or musicals aren't "remakes". The only exception on the film's soundtrack is this questionable rap riff on the Cell Block Tango.
Above are couple screen caps from The Untouchables and The Dark Knight, plus my own shot of LaSalle street. Honestly I don't listen to very many podcasts, but I am addicted to Filmspotting, which means alongside The AV Club and Ebert, 99% of the film criticism I pay attention to is Chicago-based. Hmmm. While in Chicago, I took the opportunity to do a little filmspotting of my own since a bunch of films I love including The Fugitive and The Untouchables were set/filmed there. I checked out Union Station, where Kevin Costner as Elliot Ness famously dropped a baby carriage down the steps in suuuuuper slooooow mooootion in the middle of a shootout. In reality, those steps are not quite as epic as I had pictured, ha ha. Strolling around downtown is a bit like walking through Gotham City since Batman Begins and The Dark Knight were recognizably filmed there. It was pretty cool to walk down LaSalle street, which pulled double duties as the site of Commissioner Loeb's funeral procession and later when the Joker's 18-wheeler flips over.
Uwe Kröger - All I Care About [originally by Kander/Ebb] A soothing bossa nova jazz cover from German Broadway star Uwe Kröger, who you may remember from some Bond covers back in November. Spent a nice afternoon at the Chicago Art Institute, which has a bunch of famous paintings from the likes of Hopper, Seurat, and Van Gogh, though a couple other notables like American Gothic and Picasso's The Old Guitarist were on vacation. I was pretty stoked to see a small but sweet exhibition on children's author/Disney storyboarder Bill Peet. Below is an original drawing from Farewell to Shady Glade, one of my faves.
Ella Fitzgerald - Roxie [originally by Kander/Ebb] Ella Fitzgerald - My Own Best Friend [originally by Kander/Ebb] These two covers are a bit of a rarity from a dusty 7" inch I tracked down for about $10 since it was stunningly never re-issued in any other format. The legendary Ella Fitzgerald serves up an irresistible take on Roxie with some customized lyrics. Lots of fun. Roxie is actually the b-side to My Own Best Friend, a track from the original musical that didn't quite make it into the 2002 film adaptation. Theoretically I've seen the musical in person too, but I honestly don't recognize this one. For Chicago ethusiasts, I recently discovered a cool album on eMusic, An Evening with John Kander and Fred Ebb, a 1973 concert of the original composers performing their works including All That Jazz and Roxie two years before Chicago would even hit Broadway! Speaking of which, Chazz Palminteri brought his one-man Broadway show A Bronx Tale to Chicago and I took in a Sunday performance. You may have seen the 1993 film adaptation, which marked Robert De Niro's directorial debut. Unfortunately after a full day of trudging around downtown and the Chicago Art Institute, I was nodding off a bit at the back of the theatre. Eep.
Ben Vereen & The Muppets - Mr. Cellophane [originally by Kander/Ebb] Joel Grey & The Muppets - Razzle Dazzle [originally by Kander/Ebb] These two Chicago covers were both performed in the first season of The Muppet Show just a year after the musical had opened on Broadway. It was St. Patrick's Day weekend when I visited Chicago (not unplanned), so I was able to take in the dyeing of the river and parade. The river itself is already a murky shade of green, but some sort of powder with carefully guarded secret ingredients is tossed off the back of the boat to transform the water into a wonderfully nuclear green. Between the river dyeing to the site of the parade, I got a bit trapped with hundreds of lost pedestrians on Lower Wacker Drive, wandering aimlessly underground for some sort of way up to street level. Fifteen minutes later we emerged from a tunnel onto Columbus Drive to cries of "Natural light! Beautiful sunshine!" After about an hour of the parade, I had more than my fill of marching bands, curly-haired step dancers, and union workers, so I cheated and made my way backwards along the parade route to the beginning where I found a logjam of floats/entries rearing to go. At that rate, the parade was going to continue for several more hours so off I went to see Wrigley Field.
