CooooOOOOOOoooonQUEST is Where It's At

Last week the White Stripes newsletter team sent out notice that Jack and Meg had finished up a new music video and 3 brand new songs including a "special collaboration". Would it be a re-teaming with Loretta Lynn? The long anticipated Bob Dylan/Jack White combo? Patti Page coming back to reclaim Conquest? In the latest in a series of curious coincidences, just days after posting about Beck it was revealed yesterday that he was in fact the special collaborator of three new songs with The White Stripes coming out next month! SCORE! This brings me back to the glory summer of 2005 when I saw Beck, Aimee Mann, and the White Stripes (twice!) in Vancouver all within a few weeks. And to think I almost missed that Beck concert, which I assumed was sold out then I ended up buying a ticket 3 hours before the show. It was general admission, but since I was concerting solo I was able to snag an empty spot in the 8th row. Sigh, good times.

The White Stripes, who aren't finished yet despite the unfortunate cancellation of the rest of their US and UK tour earlier this year, are busy prepping the release of their latest Icky Thump single Conquest, which incidentally is a cover of a Corky Robbins tune. A music video set for release on November 26th will feature an "explosive - if unconventional - love story that pits man against bull in the ultimate conquest". Jack White even underwent training with bullfighter Dennis Borba, bullfighter teacher of the stars. I've read that Borba specializes in bloodless bullfighting, in which the bull is "pierced" with a spear that velcros to a patch on its back so it isn't harmed or killed. Though as I understand it, even bloodless bullfighting is banned in the majority of the States unless it is part of a religious festival...

From the White Stripes newsletter: "Jack and Meg recently recorded the new tracks with Beck, who co-produced all three tracks during a recording session in his living room and also contributed vocals and piano to "It's My Fault For Being Famous" and slide guitar on "Honey, We Can't Afford To Look This Cheap". The third song is called Cash Grab Complications On The Matter, which will be on the flipside of an "Acoustic Mariachi version" of Conquest. The vinyl singles (with each song as a B-side) will be released December 18th.

The White Stripes - Conquest [originally by Corky Robbins]
Popularized by Patti Page in the 1950's that's currently making the rounds in an eBay commercial, the White Stripes version appeared on this year's Icky Thump. Has anyone even heard the original by Corky Robbins? I've had a hard time tracking it down.

Lounge Brigade - Where It's At [originally by Beck]
A lounge cover of Beck for good measure.


Now I guess this collaboration was inevitable considering the number of times Beck and Jack have teamed up in the past, though this is the first time on any official release that Beck and The White Stripes (as in Jack AND Meg) have made sweet, beautiful music together. Let's see here...

In conjunction with the release of Beck's Sea Changes in 2002, Jack White interviewed him for Interview magazine, using Chuck Berry's 13 Question method. As you might imagine, this was not your typical interview. For example, "Question number 10: I would love to own a pet chimp. But, I recently heard that they cost $40,000. What do I do?" Read the whole thing here. Don't know the 13 Question Method? Neither do I, but Ry Cooder knows all about it and it's definitely the one to use.
Ry Cooder - 13 Question Method [originally by Chuck Berry]

Beck cameoed in the White Stripes video The Hardest Button to Button, directed by the Michel Gondry. If you're a fan, check out the brilliant DVD compilation The Work of Michel Gondry, part of Palm Pictures' Diectors Label series. Much looking forward to his upcoming Be Kind Rewind next month, which incidentally stars Jack White's cosmic doppelganger Jack Black.

Beck has covered The White Stripes' Black Math live in concert before, although a bootleg has never surfaced. By the way, THE most conprehensive index of every live Beck song (invaluable to this post) can be found at whiskeyclone.net.

At a 2002 concert in Ann Arbor, Michigan Jack White joined Beck on stage for three songs, two of which were covers. As far as live recordings go, these are pretty great.

Beck with Jack White - 99 (live) [originally performed by Barbara Feldon]
Beck struggles with making a proper introduction to his special guest, who turns out to be Jack White (not Ghostface Killah). Now get this: they cover a novelty song spun off from the classic series Get Smart sung by Agent 99 herself, Barbara Feldon. Now I know as soon as you read that last line you were all itching to hear it, so here's the original too:
Barbara Feldon - 99

Beck with Jack White - Cold Brains (live)
Next, they played the acoustic folk song Cold Brains from 1998's Mutations.

