Come on in, the party has just begun! DJ Frankenstein is spinnin' tunes tonight and he's definitely got some treats for you. Have a safe and happy Pooky Night everyone! Zacherley - Zombie Zoo [originally by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers] Originally from Tom Petty's 1989 Full Moon Fever , this odd cover gives it the novelty horror treatment courtesy of Mr. John Zacherle , Vincent Price - Monster Mash [originally by Bobby "Boris" Pickett] The funk [...]
Received word today that The Ditty Bops' Abby and Amanda just got married after 10 years together! Congratulations! I'm a huge fan of the Ditty Bops and very happy for the newly married couple. From their latest newsletter: Hi Everyone! We just got married! We are so happy that after 10 years together we could make our union legal in the State of California. However, there is a ballot measure in California which would eliminate the rights for same-sex couples to marry and would write discrimination against gays and lesbians into our [...]
Fans and non-fans were shocked earlier this summer when seemingly clean-cut frontman for Barenaked Ladies, Steven Page was arrested in New York alongside his girlfriend and her roommate for cocaine possession. Their court appearance was yesterday and a deal was reached with US prosecutors so that he avoids jail time provided he stays clean for the next 6 months. Court documents showed that the roommate and Page had snorted cocaine "using a rolled up Canadian bill". Yikes, how's that for CanCon! rx - White Lines (Don't Do It) [originally by [...]
Halloween came early last week in the form of a Blogger takedown notice and threats regarding the DMCA. By far I'm not the only house on the block being paid a visit. Blogger has been a-knocking on lots of doors and they're clearly not here for tricks or treats, though I'd love to dump a handful of peanuts and unwrapped apples in their bag. Also, those nasty orange and black things in wax paper, ugh. To this point, I haven't really gotten too upset since I've knowingly not been overly vigilant about what I post-- I [...]
The Ben Folds Reunion concert is up on MySpace's Front to Back site now. Overseas fans are getting the shaft and that includes Canada since the 49th Parallel now extends into cyberspace. Yes, it's US only. The rest of us are slapped with a unexplained "error". Presumably it's awesome, though a DVD better be forthcoming since it doesn't include the encore. ***UPDATE: lowly non-Americans can view it at TheSuburbs.co.uk forums . You can catch a blurry glimpse of me at the 39 second mark! Time to play Where's Fongo? [...]
***ATTN: LINKS REMOVED!*** Landmark day here at Fong Songs... I received my first dreaded "cease & desist" letter from Blogger: " Blogger has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that certain content in your blog infringes upon the copyrights of others. The URL(s) of the allegedly infringing post(s) may be found at the end of this message. " The e-mail almost reads like spam with a link to something called http://www.chillingeffects.org , until I checked my site and that saw that my latest post had indeed been [...]
I've got one last 80s-themed cover post for you with a slight twist. As cover enthusiasts would probably know, a handful of big one-hit wonders of the 80s were in fact covers themselves: Soft Cell's Tainted Love , Kim Carnes' Bette Davis Eyes , and Tiffany's I Think We're Alone Now , to name a few off the top of my head. While I focused previously on newer covers of 80s songs, today's post features covers that are by artists primarily known for their 80s musical output, either released in the 80s [...]
Impending cover album alert! Miami pop band The Postmarks are releasing a cover album, By the Numbers , which will feature covers of number-related songs. I'm looking forward to this after inadvertently stumbling upon their cover of You Only Live Twice while searching for Bond covers (uh, blatant post foreshadowing). That cover along with Bowie's Five Years , Antonio Carlos Jobim's One Note Samba , and more were available for free on eMusic as they were being released each month. Don't bother checking, they've been removed in anticipation of the new [...]
Grrrr, my internet's been cutting in/out all day... and the only cure is a monster batch of even more 80s covers! Here are some that didn't make the first cut , mostly because they don't carry the same personal resonance as some of those earlier picks. Some I just plain forgot to include and the 80s police got mad at me. The Pigeon Detectives - The Power of Love [originally by Huey Lewis & The News] Tropical Jazz Big Band XI - [...]