The White Stripes - Mr. Cellophane [originally by Kander/Ebb] The Alice Russell show at Schuba's Tavern was a blast. Local funk/soul act The O'My's were an unexpected treat, dutifully warming up the room before Alice Russell and her band took to the stage. She was traveling light on this tour with her album horn section filled in by a guy playing an electric violin thing that looked like it was designed by Picasso. This made things interesting when she performed her cover of Seven Nation Army. Needless to say, I left plenty satisfied. The next night I was invited by a roommate at the hostel to go to the nearby Legends, a blues club owned by Buddy Guy. It was an offer I couldn't refuse since I wanted to go but probably wouldn't have on my own. It was nearly 5 hours straight of great blues music and I got a super rare treat when Buddy Guy himself was coaxed up from the bar to sing a song before disappearing. It was the highlight of what was an already great evening of music, not unlike Buddy Guy's appearance in last year's Rolling Stone concert flick Shine a Light, which also featured a guest appearance by Jack White. The White Stripes performed this Mr. Cellophane cover on the World Café radio show, presumably around the time Jack was dating Renee Zellweger who was nominated for an Oscar as Roxie Hart in Chicago.
Mr. President is not pleased with this shirt. Plenty of tacky souvenirs available in Chicago including a life-sized cardboard cutout of Obama on sale on the 99th floor of the Tower Formerly Known as Sears.
Oops, let's pretend the Grovers were running on past the 5-hour mark... no time for acceptance speeches, critics' analysis, post-show interviews, or any of that jazz. Here are your 2009 Grover winners as decided by the Fong Songs Readers:
Best Non-Original Song by an Oscar-Winning Musician: Jorge Drexler - High & Dry [originally by Radiohead]
Best Rendition of Beyond the Sea by an Oscar-Winning Actor Named Kevin: Kevin Spacey - Beyond the Sea [as made famous by Bobby Darin]
Best Cover of an Oscar-Winning Song by a Canadian Jazz Artist: Holly Cole - Baby, It's Cold Outside [originally by Frank Loesser]
Best Cover of an Oscar-Winning Song: The Dan Band - Flashdance/Fame [originally performed by Irene Cara]
Best Cover by an Oscar-Winning Actor or Actress: Clint Eastwood - Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive [originally by Harold Arlen & Johnny Mercer]
If you're like me and already forgot the other nominees, you can check out the ballot here.
Way to go Clint. They like you, they really really like you.
The Oscar pools are over and the little gold men have been doled out, so now it's time to roll out the blue carpet and hand out the little furry blue monsters! As a belated tie-in to the Academy Awards, I've made up some arbitrary Oscar-themed categories of cover songs for you, the Academy of Fong Songs Readers, to vote on by secret ballot. Write-ins are welcome, but please no ballot stuffing, this isn't the NHL All-Star Game. Note: if Google Reader is any indication, voting won't work from the RSS feed, so drop by for a real visit! Grover-winners will be announced at the end the week along with some more tunes for your consideration. On with the show!
BEST NON-ORIGINAL SONG BY AN OSCAR-WINNING MUSICIAN This category is for artists who have won an Academy Award for Best Original Song as opposed to an acting award, so no Sinatra or Cher.
Bob Dylan - This Old Man [Traditional] I forgot Dylan won an Oscar for the song Things Have Changed from 2000's Wonder Boys. This rendition of This Old Man sounds exactly as you might imagine if you were told beforehand that Bob Dylan was covering a children's nursery rhyme, complete with harmonica and his trademark vocals. Theoretically it could also sound like this.
Melissa Etheridge - Born to Run [originally by Bruce Springsteen] I don't really understand at all the snub of The Boss for his title song for The Wrestler when there were only three nominated songs, two of which were from Slumdog Millionaire. Did you know 1945 Oscars had fourteen nominees in this category?? Now that's pretty absurd, but I don't get how THREE songs from TWO movies is reflective of "Best Original Song" for all of 2008. Melissa Etheridge, winner in '06 for I Need to Wake Up from An Inconvenient Truth, covered Springsteen at the 2001's Concert for New York City. Hopefully next year Bruce will get a Best Live-Action Short Film nomination for this.
Jorge Drexler - High & Dry [originally by Radiohead] Jorge Drexler's Al Otro Lado del Río from The Motorcycle Diaries won for Best Original Song at the 2004 Oscars, though he was replaced during the song performance portion of the ceremony by the more "audience-friendly" Carlos Santana and Antonio Banderas. Instead Drexler sang a bit of his song a cappella during his acceptance speech.
BEST COVER OF AN OSCAR-WINNING SONG The number of Disney song winners is staggering, so I excluded them completely from this category. Perhaps unfairly, but I'm arbitrarily setting the rules-- like the real Academy!
