Happy New Year

Here's a belated, much belaboured year-end round-up post. Phew.

Top covers:
I'm not going to bother ranking these or anything, but these are some of the notable highlights of last year for me in the cover world.

Harvey Danger - Oh! You Pretty Things [originally by David Bowie]
One of my favourite bands covering one of my favourite Bowie tracks? Most excellent. I don't know what I was expecting when I first heard it, but I was vaguely underwhelmed. This may have to do with the piano being replaced by an organ. I quickly got over that minor quibble and by the second time I gave it a listen, it had suddenly become a delayed instant classic. Go figure. If you're looking for something to spend $0.99 at the iTunes store, I'd have to recommend this above all others.

Corinne Bailey Rae - Since I've Been Loving You (live AOL session) [originally by Led Zeppelin]
I was blown away when I heard this cover. This is the 2nd cover I've heard from her and now I'm starting to take notice. Despite being one of the greatest and most successful rock bands ever, I still feel that Led Zeppelin is somehow underrated (if that is even remotely possible). Um, I was about to go into a big rant about it, but you'll just have to take my word for it. Apparently, Bailey Rae will have an album version of this next year... or rather, this year (still not used to 2007 yet).

Chris Thile - Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground [originally by The White Stripes]
I love The White Stripes. I love covers. And Chris Thile of Nickel Creek hit this one out of the ballpark. The version I posted is not actually the cut from the album, but a truly solo live version from Reg's Coffee House, which is incidentally fantastic. Also go here for video of another live version and a great cover of The Band's Ophelia.

Nickel Creek - Just (live at the Largo) [originally by Radiohead]
Last year Mark Ronson released a cover of Radiohead's Just, which was superb to say the least. While there are billions of Creep covers, it was the first Just cover I had heard and I welcomed it with open arms. Then Nickel Creek had to come along and cover it too. Now there are two superb Just covers. I nicked this from the Largo website, which I had stumbled upon while scouring the net for Jon Brion material. For a while there, he was performing at the Largo once a week. How sweet would that have been? Answer: pretty damn sweet. Now I hear The Watkins Family Hour (aka two-thirds of Nickel Creek) are performing at the Largo almost every Thursday until the spring (contrary to the online Largo calendar). Very cool, if you live in LA.

Lulu Hughes - Time [originally by Pink Floyd]
So I borrowed this album from the library called Pink Floyd Redux. I wasn't expecting much seeing how I'm just a casual Pink Floyd fan, but damn if this isn't one of the best covers of the year.

Devo 2.0 - Monkey's Uncle [originally by Annette Funicello with the Beach Boys]
My musical knowledge of the original Devo is limited, so I haven't really formed an opinion as to whether an all-children's update of the new age group is a good idea or instant sacrilege. I have also never heard the original of this 1965 Disney song (from the movie of the same name), which was apparently sung by Annette Funicello with the Beach Boys (?!). Somehow none of this mattered as I was sucked into this song unawares and learned the following things: A) Songs about monkeys are cool; B) Children singing like robots is strange (but fun!); C) Corporate Disney channel cash-ins aren't ALL bad; D) Devo for kids is WAY better than kidz bop... ugh.

Natalie Cole - Criminal [originally by Fiona Apple]
Fiona Apple in the style of Aretha Franklin is unexpected. Unexpectedly awesome, that is.

Fall Out Boy - What's This? [originally by Danny Elfman from The Nightmare Before Christmas]
This had all the makings of disaster... Fall Out Boy? Covering beloved animated classic? And yet, it's addictive. Not surprisingly amped up, but surprisingly faithful and the lead singer has a flair for theatrics, which is advantageous in this case. Other covers on the Nightmare soundtrack re-release, not so successful (with the exception of Fiona Apple). Why wasn't the 3D re-release of the film shown seemingly anywhere in Canada?

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Catchiest song of the year:
Jason Webley - Eleven Saints [via Fabulist]
This year's War Photographer award (for an insanely catchy tune attached to online animated music video) goes to Jason Webley's Eleven Saints. About a month ago Neil Gaiman posted on his journal "And just so you know, I cannot get this song and video out of my head". Naturally I had to check out the link and he was absolutely right, it's damn catchy. Since then I've been listening to it incessantly and then a couple days ago I finally decided to check out Jason Webley's website where I discovered in the forums that he had just finished touring with the Dresden Dolls. What the deuce?!? My musical tastes once again converge in strange and unexpected ways (see: Ben Folds calls up the Dresden Dolls). In this recent interview with Fabulist, Jason Webley's story of how the tour with the Dolls came about is equally strange.

