Tag: Canadian Rock

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100 best covers: #92 Crash Vegas “Pocahontas”

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I did things a little backwards as it pertains to my university years’ accommodations. I won’t go into why I lived off campus for my first two years and then, moved into residence during my third year, but in hindsight, am very glad that was the way things turned out. My grades definitely suffered that year but I made countless memories and met some amazing people. One of these was Bahar, who everyone simply called ‘Boo’, and who lived just a few doors down the residence hall from me and over the course of the year, became my ‘little sister’.

I mention Boo in connection with this cover of “Pocahontas” by Crash Vegas, since it’s likely because of her that it is on this list. I half remember hanging out in her room one afternoon and my mentioning that I had seen the video and how it had stuck with me, despite never really having heard anything else in their catalogue. She immediately pulled a CD copy of “Aurora” off her massive CD shelf and replaced the Beastie Boys disc in the player to put it on. I later borrowed the disc when I was making a mixed tape, pulling this track and “Scarborough” for the mix. And a couple of years later, when I bought a used copy of the album for myself, it was on basis of these two songs.

I’m not terribly familiar with Neil Young’s original and only really knew that the song was a cover because Boo told me so that day. I know he’s done a few versions, ranging from electric to acoustic, and if you’re one of his fans, I’m sure you prefer his original. Crash Vegas, a Canadian alternative rock band that saw some success in the 90s, doesn’t do anything spectacularly different with the song, an acoustic backbone and a spiritual edge, but I do prefer Michelle McAdorey’s soft vocals to the whines of Young. I’ve always appreciated his talent. What makes “Pocahontas” such a great tune is his songwriting, the imagery evoked through astral plane time travel and the connection of cultural figures not immediately plausible, but I could never get past his voice enough to explore his original. I could play this cover on end though, and remember back to 1995 with fondness whenever I do.

The cover:

The original:

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.

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100 best covers: #94 Rheostatics “The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”

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Here’s a cover that took many many years to appreciate and it’s because the original is oh so deeply ingrained in me.

Canadian icon Gordon Lightfoot’s original is a romantic commemoration of the sinking of the American freighter, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior in 1975. The disaster is one of the best known to happen on the Great Lakes, resulting in the deaths of all of its crewmen and improvements to shipping regulations. The song was released just over a year after the actual disaster, instantly becoming one of Lightfoot’s biggest commercial successes. These days, it is his most easily recognizable track and one of his own personal favourites. His is a haunting piece, but not because of the music. It’s a pretty straightforward if not sorrowful composition but the words really stay with you, able to easily conjure teardrops out of the corners of Canada’s collective eyes.

Rheostatics are iconic (some might say iconoclastic) in their own right and unleashed their cover as the penultimate track on the CD version of their now classic 1991 album, “Melville”. I don’t think it as widely known as the original but it is definitely accepted as part of the Canadian alt-rock canon. Yet still, it drove this particular writer/blogger nuts for years, always wanting to hear Lightfoot to sing those words: “The church bell chimed ’til it rang twenty-nine times for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald”.

Once I accepted that Rheostatics’ cover is a different beast from the original, however, I grew to love it. They extended it from the original six minutes to well over eight, adding plenty of simmering guitars, wailing solos, and some wonderful cymbal washes, reflecting the wildness of those turbulent Lake Superior waters. And all those heartfelt words are still there but sung in a different tone, perhaps with a bit more anger than sadness.

Have a listen to both versions below (though if you’re Canadian, I’m sure you’re quite familiar with the original) and let me know what you think in the comments section.

The cover:

The original:

(And if you’re up for a third option, I can offer up the deadpan delivered drone of the Dandy Warhols rendition here.)

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.

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100 best covers: #96 Barenaked Ladies “Lovers in a dangerous time”

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Pay no mind to the above photo. Barenaked Ladies were cool in 1991… Well, okay, we thought they were at the time anyway.

The duo of Ed Robertson and Steven Page formed in 1988, adding band camp friends, brothers Andy and Jim McCreegan, two years later. Tyler Stewart joined the same year to temporarily fill Andy’s spot while the drummer went to Europe and then, stayed on upon his return. The band made a name for themselves with their hilarious, energetic, and often improvisational live shows, a fame that only grew with their DIY videos that they made using a video booth in downtown Toronto called “Speaker’s corner”, and that became a notoriety when they were banned from playing the city’s live New Year’s Eve show because of their “provocative” name. Then, their self-produced and self-released five song demo tape, the now famous “Yellow tape”, became the first ever indie release to reach platinum level sales in Canada. Needless to say, that attracted all the right attention. They released their debut album, “Gordon” in 1992, another classic. Six years later, BNL hit it big in the US with the single, “One week” and the rest is history.

But just as they were getting started, even before “Gordon”, they recorded this cover of Bruce Cockburn’s “Lovers in a dangerous time” for a tribute called “Kick at the darkness”, from a line taken from this very song. Bruce Cockburn is a Canadian icon, a prolific singer/songwriter, whose lyrics are part poetry, part social activism. Inspired by watching teenagers kissing and the thoughts that invoked, “Lovers in a dangerous time” is one of his more popular songs and one of the few I would recognize as his if you played it for me.

Going back to listen to Cockburn’s original before writing this post, I realized how dated it sounds. It is still a great song and the way Cockburn sings it is just right but it really does sound so 1980s. I almost think I like Barenaked Ladies’ cover more than the original, blasphemous though that statement might be. It’s no surprise they chose to cover one of his more popular songs, a bigger one being that they played it straight, something rare for them in those days. The cover is really quite lovely with Robertson’s and Page’s now familiar vocal harmonies, the acoustic guitars, and Creegan’s cello providing the backbone.

The cover:

The original:

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.