Dorothy Ashby - The Windmills of Your Mind [originally by performed by Noel Harrison] Winner in 1968 for The Thomas Crown Affair, this stunning cover by jazz harpist Dorothy Ashby is one of my favourites. From the 1969 album Dorothy's Harp, this could've come out next week and still sound hip and current.
Nick Cave - Let It Be [originally by The Beatles] Did you know The Beatles won an Oscar? I sure didn't, but they did for Best Original Song Score in 1970 for Let It Be (the film). "Original Song Score" is distinct from "Original Score" and "Original Song" and appears to have been completely phased out as a category in the mid-80s. Someone will have to explain the intricacies of that to me. Anyway this cover is from the all-Beatles cover soundtrack for I Am Sam, of course the film in which Sean Penn "went full retard and went home empty handed" at the 2002 Oscars. But he took one home last night, so take that Robert Downey Jr. in blackface!
Manic Street Preachers - Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head [originally by performed by B.J. Thomas] Hal David and Burt Bacharach won the Best Song Oscar for writing this memorable ditty from Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid.
The Dan Band - Flashdance/Fame [originally performed by Irene Cara] We got a combo here with two Oscar winning songs performed by The Dan Band, known for their profanity-is-funny covers from Old School, Starsky & Hutch, and a live album.
Sammy Davis, Jr. - Theme from Shaft [originally by Isaac Hayes] I'm a sucker for the In Memory montage of every Oscars telecast. This year offered an different, yet respectful twist with Queen Latifah paying tribute in song in a more celebratory than mournful manner, though it was severely undermined by ill-advised cuts to wide shots of the stage with the miniscule unreadable text rendering several luminaries unidentifiable. Among those remembered was Isaac Hayes who passed away last year within a day or so of Bernie Mac with whom he co-starred in the film Soul Men that was released a couple months later. I love that Sammy Davis Jr. covered this iconic theme, which took home the Oscar for Best Original Song in 1971.
BEST COVER OF AN OSCAR-WINNING SONG BY A CANADIAN JAZZ ARTIST A little CanCon for you since it'd be nearly impossible to play this game with the Genie Awards. Go ahead, you can look that up on Wikipedia.
Molly Johnson - Streets of Philadelphia [originally by Bruce Springsteen] This is from Molly's 2006 album Messin' Around, which also has an interpretation of Prince's Tangerine. Springsteen wrote this for the 1992 film Philadelphia. Unbeknownst to me, he was competing against Neil Young's Philadelphia also written for the film.
Michael Bublé - Call Me Irresponsible [originally by performed by Jackie Gleason] Written by Sammy Cahn & Jimmy Van Heusen, this was famously covered by Frank Sinatra, who I suspect Bublé is channeling here from his 2007 album, also called Call Me Irresponsible.
Elizabeth Shepherd Trio - Beauty & The Beast [originally by Alan Menken & Howard Ashman] Elizabeth Shepherd is up for Best Vocal Jazz Album at next month's Juno Awards, which are here in Vancouver this year. I had to send my friend to Japan to get this cover song, which comes from the compilation album Modal Jazz Loves Disney. This is like when George Clooney, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or some big star goes to Japan to film/shoot advertisements that no one over here will see, which is unfortunate since it's a great cover of the Disney modern classic.
Holly Cole - Baby, It's Cold Outside [originally by Frank Loesser] I didn't realize this song came from a film, but it won for 1949's Neptune's Daughter, which included two performances of the duet by the combos of Ricardo Montalbán(!) with Esther Williams and Red Skelton with Betty Garrett. Apparently multi-Oscar nominee Sigourney Weaver performed this song with buster Poindexter on an old episode of SNL.
BEST RENDITION OF BEYOND THE SEA BY AN OSCAR-WINNING ACTOR NAMED KEVIN It's really too bad Kevin Costner didn't record a cover of this song, leaving this a two-horse race. I would be astounded if anyone came up with a legit write-in vote for this.
Kevin Kline - La Mer [originally by Charles Trenet] Kevin Kline, Oscar winner for A Fish Called Wanda, actually goes back to cover the original French version of Beyond the Sea, originally titled La Mer. Songwriter Jack Lawrence penned new English lyrics for the tune that are unrelated to the original lyrics beyond the reference to the sea (la mer).
Kevin Spacey - Beyond the Sea [as made famous by Bobby Darin] Kevin Spacey won Oscars for The Usual Suspects, had a string of solid roles through the mid-90s, then capped it off with another win for American Beauty. Then he seemingly took a cue from Cuba Gooding Jr. and hasn't really done anything all that worthwhile since. Perhaps Men Who Stare at Goats will be a return to form (no joke). For his pet project biopic of idol Bobby Darin, Spacey produced a whole album of covers and even went on a mini-tour.