Beck with Jack White - Last Fair Deal Gone Down [orginally by Robert Johnson]
...and then a Robert Johnson blues cover. Nice!

Beck - Go It Alone (featuring Jack White)
From 2005's Guero, Jack played bass on this groovy track. Producer duo The Dust Brothers produced Guero as well as 1996's Odelay. which reminds me... I've got to post that Dust Brothers remix of the Squirrel Nut Zippers sometime.

Beck - Wish Coin (Go It Alone) [Diplo Remix]
And because I'm fascinated with reinterpretations of all sorts, here's a remix of Go It Alone from the Guerolito remix album.

This isn't the only Beck that the White Stripes have teamed up with. In 2002, they played a set of Yardbirds songs with Jeff Beck himself, but that's a tale for another day...

Misery Waits in Vague Hotels

If you missed it, I was shocked to learn that the Batman cover I posted a couple days ago was performed by none other than Boyhowdy's brother's band Skavoovie & The Epitones. In the semi-immortal one hit wonder words of OMC: "How Bizarre." Well, a little back and forth in the comments has led to an open invitation for Boyhowdy to guest post on Fong Songs whenever he feels a hankerin' for posting some non-folk covers. Speaking of which, his latest post is a swack of Beck folk covers, which, of course, is awesome. And that has directly inspired me to post my own Beck covers, particularly of my all-time favourite Beck song Tropicalia.

Last year, I was working on a massive post that was unceremoniously wiped out by blogger before I finished. This established the dreaded post label I CAN'T BELIEVE I WROTE A GIANT POST AND DELETED IT (WHERE'S THE BLOODY AUTO-SAVE??), which unfortunately has two victim posts to its credit. So there's still a draft post dated 12/06/2007 lingering forever more, in which I was all ready to post covers of Beck's Tropicalia. Well, here's a good excuse to revive at least the Beck portion of that post. :)


Tropicalia, from the 1998 album Mutations, is chock-full of some of my favourite lyrics ever. From the chorus: "Misery waits in vague hotels... to be evicted". I rectroactively attribute my overusage of the word "vague" and its derivatives to this song. In fact, if you search for "vaguely" on my site (as I just did out of sudden curiousity) you'll find that in two years I have used it over 15 times as recently as the last post. ...OK, 45 minutes have lapsed between the last sentence and this one as I obsessively tried to figure out how to plot my word usage over the life of this blog. After filtering out some overly redundant words that appear on every post (i.e. links, labels, fongolia), this is what I came up with using the nifty word cloud generator from TagCrowd.com:

ago (57) andrew (51) artists (50) batman (46) ben (162) best (65) bird (52) blog (51) bowie (74) called (62) canadian (101) cd (60) check (62) classic (48) coming (46) concert (42) couple (78) cover (594) danger (42) danny (44) david (67) days (41) disney (49) dolls (60) dresden (54) edmonton (87) ever (48) fact (65) favourite (85) features (45) film (82) folds (105) folk (60) going (53) head (42) heard (77) heart (44) jack (70) later (61) led (55) listen (92) love (91) movie (48) music (129) night (80) nut (73) people (45) performed (62) playing (47) pm (78) pretty (54) probably (49) quite (46) really (57) released (48) rock (61) session (50) shows (48) since (86) soundtrack (76) squirrel (72) stage (60) started (43) stripes (103) sure (51) theme (104) think (90) tour (52) track (84) version (110) week (51) whole (47) year (114) zeppelin (81) zippers (95)

created at TagCrowd.com

Hmmm, no surprise at the most common word, though I didn't realize I talked about "Ben" so often.