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Favourite albums of 2006:
The Dresden Dolls - Yes, Virginia


Analyzing my iTunes play counts by 2006 albums, The Dresden Dolls take 5 of the top 6 most played tracks. Four songs from this album and a b-side. It's hard to argue that any other album released last year topped this one in my books.
Mrs. O
Lonesome Organist Rapes Page Turner (B-side)
When I hear the latter song, I'm reminded of a French film I saw this year at the Edmonton film fest called La Tourneuse de Pages and specifically a scene where the lonesome cello player attempts to take advantage of the page turner (this does not end well for him). Previously I had never heard of a page turner as a vocation, let alone the subject of a film or song. If cold, calculated revenge is your thing, I recommend this film. Although when it ended, the woman seated in front of me promptly stood up and declared that she hated it. You can listen to me or that woman.




Rodrigo y Gabriela (self-titled)
First of two artists I "discovered" this past summer while in the FOPP record store in Bath, UK. A friend and I were perusing the CD racks and just couldn't NOT ask what was playing over the speakers. We were told Rodrigo y Gabriela. OK, mental note to self: remember those names and look into it when I get back home in a month or so. I later learned their latest album was produced in Bath, so it made sense that they were promoting it. The duo themselves are from Mexico and based in Dublin (!). I would later have the obscene good fortune of seeing them when they inexplicably made a stop at the Edmonton Folk Festival (to the neglect of the rest of Canada). Here's a Metallica cover:
Orion [originally by Metallica]

Wolfmother (self-titled)
Wolfmother is the other band I heard for the first time while in FOPP in Bath. It was this first track Dimension blaring over the speakers that was irresistably rockin'. Later in my summer travels, I bought their CD in New York City. First impressions: Jet spliced with White Stripes. To some, that would be a bad thing. But I like it, so there.
Dimension

The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers
I am of the opinion that nearly everything Jack White is involved with is exceptional and The Raconteurs is no exception. Looking at that sentence I just wrote, I'm starting to doubt its logicality. . . Um, The Raconteurs rule!
The Bane Rendition (b-side to Steady as She Goes)
Together

Hawksley Worksman - Treeful of Starling
Seeing Hawksley Workman at the Folk Fest made me regret not checking out his music earlier. His long delayed, rain-soaked Friday evening performance on the Main Stage was mesmerizing even though it was only him and his piano player Mr. Lonely. I became an instant fan and thoroughly enjoyed his subsequent workshops on the side stages. This makes a nice post-apocalyptic companion piece to We Will Become Silhouettes.
You and the Candles

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My Year in Concerts (click the links to revisit old concert posts):
02/18 - Edmonton - The Philosopher Kings
04/25 - Edmonton - Franz Ferdinand/Death Cab for Cutie
06/24 - Dores, Scotland - The Loch Ness Monster: Fatboy Slim & guests
06/30 - Toronto - Seu Jorge
07/15 - Toronto - The Dresden Dolls
08/01 - Toronto - The Living End
08/10 - 08/13 - Edmonton - Edmonton Folk Music Festival (Hawksley Workman, Rodrigo y Gabriela, K'Naan, Bedouin Soundclash, Feist, Chumbawamba, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Sarah Harmer, and many many more...)
08/24 - Edmonton - Ben Lee
09/22 - Edmonton - Danny Michel
10/06 - Edmonton - The Who
10/17 - Edmonton - The New Pornographers, Immaculate Machine, and Novillero
10/22 - Edmonton - Ellen McIlwaine with Cassius Khan

About 75% of those shows were brilliant. Let's just say that with the exception of The Who, larger venue concerts are not ideal. The tantalizingly short 30-minute set by Rodrigo y Gabriela was unreal and unarguably the best gig out of 4 days of solid music at the Edmonton Folk Fest (read more here). At the other end of the gig spectrum, The Dresden Dolls' night of entertainment, which spanned nearly 5 hours for $10 in an old movie theatre was amazing and was one of those rare occasions of quantity AND quality (see above link).