THE VINCENT L. GAMBINI AWARD FOR WORST COVER BY AN OSCAR WINNING ACTOR Like the Gordon E. Sawyer Award and the Irving G. Thalberg Award, this category is an honour of dubious merit bestowed on a particularly wretched cover song of my choosing performed by an Oscar winner. This isn't the William A. Shatner Award since he's unfortunately Oscarless and I find even his worst covers amusing and fascinating ("MISTER TAMBOURINE MMMAAAAaaaAAAAAAAAN!").
This year's inaugural award goes to its namesake, Joe Pesci singing in character as Vincent LaGuardia Gambini from My Cousin Vinny. It's from a frightening 1998 album of originals that includes such winners as Take Your Love and Shove It, Yo Cousin Vinny, and Wise Guy. This karaoke arrangement of the Louis Armstrong classic is not completely atrocious, but exceedingly unnecessary.
Joe Pesci - What a Wonderful World [originally by Louis Armstrong]
BEST COVER BY AN OSCAR WINNING ACTOR OR ACTRESS For this category, I deemed Oscar winners who were primarily musical artists ineligible to be nominated. I also excluded cover songs that were performed for a musical adapted for film. So as you might imagine, the shortlist for this award is rather short especially when the remaining covers must be deemed Grover-worthy. Try to ignore the famous names and keep your ears open. Here are the nominees:
Gwyneth Paltrow - Bette Davis Eyes [originally by Jackie DeShannon] Modeled on the 80's Kim Carnes version, the mother of Apple covered this for the film Duets, which she starred in and was directed by her dad Bruce. The movie received mediocre to outright awful reviews, though I've always been a little curious to check it out because of its eclectic cast which includes Huey Lewis (as Gwyneth's dad I think?), Maria Bello, Andre Braugher, and Paul Giametti as competitors at a national karaoke championship, plus it's got a soundtrack of cover songs. Paltrow won the Best Actress Oscar for 1998's Shakespeare in Love.
Clint Eastwood - Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive [originally by Harold Arlen & Johnny Mercer] Speaking of snubs, didn't Gran Torino get nominated for anything? Mind you, I heard it wasn't Clint's best, but I know it was nominated for (and winning) some accolades earlier in the awards season and I would've liked to see Jamie Cullum perform at the Oscars. He co-wrote and performed with Clint Eastwood the title theme to Gran Torino, their second collaboration after the theme to Grace is Gone. Clint covered this song for his 1997 film Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which also featured a jazz cover by Kevin Spacey probably before anyone realized he was a closet crooner. Eastwood has multiple nominations and two Best Picture and Director Oscars under his belt, and even an Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. Bonus Oscar connection: Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive was one of the 13 runner-ups in the 1945 Best Original Song Oscar competition.
Billy Bob Thornton & The Boxmasters - The Kids Are Alright [originally by The Who] It may be hard to believe, but this ain't half-bad. This is from the second all-covers disc from The Boxmasters self-titled debut of last year, though Billy Bob has released several albums earlier. He's been nominated twice for acting Oscars, though his win is actually for writing Sling Blade. I just saw an earlier (and paunchier) Billy Bob in Tombstone a couple months ago and he was a hoot.
Finally, for your viewing entertainment: Grover's starring role in last year's hit monster flick, Groverfield.
Today's the 35th anniversary of the Bruce Lee classic Enter the Dragon, his last completed role before his untimely death less than a week before the movie was released. Lalo Schifrin, probably best known for composing the Mission: Impossible theme, also composed the score for Enter the Dragon. The main theme is campy, funky, and all around awesome, incorporating samples of Bruce Lee's trademark sound effects. Great theme with its fair share of solid covers.
Jack Parnell & His Orchestra - Enter the Dragon Ha! And you thought Muppet week was over.... This is a faithful orchestrated version of the theme sans Bruce Lee sound effects performed by Jack Parnell & His Orchestra. Jack Parnell was the conductor of The Muppet Show orchestra for its entire 5-year run.
Buckethead & Bootsy Collins - The Japanese Connection: Enter the Dragon A guitar shredding solo cover of the theme.
New Cool Collective - Enter the Dragon A live big band cover. Not particularly groundbreaking, but sounds great. It comes to life roughly halfway through when they go into jam-mode.