Anyway, back to the lyrics of Tropicalia. I simply love the rhythm and punctuation of the chosen words even if I have no idea what they mean. I'm reminded of something John Lennon once said (I may be making this up) about writing lyrics with the emphasis on the sounds of the words rather than the meaning, rhythmically finding the perfect combination of words whether it's walrus gumboot, elementary penguin singing hare krishna, or studying pataphysical science. In fact, I have a tendency to blindly apply that logic to any lyrics that I don't understand. Like the Beatles' Come Together, Tropicalia is full of juicy word combos such as "equatorial haze", "colonial maze", "anabolic and bronze", "millenial fogs", all of which baffle and delight me. Even my favourite non-lyric is from Tropicalia. For years I loved the lyric: "I'll see them rise and fall into the jaws of a Pasternak love," which I always thought as a particularly poetic image (Ah, a Pasternak love!) until one day I found out the actual lyric was "jaws of a pestilent love". I hereby lay claim to the lyric "jaws of a Pasternak love". Hmmph, that's why I don't really like to read lyrics too often and would rather wallow in my own nonsense lyrics. The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead is another song where my enjoyment has lessened since finding out the actual lyrics. It's not so much I don't like the real lyrics, it's just that my brain conspicuously hones in when it gets to that particular point in the song with corrected lyrics and I can't listen to the song naturally anymore. At least it takes a long while to hear it smoothly again.

In retrospect, it's funny how MP3s and iPods have changed the way we listen to and collect music. This was one of the first songs I remember digitally recording off the CD using some Windows Stereo program into Wav format (yeah, I used to collect those). Napster would arrive on the scene a year or two later... This is all a very long-winded way of expressing my love for Beck's Tropicalia and my gleeful surprise at discovering multiple covers of it.

Eliane Elias - Tropicalia [originally by Beck]
I distinctly remember Brazilian jazz pianist Eliane Elias from the latin jazz film Calle 54 performing in barefeet. So when I heard she was covering Beck (Tropicalia, no less!) I was excited to hear her version and was not disappointed. This fabulous cover comes from last year's album Around the City, which also includes covers of Oye Como Va and Bob Marley's Jammin'.

Dr. Lonnie Smith & David "Fathead" Newman - Tropicalia [originally by Beck]
This comes from an 11-track cover album called Boogaloo to Beck with selections from the pre-2003 Beck catalogue lending themselves nicely to the groovy jazz instrumentals. Some of the tracks that are pushing the 10-minute mark are destined to be mere background noise (I'm sorry, they just outstay their welcome just a little bit). Tropicalia seems just about right, though I may be biased.

The Smiling Salami's - Tropicalia [originally by Beck]
OK, I really hope Boyhowdy doesn't have any siblings in a band called The Smiling Salami's... because this cover is terrible. I only include it here for the sake of completeness. By the 8-second mark, it descends into surreal chaos as creepy elves incoherently mutter the lyrics to their own random rhythm, completely independent of the ad-nauseum guitar strumming and drunken thumping of some sort of beat. Thankfully it's over fairly quickly as you wonder what the hell you just heard.

Beck - Tropicalia
I guess by this point if you have no idea what I'm rambling about, you should probably hear the original.

Beck - Tropicalia (live on KCRW, November 1998)

Beck - Funky Little Song [originally by Bruce Haack & Esther Nelson]
Ding dong, funky little song. A couple years ago, Beck contributed this (funky) little gem to a tribute album called Dimension Mix: A Tribute to Dimension 5 Records, a label started by electronic music pioneer Bruce Haack and Esther Nelson. Not only were they early artists in the realm of electronic music, the music they released was aimed at children. Not your standard kiddie fare, but apparently hugely influential judging by the pedigree of artists involved on the album including the likes of Eels, Stereolab, and Apples in Stereo. I don't really know much about Bruce Haack having first heard of him via the tribute album (which incidentally features another fav artist of mine, Fantastic Plastic Machine remixing a song called I'm Bruce), so here is where I would normally re-direct you to a wikipedia article so I don't just rehash it here. However when I went to read about him, I stumbled upon a couple of fascinating facts that couldn't just slip by without comment. For the full story, I recommend checking out the bio on brucehaack.com, a site run by a former acquantaince of his (Haack passed away in 1988).


Bruce Haack is an Alberta boy(!), born near the Rocky Mountains in the town of Nordegg in 1931. At some point he moved to Edmonton to study music at the University of Alberta (my alma mater!) although he was rejected for lack of musical notation skills and ended up getting a degree in psychology. While at university Bruce "met Charles Laughton who introduced the idea of going to New York City". Whoa, whoa, whoa... what!? The E-Town connection sure surprised me, but how does legendary actor Charles Laughton fit into the picture? As best as I can tell using my formidable research skills, Charles Laughton was in town most likely in 1951 performing Don Juan in Hell with The First Drama Quartet, which was also made up of actors Charles Boyer, Cedric Hardwicke, and Agnes Moorehead (little Charlie Kane's mother?!?). The only online mention I can find is from this U of A alumni article here. Apparently, Laughton must have attended another play opening while he was in Edmonton and is described as "demolishing almost all [of the theatre administrator's] supply of imported cheeses". HA! I'm guessing during this time he must have crossed paths with Haack and inspired him to move to New York. Note to self: Bruce Haack and his music merit further investigation. A documentary came out in 2004 called "Bruce Haack: The King of Techno" made up of current interviews with associates and archival footage of Haack including an appearance on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. I must seek that out.