The Who - See Me, Feel Me/Listening to You (live in Edmonton 10/06/06)
Roger Daltrey's parting words after a night of technical difficulties: "Never give up!"

The Living End - 10:15 Saturday Night [originally by The Cure]
Danny Michel - Moonage Daydream [originally by David Bowie]
Death Cab for Cutie - Little Boxes [originally by Malvina Reynolds]
Ellen McIlwaine with Cassius Khan - R&B Medley (live in Edmonton) [various covers]
The Dresden Dolls - Tout les garçons et les filles (live in Lyon) [originally by Françoise Hardy]




I'm kicking this melting popsicle stand and jetting to San Francisco next week with the fam'. Stay frosty.

Interstate '76 Revisited... again.

I just can't get over my newly renewed obsession with the Interstate '76 soundtrack. As I'm prone to on occasion, I went into a mad frenzy last night at 2am scouring the net for I76 soundtrack news. Someday I hope to uncover the "lost" tracks of the official soundtrack. So I snatched up some cheap copies of the original game off eBay to replace my missing CDs and the Nitro expansion pack, which supposedly has a few new tracks.

But I also hit the jackpot: Not one, but TWO live Interstate '76 cover medleys. JOY OF JOYS! Check 'em out on mySpace! I hate mySpace, but I could kiss it right now.

Five Alarm Funk - Suite of '76 (live in Vancouver)
This is probably THE cover find of the year for me. An 8 1/2 minute jam of three of my favourite tracks from the original soundtrack. Wow. My mind is completely blown by finding this cover. And it's Canadian to boot, ha!

Federation of the Disco Pimp - Interstate '76 Medley (live)
Not as instantaneously great as the other track, but 1000 points for covering Interstate '76 anyway. It's actually pretty sweet since it covers some different I76 tunes than the other medley, although it replaces the rousing horn section with a frenetic synthesizer thing. Not bad, just different. Finding these two covers is proof of the lasting influence of the Interstate '76 soundtrack.

If anyone's feel particularly left out of this recent string of Interstate '76 nostalgia, check out this video of the game's intro in all of its polygonal Dire-Straits-Money-for-Nothing-music-video 70's retro glory. And don't worry, I'll be back to posting other covers soon.

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays, people. Be safe!

The OneUps - Super Mario's Sleigh Ride
How can this song not brighten your day?

Have a good one.

Interstate '76 Revisited

I try not to repost things, but someone requested this and it's just too good to remain unavailable. I'm talkin' about the soundtrack to Interstate '76, oh yeah. This amazing funk soundtrack is arguably better than the stuff it's paying homage to. Simply fantastic, get it while you can.

Rehashed from my April 18th post:
"Nearly 10 years ago, Activision released a computer game called Interstate '76 that featured muscle car mayhem, afroed sidekicks, and a protagonist named Groove Champion. I remember it being fun (but barely running on our computer) and it was followed by a dismal sequel Interstate '82.

The key ingredient that made the original game so good was the wicked funk soundtrack that accompanied the vehicular combat. Heavy on the wah-wah pedal, lots of fuzz, and sexy sax. You can totally imagine this groovy music overlaying a 70's police car chase or possibly porn.

This was one of the first games (that I remember) with professionally recorded soundtrack where the game CD could actually double as an audio CD. As you raced around blowing up other cars, this awesome music played on endless rotation off the CD , which made it easy to ignore the choppy, repetitive gameplay and mediocre graphics (hey, they were cool at the time).

The soundtrack was performed by the one-off band Bullmark headed by Arion Salazar (bassist of Third Eye Blind) and made up of Brian "Brain" Mantia (drummer for Primus), Santana's keyboardist, and other session musicians. Some of these songs are among my most played iTunes tracks, which goes to show how these have long outlasted the novelty of the game."

Interstate '76 soundtrack by Bullmark

"NOTE: these are the 16 tracks that came off the actual game CD. In fact, I only know these songs by track number. Activision actually released an official soundtrack with even more tracks (with real names), which you can read a review of here."