Turbo A.C.'s - Enter the Dragon A hard rockin' cover.
B3 Project - Theme From Enter the Dragon An oddly satisfying remix with thumping dance beat for one of them Dance Dance Revolution games. An unlikely combo, but it works.
Euroboys - Enter the Dragon Decent, but unremarkable cover.
Button Down Brass - Enter the Dragon A very faithful cover but performed at a sped-up pace. This would be good for some 70's car chases.
Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra - Enter the Dragon My favourite Enter the Dragon cover from the always reliable Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra. They completely own this cover.
Dennis Coffey - Theme From Enter the Dragon The 2nd favourite cover of the lot, Dennis Coffey's supremely funky take on the already funky theme. Coffey was a Motown session guitarist who scored his own top 10 hit in the 70's, Scorpio. His songs have been heavily sampled by the likes of the Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Moby, and Rage Against the Machine. He also scored the blaxploitation film Black Belt Jones, which starred Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon co-star Jim Kelly as the title character.
One more belated entry for Muppet Covers Week... this should've gone up yesterday, but churning out these daily posts was wearing me out. A quick round-up of last week's posts:
Mah Nà Mah Nà Mahna Mahna Mah-Nah Mah-Nah Mah-Na-Mah-Na
...no matter how you spell it, it's one of the most enduring and most covered Muppet-related tunes. I say Muppet-related because it did not originate with the Muppets but rather a 1968 Italian mondo film. As best as I can tell, most of the research about the origins of the Mah Nà Mah Nà stems from this geocities site, which was started in 2000 and continues to be sporadically updated to this day.
Piero Umiliani - Mah Nà Mah Nà Piero Umiliani - Samba Mah Nà We start at the beginning, 1968's Svezia, Inferno e Paradiso (Sweden, Heaven & Hell), an Italian mondo film "documentary" about sexual behaviours of Swedes. It seems to be the unlikeliest of soundtracks to an Italian softcore porn film, roughly on par with using sped up footage alongside Boots Randolph's Yakety Sax. Samba Mah Nà is an awesome variation from the same soundtrack. I really can't imagine what sort of scene this music accompanied! An entire album of remixes of the original, "Mah Nà Mah Nà: Vulcanology.It Remixes", is available on iTunes, eMusic, and Amazon, though it doesn't look like a physical disc exists.
Piero Umiliani - Mah Nà Cowboy Umiliani revisits the Mah Nà motif with this hilarious variation from the soundtrack to 1971's Questo Sporco Mondo Meraviglioso (google's translation: This Dirty Wonderful World).
Mahna Mahna & The Two Snowths - Mahna Mahna The Muppet debut of Mahna Mahna was on the 14th episode of Sesame Street, airing in November 1969. A more polished version was performed live three days later on The Ed Sullivan Show and this was later redone for the very first episode of The Muppet Show when it debuted in 1976. "Mahna Mahna" (the wild-haired scat man) was performed by Jim Henson and the "Two Snowths" (the pink creatures who sing the doo-doo's) were both performed by Frank Oz. Muppet Wiki has a handy Mahna Mahna Through the Years pictorial guide.
Henri Salvador - Mais Non Mais Non (Mah Na Mah Na) An early French cover from 1969, which replaces the familiar refrain with Mais Non, Mais Non and adds some other lyrics.
Hot Butter - Mah-Na-Mah-Na Electronic Concept Orchestra - Mah Na Mah Na Two Moog versions, the first by Hot Butter who are best known for the instrumental Popcorn. The latter playfully incorporates random classical bit and other familiar tunes.
Giorgio Moroder - Mah Na Mah Na De Savoya Combo - Mah-Na Mah-Na The scatting in the first one sounds mostly like a sick duck, while the latter sounds like a sick pig. Strange.
Leroy Holmes - Mah Na Mah Na Pay particularly close attention to this version, which uses a wide range of instruments and sometimes lush orchestration. This is clearly the antecedent of Cake's cover.
Dave Pell Singers - Mah-Nah-Mah-Nah A pleasant, if bland cover. The more of these you listen to, the harder it is to distinguish them apart.
Asylum Street Spankers - Mah Na Mah Na This is a fun live cover, incorporating snippets of Black Sabbath's Sweet Leaf, Zeppelin's Heartbreaker, the Stones' Satisfaction, and more in an extended bit of scatting.