Nananananananana...

Hey, guess what I'm back! Yesterday was my last day in Hong Kong. Or was it yesterday? I left on Thursday Hong Kong time (it's Saturday there right now) travelled 10.5 hours to Vancouver and arrived 5 hours earlier than when I had left... Wheee, time travel! But I lost all those hours again sitting in the airport, without wireless internet which is apparently no longer free at YVR at least on the domestic side. Anyway, my trip was a great experience. Now it's time to get back into the groove of things. What am I saying? I'm unemployed, ha ha. I'll have to make arrangements soon to finally FINALLY make my move to Vancouver after months of just talking about it. Enough about that, let's talk Batman!

Last week I found out that The Dark Knight (AKA the new Batman film) would be filming right in Hong Kong! I'm a big bat-fan myself, so this was obviously very exciting news to potentially catch a glimpse of the most anticipated film next summer (sorry Indy!). Unfortunately since I left November 8th, I'm missing the bulk of the filming which is scheduled for the next two weeks or something. My only hope was to sneak a peek at a planned fly-over by the Hercules C-130. Batman's been making the headlines not just in HK but internationally because of heavy pollution in Victoria Harbour scuttling a proposed stunt (Christopher Nolan denies this). Further kerfuffle arose when producers asked the downtown buildings to leave their lights on all night to facilitate filming.

I've posted some pics on Facebook from my wild goose (bat?) chase. Check them out here.

There was a big press conference with Christopher Nolan, Christian Bale, and Morgan Freeman at some hotel yesterday confirming among other things that there will be scenes taking place at the IFC-2 tower. Batman crews have already been spotted the past few days scouting out potential shooting locations in the Central district and I was told that there's a big stunt planned on some bridge (according to a sketchily translated radio broadcast). Some spy photos have already surfaced of Freeman and Bale shooting scenes in the SoHo district. Man, it would've been so cool to see some actual shooting while I was there, but alas 'twas not to be. I'll just have to wait until my move to Vancouver so I can watch the Watchmen...

And now one of the only Batman theme covers worth talking about:
Skavoovie & The Epitones - Batman [originally by Danny Elfman]

UPDATE: An interesting development in the post comments... Get this, you know our friend Boyhowdy from Cover Lay Down? Skavoovie & The Epitones were his brother's band! That's like some sort of cover synchronicity or something.

If you're bored, by coincidence it's almost one year to the day since I wrote up a Batman-themed post called Batman vs. Taxman. The song links are dead, but it's still vaguely entertaining to read and way more effort than I put into a regular post.

Covering the Animated World!

Hi there! It's me Kurtis, from Covering the Mouse, taking a break from writing about Disney cover tunes to cover for Fong while he is in China!

Disney isn't the only animation I like. I love a whole ton of different cartoons, mostly North American and a few Japanese. I grew up in the late eighties/early nineties so my favourite shows are from that era: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Thundercats, DuckTales, Batman: the Animated Series, Transformers, Animaniacs, TaleSpin, Darkwing Duck, The Tick, He-Man... You get the picture.

One thing I like most about cartoon TV show is the theme song. This is a one minute pitch to the viewer to get them hooked into the show. The theme song must reflect the show or the viewer will get a bad impression and the show may lose a potential fan.

Cartoon theme songs are fantastic because they don't just stick a pre-recorded pop song in there as a theme. They write a unique piece that describes the show or tells a short story. And now that the children that watched these shows are old enough to record, cartoon theme song covers are becoming more common. Let's take a look at a few:


The best thing about a cartoon being turned into a movie is that we often get covers of the theme song by famous people! When Transformers: the Movie came out in 1985, Lion was there to cover it! When the new movie came out last summer, MuteMath was chosen to take on an updated version. Michael Bublé does a fantastic cover of the Spider-Man theme for Spider-Man 2 and Avril Lavigne covered SpongeBob SquarePants for the movie soundtrack surprisingly well.