I have yet to hear this official soundtrack since I was too stupid to buy it at the time (if in fact I knew it even existed). Here's a pack of extra Bullmark tracks that I withheld from the original post. I think I downloaded them from Arion Salazar's website, which no longer exists.
-Can You Feel
-DESTRON Super Jam
-Interstate '76 Theme (Slight Return)
-Kanegon
-Ovum Bisquit
-Pocket Full of Yanni
-Skaebae Ranger GO!
-The Crab Style
-Track 12
-Track 16
-Track 24
Get 'em all: Interstate '76 bonus tracks by Bullmark

And would you believe it, an Interstate '76 cover?
Aqua Viva - Interstate '76 Theme [originally by Bullmark]
That is, if by "Interstate '76 theme", you mean Song #1. I always remembered Song #16 being the main theme... I have no idea where I got this cover and google's no help here.

Vaguely related, semi-cover:
Velvet Revolver - Interstate Love Song (acoustic on KROQ) [originally by Stone Temple Pilots]
This would be the equivalent of Audioslave "covering" Soundgarden.

Ben & Neil

Ben Folds - Songs of Love [originally by the Divine Comedy]
This cover off of one of Ben's EPs is the first time I had ever heard of The Divine Comedy (the band, not the poem). Recently though, the Divine Comedy and the man behind the music, Neil Hannon have been cropping up in a bunch of notable covers and such. For example, the Life on Mars? cover I posted a while back and a Queens of the Stone Age cover (see below). The Divine Comedy toured with Mr. Ben Folds in 2002, which later led to a co-headlining tour of the UK. The three live covers below come from an October 2002 gig at Brixton. I just read now that Neil Hannon also sung So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish in the closing credits of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film. It suddenly occurs to me that I should investigate the music of Neil Hannon and The Divine Comedy more thoroughly...

The Divine Comedy - Brick (live) [originally by Ben Folds Five]
Ben Folds & The Divine Comedy - Raindrops are Falling On my Head (live) [originally by Burt Bacharach]
Ben Folds & Neil Hannon - Mess (live) [originally by Ben Folds Five]

Ben Folds & Neil Hannon - Race for the Prize [originally by the Flaming Lips]
This is from a Jonathan Ross BBC radio show.


The Divine Comedy - No One Knows [originally by Queens of the Stone Age]
I forgot how much I liked the original when it first came out, so this sweet cover was a nice reminder. Banjo solo!


Unbeknownst to me when I started this post, Obscure Sound just recently posted a bunch of Neil Hannon covers too. Go check it out.

Stop the Presses! The Squirrel Nut Zippers are back!

About 3 months ago I was prepping a post on the ex-Squirrel Nut Zippers chanteuse Katherine Whalen who put out a solo album earlier this year. I got sidetracked and never finished the post, but now there's a damn good reason to revive the post. I just randomly checked out her website and found out that the Zippers will be back and performing a select few dates next year in the southeast US! That is, without key members Ken Mosher & Tom Maxwell, who aplit from the band and tour separately as the aptly named Maxwell/Mosher Band... more on that later. The Squirrel Nut Zippers are one of my favourite bands ever and criminally underrated. They were often lumped in the same group of 90's swing craze bands that included Cherry Poppin' Daddies and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, though I think the Squirrel Nut Zippers were vastly superior and whose music was much more multi-dimensional, covering a wide range of musical styles that defied easy categorization. Yet it all went belly up about 5 years ago. Once I was wearing a SNZ shirt at work and a patron was like "Squirrel Nut Zippers, eh? Whatever happened to them?". I didn't know then, and now I kinda know.

Up until recently, I was oblivious to the traumatic series of events that eventually tore the Zippers apart, but I came across this article from this past May that absolutely broke my heart. Go take a read and come back, I'll be waiting... Yikes, one sad part was Whalen was forced to sell her banjo and return to waiting tables (!). No, not the banjo! From the article: "Yeah, I ran out of money, so I sold it," she says. "But that's OK. It's just a banjo. Getting divorced was much more stressful. Much sadder." Whalen was married to fellow member Jimbo Mathus and the band, in fact, grew out of impromptu jam sessions at their home. The Zippers went from playing at Clinton's inauguration and a platinum-selling album to vicious in-fighting and legal action that befits a particularly jam-packed episode of Behind the Music, a fact alluded to by ex-member Tom Maxwell in the article. Another article I just read here, describes the acrimonious period recording the record label contract-induced Christmas album (phoned it in) and "band-not-talking" recording process of the album Perennial Favourites. During that album, the band couldn't even stand being in the same room together so they recorded in little groups or at one point cobbled a guitar solo together out of some half-hearted takes...Yikes! Man, even at their worst, the Squirrel Nut Zippers were unbelievable. It's a testament to the immense talent of the Zippers that amidst the behind-the-scenes hell, they put out a fantastic album chock-full of some of my favourite tracks including the wicked Ghost of Stephen Foster, which features honourary band member Andrew Bird who went on to become a great artist in his own right. It's a shame that all sorts of crap happened to bring down such a great band.