Skin - Mah Na Mah Na The big, loud, fast punk cover. I love it.
Cake - Mahna Mahna If some of the other versions start wearing thin, I find the Cake version perpetually listenable. Again, check out the Leroy Holmes cover and notice the strong similarities. This was originally from the For the Kids compilation album.
Mr. Mo - Mah Na Mah Na Mr. Mo uses Mah Na Mah Na as the basis of this song, which sounds suspiciously like Mambo #5 too. It's also the first version I know of to use "mah na mah na" as a sexual euphemism, though perhaps that's unintentionally fitting considering the song's origins.
Lenlow - Kanye Mahna [Kanye West vs. The Muppets] Mash-up artist Lenlow combines Kanye's Golddigger with Cake's cover of Mahna Mahna. Works surprisingly well.
Alex H - Mahna Mahna in Memphis [Marc Cohn vs. The Muppets] This mash-up is a little more forced...
K-Taro - Sweden, Heaven & Hell Taking its title from the original film source, Japanese artist K-Taro, formerly of Pizzicato Five, contributed this electronic cover to the compilation album Sushi 3003.
Pato Fu - Made in Japan Pato Fu - Made in Japan (live) Brazilian pop band Pato Fu incorporates Mahna Mahna into the chorus of its hit song Made in Japan, which was written in Portuguese and translated into Japanese. A computerized voice actually sings "Made in Japan" in place of "Mahna Mahna". I love the live version, which is from their 10th anniversary album. It's much livelier, for lack of a better word, than the album version. So we have a Brazilian band singing in Japanese, based on an Italian tune from a film about Swedes. Very worldly!
Vanilla - No Way No Way No doubt, the worst usage of Mah Na Mah Na: an atrocious sub-par Spice Girls knock-off. I just dare you to watch the music video for this on youTube (no, I won't link to it!).
That Handsome Devil - Hey White Boy Mahna Mahna pops up in all sorts of curious contexts. I was trying to remember where I recognized this band's name from, then I realized their song, Elephant Bones, was one of the bonus tracks from Guitar Hero 2, one of the more eclectic song choices. Let's get Dr. Teeth & The Electric Mayhem in one of these games! Can you picture that?
Thanks for joining me for Muppet Covers Week! Phew, time for a break!
I rarely post on Saturdays so today I'm going to cheat a bit. I've reactivated the mp3 links on my Pinball Number Count post back from January, still one of my most popular posts ever. There you'll find numerous covers, remixes, and foreign versions of the classic Sesame Street short. Enjoy it while you can!
Here are a couple more new variations I've come across since then:
Kai Kln - Counting Song The sneering rock version cover of the Pinball Number Count was missing in action... until now! Actually this was recorded in 1990 as a bonus track to Kai Kln's debut album Rhythm of Stranger, which is entirely available to download on the Internet Archive.
South Rakkas Crew - Twelve [feat. Geefus & Ninja Kid] The South Rakkas Crew are an Orlando-based production duo who originally hail from the Greater Toronto Area. Their myspace site classifies them as reggae / electro / hip hop. Reader Justin pointed this out back in January.
T.H.C. - 1,2,3,4,5 Thanks to reader Sean who mentioned this one.
I haven't heard it, but there's also a college a cappella cover of the Pinball Number Count by a group called Wibijazz'n on their CD In the Pocket. Let me know if you find any other versions I haven't mentioned!
OK, when I planned to make it Muppets Cover Week this week, it didn't completely escape me that the biggest, most anticipated movie of the summer was coming out today. I saw The Dark Knight at a midnight screening last night and it was absolutely stunning. It's been out for less than 24 hours and it's already broken two box office records, biggest take for midnight screenings and opening in most number of theatres. Mind you, that figure doesn't include the 3am and 6am screenings so all signs point to a blockbuster weekend and it deserves it. It's uncommon for me to actually want a movie to take in obscene oodles of money, but here I'm cheering it on. I'm thinking a 140-something million opening weekend, but I not-so secretly would like it to beat Spider-Man 3's $151M. It's opening to great reviews too: a 4-star review from Ebert, an A from Keith Phipps at the AV Club, and an 82 rating on Metacritic.
So how does this all tie in to the Muppets you ask? The connection is not as far-fetched as one might imagine and I learned some interesting factoids when looking this stuff up. Directly related to Christopher Nolan's reboot of the Batman series, the Jim Henson's Creature Shop worked on some of the visual effects for Batman Begins, most notably the shots of the "memory cloth" that Lucius Fox shows Bruce Wayne, which would later be fashioned into Batman's cape. And check out this bizarrely amusing trailer remix of The Dark Knight... with the Muppets!