Transformers - Lion
Transformers - MuteMath
Spider-Man - Michael Bublé
SpongeBob SquarePants - Avril Lavigne

Here are a bunch of covers from the album Saturday Morning Cartoons' Greatest Hits. The disc contains a bunch of popular alternative artists from the 90s doing their favourite themes. Some are good and some are terrible. Here are a few I like.

Spider-Man - The Ramones
Hong Kong Phooey - Sublime
Fat Albert - Dig
Jonny Quest/Stop The Pigeon - The Reverend Horton Heat (This one is a Hanna-Barbera medley of the themes from Jonny Quest and Dastardly & Muttley In Their Flying Machines)


And more...

Aqua Teen Hunger Force - Richard Cheese
Sailor Moon - Osaka Popstar and the American Legends of Punk
Astro Boy - Osaka Popstar and the American Legends of Punk This pop/punk group formed last year and released a self-titled album that contains two cartoon covers! And they are fantastic!)
Inspector Gadget - Lagwagon
Inspector Gadget - Ska King Crab (I'm not too sure who this is. I think it is the VooDoo Glow Skulls. If any one knows please leave a comment! Inspector Gadget is a popular one for punk and ska bands to cover. These three are just the tip of the iceberg! UPDATE: Thanks to Ian for pointing out that this cover is actually by Ska King Crab!)
Underdog - The Blanks
Speed Racer - The Blanks (This a cappella group is the real-life band of Ted, the lawyer from Scrubs. Both of these songs were featured in one episode.)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - HORSE the Band (Here's one for all you videogame geeks! HORSE the Band is a metalcore band that often uses an LSDJ, Little Sound Disk Jockey, GameBoy cartridge in their music to give it an 8-bit video game feel. This style if referred to as Nintendocore. No joke! However, you won't hear these sounds in this track. You will have to listen to some of their other music.)

I think Fong's coming home any day now so this may be my last post here for a while and you can get back to hearing covers of regular songs rather than all this geeky stuff.

Thanks for having me! It's been a blast!

Greetings from Hong Kong!

Hi everybody! Just had to share a photo of a shop I found in Macau:


Ha! What are the odds of that, eh? I guess anything can happen in Macau, the Las Vegas of Asia. We stayed at the Venetian, supposedly the biggest casino in the world, which I don't doubt-- it's massive. I didn't gamble much at all, in fact just a couple hands of Blackjack at the Wynn casino just to say I gambled in Macau. Minimum bets at the Venetian were $25 Canadian per hand of blackjack! The game of choice appears to be baccarat, which I don't really understand even after skimming a wiki article.

I've got some covers here for you that I uploaded pre-China for an anticipated blog-post on Macau. A few variations on Motörhead's Ace of Spades:

Dino Martinis - Ace of Spades
Tarantulas - Ace of Spades
J.B.O. - Ace of Spades
Hayseed Dixie - Ace of Spades

I've been having a great time here in China. It's blown by so fast and I can't even begin to recount all that's happened. The most memorable adventure was visiting my dad's birthplace near the town of Heshan. The home village has barely changed in over 50 years (my dad lived here until he was 3 or 4 before moving to Guangzhou, Cheung Chau, Hong Kong, and eventually Canada when he was 7). I got to see the house, in fact the very room where he was born. Incredible. There was even a large lychee tree that he supposedly planted as a toddler, which would be about as old as he is.

I feel like I'm guest-blogging on my own blog here, ha ha. Tomorrow it's off to Beijing for 5 days, then a few more days in Hong Kong before heading home! A big thanks to Kurtis from Covering the Mouse for covering my blog while I'm away. I had a blast visiting Hong Kong Disneyland, which would be the, um, 5th happiest place on Earth maybe? Probably not, but I'm a sucker for the ol' Disney magic. I loved their Halloween glow-in-the-dark parade which featured the catchiest theme music. It sounded like the Men in Black theme mixed with a remix of Mussorsky's Night on Bald Mountain-- I hope to come across an mp3 of it someday. Nightmare Before Christmas 3D is playing here in Hong Kong, which is awesome since it never came through Edmonton last year. Unfortunately, it's all sold out for the next few days and I'm not sure I'll get to see it before I leave. :(