Some notable news from the world of Fong Songs fave, Harvey Danger: If Rock Band 2 is your thing, Harvey Danger's Cream and Bastards Rise was released today as a downloadable track. That's pretty awesome. Last month on the HD forums , Harvey Danger guitarist/pianist/ Microsoft employee Jeff Lin mentioned they had to provide seven different versions of the song to make up the final Rock Band track. I don't have the game nor envision getting it in the foreseeable future, but on a lark I downloaded demos of Guitar Hero [...]
Lately I've been resting on my laurels, so to speak. By laurels, I mean couch. By resting, I mean playing my new X-Box. I also feel that lately I've been posting too much Ben Folds this, Amanda Palmer that, and White Stripes blah. So it's back to basics with some regular Fong Songs cover content. Right now I'm in the middle of an 80's kick, so let's make it an All 80's Cover Weekend! Ah, the eighties... a whole decade of guilty pleasures. But why feel guilty about it? These are awesome [...]
It's been a week since my epic trip to Chapel Hill, North Carolina to see Ben Folds Five's one-off reunion. It's taken me about that long to recover from pure ultimation of that trip, not to mention the brutal 40 hours spent in transit to and from there. Northwest corner of the continent to the southeast-- what was I thinking? Basically when I got to my hotel room, I walked in the door and crashed for a couple hours. When I came to, it was time to go! I headed to downtown Chapel Hill to [...]
Two weeks ago I wrote " Someday I'd like to go to Chapel Hill ", once hometown of two of my all-time favourite bands, Ben Folds Five and the Squirrel Nut Zippers. The time is now, I leave TODAY for Chapel Hill to witness a spectacular event the likes of which I could never have predicted happening, let alone attending. That's right, I'm going to the BEN FOLDS FIVE REUNION. When tickets went on sale September 8th, it was seemingly sold out before anyone got a chance to buy tickets [...]
...to listen to his music and be his myspace friend! Max Vernon appeared out of nowhere a couple months ago with his most excellent classical/electro/doo-wop cover of Katy Perry's I Kissed a Girl . He's trying to get the word out about his music and I'm more than happy to lend a hand since I became an instant fan the second I checked out his originals on myspace. A few of my faves: Max Vernon - No Exit Max Vernon - Open Casting [...]
Now that the Large Hadron Collider is chugging along and Greek hackers decided not to ruin the party, it's time to celebrate like it's a Fermilab pajama party ! neminem - Black Holes and Scientific Revelations [remix of Alpinekat's Large Hadron Rap ] A reader who goes by the moniker neminem has produced the first remix (as far as I know) of Alpinekat's LHC Rap , brilliantly laid over Muse's Supermassive Black Hole . Clever, eh? The bar is certainly set high [...]
I should have mentioned this earlier: www.whokilledamandapalmer.com has been taking pre-orders since last Monday for the new album, which is released this Tuesday. As is more and more common with dwindling CD sales, artists are getting more creative with tiered packages. All packages come with the physical CD and link to instantly download the whole album as MP3s. So, of course, I've been spinning this on my iPod since last week and it's pretty great. 1. For the casual fan ($14.99) -digipack CD -instant download link for the ENTIRE WKAP album [...]
James Bond + Jack White + Coke = this Here's the new Coke Zero ad in the style of the Bond opening credit sequences featuring a Jack White soundtrack. It's not clear whether this is part of the new Bond theme or composed just for the ad, but I'm loving it in any event. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it's distinctly a "Jack White" sound while still retaining the Bond feel. Can't wait to hear the whole thing. The last Jack/Coke team-up produced this little gem: [...]
Well, the Large Hadron Collider started up today without a hitch. Everyone still here? Good. I love this headline from National Geographic: Large Hadron Collider "Actually Worked" . 14 years and $8 billion later, I would hope so. Today was the first attempt to send a beam of protons around the 27 kilometer tunnel. I'm told it takes one ten-thousandth of a second for a the proton beam to circle the ring, so I can only imagine how anticlimactic it was to push the "on" button. In any event, scientists were ecstatic. [...]
This is Last Friday Me writing from the past. Little did you know but I've been on vacation in Toronto since last Friday, in fact I leave in a couple hours... I hope I'm having a good time. If all goes according to plan, Current Me should be having a GREAT time at the World Premiere of a new documentary at the Toronto Film Festival called, It Might Get Loud . Let me break it down: this is a documentary from Davis Guggenhiem, the director of An [...]
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