Here's a mish-mash selection of Zippers-related paraphenalia including covers, semi-rare live performances, and tracks from the SNZ family of artists.

Squirrel Nut Zippers - Hell (Springfield remix)
Back in the Napster days, I stumbled on the Squirrel Nut Zippers quite by accident with this remix while searching for Simpsons mp3s. From the "Sauter Sonic Labs", someone cleverly took the Zippers one hit song Hell and mixed in Simpsons quotes about hell and the Devil. After a few listens I started wondering about the underlying song, which was actually quite catchy. As was the case with a lot of crap from Napster, the MP3 was mis-labelled and required some lyric searching to finally find out it was the Zippers. Luckily the ol' Edmonton Public Library was well-equipped to fuel my new-found Zippers obsession, carrying almost all their albums plus spin-offs like Katherine Whalen's Jazz Squad, the Jim Mathus Knockdown Society, and Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire. The SNZ continue a strange tendency I have to latch onto a band after they break-up or go on indefinite hiatus, only to resurrect years later (see: Harvey Danger, Presidents of the United States of America, or The Philosopher Kings). I'm still waiting, Moxy Früvous...

Squirrel Nut Zippers - Lover's Lane (Live on Conan O'Brien)
Squirrel Nut Zippers - I've Found a New Baby (live in Munich, Germany)
I really wish I could have seen them live... The long defunct site Passed Out on the Landing (from a SNZ lyric) serves as a handy guide to their side projects, compilation tracks, old/new bands and so on.

Katherine Whalen - Dirty Little Secret
When I was working on the original post, I was going to focus on Katherine Whalen's new-ish solo album Dirty Little Secret. It's a far departure from her days in the Squirrel Nut Zippers, but her voice is as hypnotic as ever. Whalen also put out a great album of jazz standards under the title Katherine Whalen's Jazz Squad. Seriously, it's great.
Katherine Whalen's Jazz Squad - After You've Gone
Katherine Whalen's Jazz Squad - Yesterdays

Jim Mathus Knockdown Society - Blues Jumped a Rabbit
Zippers co-founder, Jimbo Mathus branched off into the blues with his solo act The Knockdown Society.

Ben Folds Five - Army
Tom Maxwell and Ken Mosher of the Zippers joined the horn section on fellow Chapel Hill artists Ben Folds Five. I've read that the distinctive cackle heard just after Ben sings "My redneck past is nipping at my heels" is none other than Mr. Maxwell himself. After leaving the Zippers, Maxwell would later tour with ex-Ben Folds Five bassist Robert Sledge as The Minor Drag. Ben also did a cameo in the Zipper's music video for Suits are Picking Up the Bill. When I was travelling this summer, I was dumbfounded to find out my room-mate at a hostel in a Salzburg, Austria was from North Carolina. This was the day after my Edmonton Oilers beat the Carolina Hurricanes in game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals (Carolina would ultimately win... grrrrr), and here I was halfway across the globe in a room with this guy. So random! But amazement at the coincidence turned to disbelief as I found out he barely knew they had a hockey team and had only vaguely heard of Ben Folds and the Squirrel Nut Zippers, who are two of the most prominent acts to come out of his homestate. So much for local pride. Bah to him!

Squirrel Nut Zippers - Under the Sea [originally from Disney's The Little Mermaid]
I posted this last year, but here it is again. I say more bands should do Disney covers. Future post mayhaps?

Asleep at the Wheel featuring Squirrel Nut Zippers - Maiden's Prayer [originally by Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys]
Sorta a old-school country swing song with the always lovely Katherine Whalen on lead vocals.
EDIT (12/13/2006): I was just checking out the liner notes and this is actually Asleep at the Wheel with the Squirrel Nut Zippers as guests.

Maxwell/Mosher - Little Boxes [originally by Malvina Reynolds]
They were announced as one of the artists performing this song for season 2 of Weeds. I'm not sure what happened, but it looks like it was never used. Well, I found it so take a listen.