Be sure to check out Kurtis's previous post on Fong Songs featuring Rainbow Connection, a definite favourite of mine from the classic Muppet Movie. He uncovered even more covers than I have of it... I'll have to check when I get home to see if I have any to add. The music from the Muppet Movie is fantastic with other classics like Moving Right Along (which has spawned its own share of cover versions), Can You Picture That? (by the inimitable Dr. Teeth & The Electric Mayhem), and Hope That Something Better Comes Along. Be sure to check out the Dead Hensons, a muppet/Sesame Street cover band that I discovered a couple years ago when researching one of my earliest posts on the Pinball Number Count from Sesame Street.

Even after I get back, Kurtis is welcome to post anytime he feels like a Disney break. On his own site he's been posting some Halloween-themed Disney covers lately including a cover of the Headless Horseman, a favourite of mine which I used to google regularly years ago to track down the original and any potential covers (note: Joe Satriani did not cover this song...). Here's one he might not have:

Richard Strange - The Headless Horseman (live)
Earlier this summer, Jarvis Cocker organized a night of Disney cover songs (oh my god!) in collaboration with Hal Willner called Forest of No Return. The guest list of performers included Pete Doherty, Bryan Ferry, Beth Orton, Nick Cave, Grace Jones, and many more. BOOM! That's my head exploding from the awesomeness potential of that night's affair. To my knowledge, there were no recordings released or even made of the show (prove me wrong please!!) except for numerous incomplete or poor quality youtube videos of Pete Doherty's Chim Chimeree. This recording of the Headless Horseman I found on Richard Strange's myspace video page before converting it to mp3.

Bing Crosby - The Headless Horseman
The original. I love it.

Kermit the Frog's Greatest Hits: Rainbow Connection

Hi everybody! It's Kurtis again from Covering the Mouse filling in for Fong while he is away in China!

Aside from Disney, I am also a huge fan of the Muppet Show and its various movies and spin-offs. One of my favourite songs in the world in the opening number for the Muppet Movie from 1979. It was written by Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher and performed by Jim Henson as Kermit the Frog. If you don't know this song I urge you to listen to it now.

Rainbow Connection - Kermit the Frog

The song had surprising radio popularity and it reached #25 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November of 1979 and remained in the Top 40 for 7 weeks! It was also nominated for a "Best Original Song" Golden Globe Award! Not bad for a sung sung by a frog with a goofy voice!



There have been many covers of this song and I will be posting only a handful.

Rainbow Connection - The Carpenters
Rainbow Connection - Dixie Chicks
Rainbow Connection - Dresden Dolls
Rainbow Connection - Jason Mraz (This Jason Mraz cover is a really great arrangement of the song. Unfortunately, it is a live recording and pretty crappy quality.)
Rainbow Connection - Kenny Loggins
Rainbow Connection - Lea Salonga
Rainbow Connection - Peter Cincotti
Rainbow Connection - That One (I got this mp3 and it was credited to Rockapella and if you listen to it you will hear that it is most definitely not Rockapella. I believe it is a group called No Strings Attached, but I'm not sure. UPDATE: Thanks to Adam, it has been revealed that this is actually a group from the Utah State University called That One.)
Rainbow Connection - Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband
Rainbow Connection - Sarah McLaughlin
Rainbow Connection - Vonda Shepard
Rainbow Connection - Willie Nelson (This cover is one that is commonly mistaken for the original version, but that is not the case! The original was sung by a frog!)

UPDATE: Here is a way better quality version of Jason Mraz singing Rainbow Connection. He goofs in the middle but he's still great!



And I have a few more covers to post courtesy of Cover Lay Down's Boyhowdy!

Rainbow Connection - Loxley
Rainbow Connection - Asylum Street Spankers (The beginning of this track is not Work-Safe due to some vulgar dialogue)

UPDATE #2: I don't know how I forgot about this one but a reader left me a comment reminding me! Me First and the Gimme Gimmes recorded this for one of their many cover albums.

Rainbow Connection - Me First and the Gimme Gimmes

All You Need Is Beatles Covers

Hello everybody! I am Kurtis from Covering the Mouse and I will be filling in for Fong while he is gallivanting around China for the next month. I am happy to take a break from writing about Disney cover songs like I normally do and write about some other great covers!

