As we noted over the weekend in The Year's Best Coverfolk, Part 1: Tribute Albums and Cover Collections , it's been a good year for full-album coverage. Overall, though, despite the fact that, in terms of sheer mass, covers from tributes overwhelm singletons in my collection, what I've found this year is that a significant majority of the songs that lingered, and demanded overplay, came from a mixed bag of borderline genre albums and single shot coverfolk tracks, via the usual sources, from YouTube, Soundcloud, studio appearances, website and bandcamp singles, and more. [...]
Contributed by Trevor Meyer Last night, I traveled to the bootleg theater in LA to catch three superb acts. It was a fantastic show because each act was so unlike the act before it, yet the audience gravitated to all three performances. In a sea of black rimmed glasses, flannels, and irony, Ana Egge stepped to the stage with her acoustic guitar. The Saskatchewan native quickly captivated the audience with her soothing voice and sharp guitar playing. Ana was accompanied by drummer, [...]
Ana Egge - Hole In Your Halo
Ana Egge sings with the cool confidence of a seasoned veteran; she's been quietly releasing a series of excellent folk-country albums since the late 1990s. Egge is a singer-songwriter with a gift for telling stories and creating fully-fleshed characters within her lyrics. Bad Blood , Egge's latest, draws a series of portraits of mental illness in different forms and from different angles. Written in response to watching several family members suffer from various afflictions, many of the songs featured on the album show a young artist coping the way she knows best. "Your flowers are [...]
Filed under: News , Video , New Music , Exclusive Patrick Fraser Less than two months after premiering her driving folk-rock track 'Bad Blood' with Spinner, Ana Egge is back with the brand-new video for 'Hole in Your Halo.' The Brooklyn, N.Y.-based singer-songwriter penned the song after visiting a mentally ill relative in prison, and the subdued, rustic video matches the tone perfectly. "The filming was very off the [...]
Ana Egge - Bad Blood Release Date: Aug 23, 2011 Label: Ammal Records
Filed under: News , Exclusive , New Music Patrick Fraser Saskatchewan-born, Brooklyn-based folk troubadour Ana Egge isn't your run-of-the-mill alternative-country singer. Using unique production and rock-based chord progressions, Egge has made a name for herself as a Gillian Welch figure with a rocker attitude, which once prompted Lucinda Williams to call her "the Nina Simone of folk." Her upcoming 12-song record 'Bad Blood,' produced by ' [...]
Hectic doesn't begin to describe my life these days. Two weeks away from curtain in our local production of Alice In Wonderland, with a title role in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe waiting in the wings, my brain swims with characterizations, half-learned lines and dance moves. School Committee work comes to a head now, too, with budget season and the superintendent's evaluation on our plate, and a town demanding answers as budget dollars continue to sink. Back at work, state testing begins next week, making a hash of curriculum even as we push [...]
Diamond Joel Plaskett unleashed his most ambitious work to-date last year with his 3-disc, 27-song, epic Three. With the help of Ana Egge and Rose Cousins on accompanying vocals, Plaskett found himself with another album shortlisted as the best full-length Canadian release of the year; the other album was Ashtray Rock from Plaskett's full-band project [...]
Today's song comes in from Toronto-based singer/songwriter/producer Royal Wood and his second full-length album A Good Enough Day , released via Canadian Dead Daisy Records in 2007. The album follows-up on Wood's 2004 debut LP Tall Tales , and has since been followed-up by a 2009 EP titled The Lost and Found EP . This past November, Wood supported the latest EP with his first headlining tour through Western Canada, accompanied by Atlantic Canadian singer/songwriter Rose Cousins ; Cousins, along with Ana Egge , served as the backing vocal tandem on [...]
I continue the chronological countdown of my favourite albums of the last decade with the debut effort from Canada's Arcade Fire. I must admit that I was completely unfamiliar with the band's music when they played the Electric Picnic in 2005, even though they seemed to be the act that everyone wanted to check out. I never got to see them as I reasoned that people were being taken in by all the hype surrounding the band. When I eventually decided to check out the album the next year I knew I had been wrong. I was immediately [...]
Gone, Gone, Gone is another number from the pride of Nova Scotia, Joel Plaskett , and his 3-disc magnus opus Three . Released in March of this year, Plaskett's 3rd full-length solo effort captured his 2nd Polaris nomination, however I'm not completely convinced this album should be considered a solo-album proper. For myself, the backing vocals (I use the word "backing" loosely as the vocals are essential to many of the numbers), from Ana Egge and Rose Cousins, are often the most memorable pieces of the songs. I'm not trying to take anything away from Plaskett, [...]
Congratulations to the Toronto, Ontario hardcore punk band Fucked Up , whose album The Chemistry of Common Life took home the 4th installment of the Polaris Prize last night. As promised, here are my thoughts on the show last night; In point form of course, as proper sentence transitions are for suckers. Whoever decided to have all 10 short-listers perform last night is a goddamn Canadian hero. I would pay at least $27 for a DVD of the show. Free Steam Whistle was a fantastic decision, that resulted in [...]
The highly anticipated short-list for this year's Polaris Music Prize was released this week, viewable here . I chose to ignore this until today as I was quite disappointed that my prediction regarding the Japandroids ' Post-Nothing was completely incorrect. However, I am now over it and would like to highlight one of the artists that did make the cut this year. Deny, Deny, Deny can be found on Joel Plaskett 's second Polaris short-listed album Three . This particular version of the song was recorded live in the Fuel [...]
Due to an odd confluence of events and generosity, we hereby declare it CONTEST WEEK here at Cover Lay Down! As the week progresses, we'll be offering several day passes and CD prizes from Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival (July 16-19), AND a pair of weekend camping passes to Falcon Ridge Folk Festival (July 23-26). The rules for each are simple - one entry per person, per contest - so don't forget to come back and enter each as it comes. Today's kick-off contest comes [...]
In my memory, summers are forever sunny. The grass is a perfect green; the air is clear and dry. Smiling faces are everywhere, though solitude is easily found. There are no tasks, save the pursuit of the wandering spirit. Nature beckons like a beacon. In real life, of course, I awoke to another rainy day on the first day of summer, my body weary and cramped from joyous dancing and stage-shifting in the Clearwater rain. The girls are still asleep as I write [...]
Eating a banana on the Aran Islands We've been having some strange weather here in Ireland this past week. A country that is more used to grey skies and lots of rain has been experiencing bright blue skies, sunshine and warm weather for the past nine days. The beaches have been filled with eager sunbathers and many people are taking early holidays. Sales of cider, ice cream and sun tan lotion have gone through the roof and everyone is happy. Well, everyone except secondary school students who've just started their exams. And even they were given a [...]
Concert Review: Joel Plaskett, Massey Hall, Toronto, Saturday, May 23, 2009 Massey Hall is arguably the most famous stage in Toronto. The acoustics are spectacular, and the majority of the seats have excellent site lines. Opened in 1894, and designated as a Heritage Property in 1975, Massey Hall has hosted such venerable performers and dignitaries such as King George V and his wife Queen Mary, Winston Churchill, the Dalai Lama, Luciano Pavarotti, George Gershwin, Oscar Peterson, and Bob Dylan among many, many others. Many famous live albums [...]
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