And did you know Batman and Superman teamed up to promote the very first season of Sesame Street??
During the early seasons of Sesame Street, Batman and sometimes Robin would pop up in animated shorts to teach kids lessons such as traffic safety, for example. Apparently one Batman and one Superman segment appear on the compilation DVD Sesame Street: Old School, Volume 1. Another cool connection is that Paul Williams, who of course co-wrote all the great music from The Muppet Movie, voiced The Penguin on Batman: The Animated Series!
Muppet Wiki has an entire entry on Batman that points out several Batman references and connections to Jim Henson productions.
To celebrate the release of The Dark Knight, I've re-activated all the links to a post I did a couple years ago: Batman vs. Taxman. There you'll find an overly elaborate face-off between the various Batman themes and the Beatles' Taxman, off course all told in cover song form. If you skim the whole post and only download one Batman cover, make it this one:
Skavoovie & The Epitones - Batman [originally by Danny Elfman] A great ska cover of the Danny Elfman score from Tim Burton's 1989 version of Batman. I still get a big kick out of the fact that Skavoovie & The Epitones are the former band of Boy Howdy's brother!
Here are some more cover songs from films either produced by The Jim Henson Company or worked on by The Jim Henson Creature Shop.
Cars Can Be Blue - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles HORSE the Band - TMNT For the 1990 live action version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the costumes for the four turtles and Splinter were provided by the Jim Henson Creature Shop. Brian Henson, Jim's son, was chief puppeteer on the film as well as second unit director. The Creature Shop also worked on the second Ninja Turtles film as well, though not the third. Of course, these covers are of the theme to the animated series, not the film. But I just couldn't resist. :)
BC-52's - (Meet) The Flintstones From the 1994 critically panned live action remake of The Flintstones, the B-52's (uh, cleverly redubbed the BC-52's) covered the main theme in their distinct style. The animatronic puppets in this film were provided by the Creature Shop.
Josefine Cronholm - Close to You [originally by Burt Bacharach and Hal David] This wonderfully off-kilter cover of the hit song for The Carpenters is from the soundtrack to MirrorMask, a Jim Henson Company production from 2005 directed by Dave McKean and written by Neil Gaiman. Connie Stevens and Fozzie Bear once covered this too on The Muppet Show!
Kelley Polar - Magic Dance [originally by David Bowie] The Hill Valley Preservation Society - Magic Dance [originally by David Bowie] One tagline to this 1986 fantasy film Labyrinth was: "Jim Henson, George Lucas and David Bowie take you into a dazzling world of fantasy and adventure". Throw in a young Jennifer Connelly and a screenplay by Monty Python alumnus Terry Jones and you have the makings of an instant cult classic, though the film bombed quite spectacularly at the box office with a TOTAL gross of just under $13 million and a piddly opening weekend of $3.5M. I checked and that's awful even by 1986 standards. Ranking 66th of all the releases that year, Labyrinth was out-grossed by the likes of Friday the 13th Part IV, Police Academy 3: Back in Training, Iron Eagle, House(??), and Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling. While David Bowie wore the tight pants of nightmares, the image that stuck with me most from my childhood was the baby crawling on the ceiling, which creeped me out further when I later saw Trainspotting. Uh, yeah, babies on ceilings freak me out-- thanks Labyrinth! From the recent Life Beyond Mars album of Bowie covers, Croatian-born artist Kelley Polar does an awesome version of Magic Dance, originally sung by David Bowie and his goblin cohorts. Thanks to reader Remi who alerted me to another cover by The Hill Valley Preservation Society, a defunct Atlanta band that covered theme songs of the eighties.
The Coconutz - Everybody Hurts [originally by REM] Aloha Sex Juice - More Than Words [originally by Extreme] These two covers performed in Hawaiian are from the soundtrack to Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which featured puppets created by the Creature Shop. Don't forget too that writer/star Jason Segel and director Nicholas Stoller are in charge of the forthcoming revival of the Muppet movie franchise. Everybody Hurts is one of three covers translated into Hawaiian by musician Daniel Ho working under the pseudonym The Coconutz. Also covered on the soundtrack by The Coconutz: These Boots Are Made For Walkin' and Nothing Compares 2 U.
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!
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.