Last week I saw Across the Universe and while I have mixed reviews on the movie, I have very positive things to say about the music! Any fan of cover songs will love sitting through this film! 31 Beatles songs sung by the cast of the movie with great arrangements that both pay tribute to the originals and, in some cases, give the lyrics new meaning.

I really suggest picking up the 2-Disc soundtrack. It's worth it.

Girl - Jim Sturgess
I've Just Seen A Face - Jim Sturgess

Beatles songs, originals and covers, have been used in countless movies over the decades. Here are three covers of All You Need Is Love that have recently been used in film.

All You Need Is Love - Jim Sturges and Dana Fuchs from Across the Universe
All You Need Is Love - Ewan MacGregor and Nicole Kidman from Moulin Rouge!
All You Need Is Love - Lynden David Hall from Love Actually

And to prove that the Beatles have been covered by just about everybody...

Eleanor Rigby - Pain
Yesterday - Zamfir

Unfinished Business

OK, before I go, there's some last-minute things I have to talk about... because my brain's so frazzled right now, I'll just update this post as things come to mind instead of making a new post every time I remember something. First up, SHARON JONES & THE DAP-KINGS.

Simply put, they put on an amazingly live show. Sharon Jones is like James Brown reincarnated into a little "110 pounds of soul excitement". I definitely short-changed them when I neglected to post my Calgary Folk Fest Part II. They played Sunday at the festival and blew everyone away. Anyway, I just got word their 3rd album 100 Days, 100 Nights came out today. This album and their first two releases are available from the sweet digital music store AmieStreet.com. Amie Street is like iTunes or eMusic, but they've got this kinda pay-by-popularity system in place where all songs start at $0.01 and increase in price as more people buy them with a cap at $0.99. In fact, I just bought the entire new album for $3.08!!! Now that's a deal, in fact a steal, no matter how you look at it. You may recognize the horns of her backing band The Dap-Kings on Amy Winehouse and Mark Ronson's latest CDs. Sharon Jones herself was tapped to play juke joint singer Lila in the upcoming Denzel Washington film The Great Debaters, due in December. She'll be singing a cover of Lucille Bogan's That's What My Baby Likes plus a few other songs on the soundtrack.

I already bought my tickets last month for her December show in Vancouver. Less than $20! I've seen no-name bar bands for the same price. If she's coming through town, definitely go out of your way to see them. I sure don't dance, but I was dancing at folk fest. Go and buy the new album over here ($4.18 and rising!). I'm not ashamed to hawk this band like a madman.

Preview the album here:



Here she is at the Calgary Folk Fest getting down with fellow soul singer Bettye LaVette... I'll post some of her earlier cover songs later if I have time.

[**UPDATE: 12:24AM, Oct. 3, 2007]
Here's a couple Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings covers, one of which I've posted before but it's sweet so it's back.

What Have You Done For Me Lately? [originally by Janet Jackson]
This Land is Your Land [originally by Woody Guthrie]
Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) [originally by Mickey Newbury]

[**UPDATE: 12:59AM, Oct. 3, 2007]
I'd like to direct your attention to Stereogum's free cover tribute to REM's Automatic for the People. Haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, but it's great that Stereogum is continuing this tribute series that started with a 10-year tribute to OK Computer. Interesting trivia that I learned earlier this year: did you know Zeppelin's John Paul Jones did string arrangements on Automatic for the People? That includes Drive (a personal fav) and Everybody Hurts.
Paul Anka - Everybody Hurts [originally by REM]

[**UPDATE: 5:17AM, Oct. 3, 2007]
Typical. Before a big trip I always stay up all night doing nothing in particular. In completely unrelated to covers news, I just read there'll a new Wallace & Gromit short film by next Christmas. Brilliant, Gromit, brilliant! Read the exciting news here.

Alright, that's it folks. I better get packing. See you in November!

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.

Goodbye, Miss Moneypenny

"Pretty Penny was her name
She was loved and we all will miss her."

I was saddened to learn that Canadian-born actress Lois Maxwell, known to millions as Miss Moneypenny in 14 James Bond films, passed away this weekend at the age of 80.

Stone Temple Pilots - Pretty Penny
Chaka Khan - Diamonds are Forever [originally performed by Shirley Bassey]