Andrew Bird & Nora O'Connor - Oh Sister
[originally by Bob Dylan]
Andrew Bird - Case in Point
Semi-regular Zipper, Andrew Bird has the distinction of making my Top 10 most played iTunes tracks twice. I'm eagerly looking forward to his new album next year, tentatively named Armchair Apocrypha. Should be a keeper for sure.





Covers of the SNZ are hard to come by, but here are a couple:
Streetlight Manifesto - Hell (live 2005-04-22 at The Forum, Tunbridge Wells UK)
My-Tea Kind - Blue Angel (live)

Other unexpected SNZ appearances:
Their hit Hell strangely used In a Turkish Rinso(?) commercial on where else? YouTube.

Anyone have a MP3 or video of the Squirrel Nut Zippers on Sesame Street? Apparently they performed a parody of their own Put a Lid on It. You can read about it here, but that's about it...

If you ever wanted to hear Put a Lid on It re-imagined as a political rally for change, go get the MP3 from here. Rickie Lee Jones performs with Maxwell/Mosher.



Some seasonal tunes:
Squirrel Nut Zippers - Santa Claus is Smoking Reefer [originally by Johnny Guarnieri with Slam Stewart]
This hidden track from their EP is actually a cover of a song called Santa's Secret originally recorded in 1944 (!).

Squirrel Nut Zippers - Carolina Christmas
From their holiday album Christmas Caravan, which was forced upon them by the record label and they reluctantly churned out. That doesn't mean it's not good though.

(Pssst... their entire 1998 Christmas album can be snagged here)

If you're not a fan already, I'd seriously consider checking them out. If you're stumped for X-mas gifts, share the Squirrel Nut Zippers with a loved one.

Curses! I lost my post!

I just deleted a massive post I was working on when I closed Safari instead of just the tab. My heart sunk in the split second after accidentally hitting command-Q. Sigh.

Please hold.

Harvey Danger - Save it For Later [originally by English Beat]

Lesson learned... until next time it happens.

Viva Las Vegas! Viva Brazil! Viva Terry Gilliam!

Less than a day after the post, somebody e-mailed me the correct answer (no wiki/no google I am told) to Cover Riddle #5, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Written, of course, by Hunter S. Thompson, illustrated by Ralph Steadman, and adapted by Mr. Terry Gilliam into a film starring Johnny Depp. Depp is included among the "friends" of Oasis and he plays guitar on the track if I remember correctly.

So, my top 3 Viva Las Vegas [originally by Elvis Presley] covers:

1. Dread Zeppelin - Viva Las Vegas
Most people probably don't take Dread Zeppelin as serious as I do, but I think they managed to take a novelty concept and make it work quite well. An Elvis impersonator fronting a reggae Led Zeppelin cover band... okie dokie, crazy but I like it. I think they're still around, but I basically stopped listening to their stuff after "The Fun Sessions" (quite good), a Dread Zepp cover album of classic rock songs, the first to stray from Led Zeppelin material. This is one of their best Elvis/Led Zeppelin mash-ups as Viva Las Vegas clashes with Zeppelin's Custard Pie.

2. Dead Kennedys - Viva Las Vegas
I don't really have anything to say about this, except that it's over-the-top goofy yet vaguely unnerving in a "scary clown" way. It's also really good. This cover was actually used in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as well.

3. Bruce Springsteen - Viva Las Vegas
The Boss covers The King.

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And now on to the real reason for my post:
One of the highlights of this past summer's 2-month trip to Europe was getting to actually meet TERRY GILLIAM, the American member of Monty Python and one of my favourite directors, at the Filmmuseum in Brussels. Twelve Monkeys is one of my favourite all-time films, so this opportunity was just absolutely crazy for me. I just happened to be in Brussels for a couple days and I found out he was going to be previewing Tideland three days later on June 6 (6/6/06). Fate methinks? Of course, I changed my plans to go to Amsterdam and did everything in my power to go to that screening. In the month preceding this event, the Filmmuseum was having a mini-Gilliam retrospective, which included screenings of all his films and select Gilliam-approved picks. So the night before Tideland, I was lucky to be able to see the 60's Czech version of Baron Munchausen which was a clear influence on Gilliam's version.

I was actually quite bummed out on the day of the screening because all attempts to get tickets failed since it had been sold out for weeks in advance. In fact, some old Belgian ticket guy chastised me for being so stupid as to think I could actually secure a ticket. Bwahaha, I sure showed him later! Since I couldn't get into Tideland, I decided I'd go see Jabberwocky, Gilliam's first post-Python film, which was showing next door for only €2. I was hoping that Gilliam would possibly show up at Jabberwocky since the Tideland screening wasn't until later in the evening. And guess what? He did. Following Jabberwocky, Terry came out in a typically Gilliam-esque Hawaiian shirt and briefly talked about the making of the film. Actually it wasn't quite a Hawaiian shirt, but it was loud, garish, and most people would not be caught dead in it, but Terry wears these sorts of shirts very naturally. So I guess that puts him in the same company as Weird Al.


The major coup for me was after his brief talk... He was whisked away to the lobby, but I was near the front so I quickly followed and luckily he wasn't off to Tideland quite yet. I gingerly approached and asked him to sign my copy of Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, which I had been carrying around Europe as train-reading material. To understand the sheer magnitude of this event, you have to understand that Neil Gaiman is my favourite author (see sidebar)and Terry Gilliam has on/off been planning to make Good Omens for years. Upon seeing what I had in my hands, he exclaimed "Oh! Look what he has." (or something to that effect) and he told me that this was his next project once the financing comes together, though hopefully this doesn't end up like another Lost in La Mancha. And that is the tale of how Terry Gilliam signed and doodled in my paperback copy of a Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett book in Belgium. Damn sweet.


To make a long story longer, I did actually weasel my way into the sold-out Tideland screening/film talk despite not speaking any Flemish (and scant French). Standing around with a lot of other unlucky schmucks who didn't have tickets, I was one of the last people to squeeze into the €30 event after a bunch of no-shows didn't claim their tickets. Bonus! One of the most memorable days of my life.


Now, Brazil covers! The details of the original are not completely known to me, but I vaguely remember that "Brazil" is the English title of an older Brazilian song, the title of which I don't know.

Some variations on Brazil from the soundtrack of Terry Gilliam's 1985 cult classic:
The National Philharmonic Orchestra with Kate Bush - Sam Lowry's 1st Dream/Brazil
The National Philharmonic Orchestra - Central Services/The Office
The National Philharmonic Orchestra - Bachianos Brazil Samba
Geoff Muldaur - Brazil

The Arcade Fire - Brazil
I just heard this cover for the first time recently... It starts off fairly normal, then some wonderfully sinister strings creep in. I love it!

8½ Souvenirs - Brazil
A band I discovered recently from their sweet cover of After You've Gone.

The Toronto All-Star Big Band - Brazil
During a street jazz festival in Toronto this summer, I saw this awesome youth orchestra crank out classic standards including this one. This album version is from an earlier incarnation of the band.

Beirut - Brazil [live]
Live accordion-based cover. I'm pretty sure I nicked this from over at Mocking Music.

Cover Riddle #5

Like Batman, James Bond, and Alien before it, the Cover Riddle is resurrected. The last one I did was, oh, about 8 months ago. These aren't covers, but don't worry there will be cover answers.

Tell me the common thread that links these tunes. Bonus points for not using google, the bane of trivia quizzes everywhere (2nd only to wikipedia). I'm looking for the name of a film and perhaps how each track specifically relates.

Ralph Steadman - Little Boy Billee
Oasis and Friends - Fade Away
Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet - Hunter S. Thompson's Younger Brother

Piece 'o cake. Go.

(Actually I changed my mind, go ahead and use O Mighty Google. I changed one of the songs to make it slightly less obvious.)

Beta Blogger Blues

Bah to change!

I just switched irreversibly to the new Blogger Beta. There's some nifty new features, but having to reconstruct all my sidebar content was a pain. The previous formatting is also gone since it's both "easily" customizable, yet overly restrictive. And check out that cool dynamic archive thing on the side. Pretty awesome, unless you have a Mac and it crashes trying to load August 2005. Fantastic! Editing the template on my Mac is also like hell. And similar to the garbage that is "Windows Live! beta" (obviously not designed for the Mac user), once you switch you can't go back. Damn you Google, you aren't supposed to follow in the footsteps of Microsoft!

Harry Nilsson - Always Look on the Bright Side of Life [originally by Monty Python]

Does anyone remember the time when Google used to just mean a really big number? Bring back googol!