Filed under: Concerts and Tours , News , Exclusive YouTube (2) | Getty Images When recent Peterborough Collegiate and Vocational School graduates Kate Macdonald, 21, and Janelle Blanchard, 18, started covering some of their favourite songs and posting them to YouTube their main concern was getting attention to save the 184-year-old arts-focused Ontario school that's been slated for closure. What they weren't expecting was to find an ally in Neko Case [...]

Sunday was the last day for the Ottawa Folk Festival . The weather changed from hot to cold due to the incoming of Hurricane Irene. Luckily it didn't hit Ottawa but gutted parts of the USA. Mostly it was cool and windy. People braved the weather and came out to the workshops that happened at the festival. The workshops I attended were: Intro to Harmonica Cigar Box Guitar [...]
Filed under: Concerts and Tours , News , Exclusive Courtesy of the Beauties Through their popular and long-running Sunday night residency at Toronto's Dakota Tavern as well as similar weekly gigs in both New York and Ottawa, and by serving as the go-to back-up band for a slew of solo artists, the Beauties have built a reputation as a hard-working, blue-collar rock and roll band. On a recent Sunday, Spinner tagged [...]

Toronto - It's been awhile since we did one of these posts, but lets not dwell on what is in the past and go to the present. My Morning Jacket July 11, Kool Haus It sure took a long time, but Kentucky's My Morning Jacket can be certified as rock stars now that Circuital has become a certified smash success with not just the indie crowd, but with regular upstanding citizens as well. Jim James and his bearded friends bring their live stage show to the Kool Haus tonight for [...]

Frank Yang One perennial highlight - okay, for two years - of my SXSW adventures was throwing day parties where we could invite Japanese Action Comic Punk outfit Peelander-Z to wreak havoc. So it was nice to see that not only were the Peelanders in town for NXNE , but they had an all-ages afternoon show scheduled at Sneaky Dee's on the Saturday. I guess Toronto's still getting used to the idea of having shows when it's still daylight out, because the gig was only attended [...]

The Lemonheads: Frank Mills [ purchase ] There have been many covers of the various groovy pop hits from Hair, the sixties celebrational musical which first hit Broadway in 1968 - from the Cowsills' 1969 chart hit title track to Three Dog Night's Easy To Be Hard , from Quincy Jones' version of Walking In Space to Canadian folkpop singer-songwriter Serena Ryder's wonderfully bombastic 2006 take on Good Morning Starshine , which I posted way back in May of last year when [...]
Filed under: News , Exclusive , Awards , Junos FilmMagic | CARAS/iPhoto | Redferns | CARAS/iPhoto Once upon a time, not all that long ago, the Juno Awards doled out prizes for the best Canadian music to winners known mostly only in Canada. Not so much anymore. In 2011, Canadian musicians are at the top of almost every major genre, and the 40th annual Junos in Toronto might as well have been an international [...]
Filed under: Concerts and Tours , News , Exclusive , New Music Six Shooter Records In his heyday, Willie Nelson couldn't wait to get on the road again, but for Toronto rockers the Beauties , traditional touring (you know, hitting a new town every night and rolling out before the morning light) has kind of lost its appeal. "You get into a routine when you hit a new city every [...]
Filed under: News , Video , Exclusive , New Releases EMI Serena Ryder may have missed her calling. Though she's made a name for herself as a guitar-touting singer-songwriter (earning a Juno nod in the process), Ryder's talents haven't been fully realized if her rendition of the Kylie Minogue track 'Slow' is any indication of her pop diva chops. With dirty, sexed-up beats, courtesy of her backing [...]

Filed under: News , Video , Exclusive Mary Rozzi Serena Ryder doesn't have some elaborate reason as to why she tackled 'Ramblin' Man' on her covers EP with Toronto roots-rockers the Beauties . "I'm a big Hank Williams fan," she tells Spinner. "'Ramblin' Man' is one I've jammed out for years with the Beauties, usually around 1AM, at the local bar, the Dakota Tavern." And the [...]

Filed under: News , Video , Exclusive EMI If you're still swooning over the chocolates your sweetheart gave you on Valentine's Day, Serena Ryder and the Beauties ' video for 'The Funeral' might bring you back down to earth. The Band of Horses cover (yes, this stripped down tune first tugged at heart strings as a bombastic anthem penned by Ben Bridwell and gang) is emotional to say the least. [...]
Canadian singer/songwriter Serena Ryder and her band, The Beauties, have transformed American Idol alumna Jordin Sparks' hit "No Air" into something that could be straight out of the Twin Peaks soundtrack! Log lady will approve. This interesting low-key reinterpretation was first released on the deluxe edition of her album "Is This OK" in 2009. Now, [...]

Filed under: Video , Exclusive Mary Rozzi The twangy guitar line that leads off the second song on Serena Ryder 's new EP, a collaboration with Toronto roots-rockers the Beauties , might recall the soundtrack of some twisted David Lynch film, but what follows is a brooding lullaby that breathes new life into Jordin Sparks ' 2008 glossy single 'No Air.' Gone are the slick studio effects, shimmering keys and [...]
All ten tracks on Bruce's celebrated 1978 album get the covers treatment, spanning every genre from soft-spoken indie folk to death metal.

============================== =============== Just joining us? I'm counting down 101 of my all-time favourite covers before packing this blog away in the attic. Read my countdown preamble here . ============================== =============== Oddly enough, the logo and goofy tagline has never changed since day one! My awesome friends made this shirt for my birthday one year. If I remember correctly, the blog had not even reached its first anniversary. CanConCovers From the get-go I've been inclined, if not unofficially mandated, to [...]
So it's a Friday, and the World Cup is in full swing, and if you're like me that means you really don't care about much else (let alone writing a new post for your little blog). And even though I'm more than thrilled to watch the US v Ghana game tomorrow followed by the England v Germany game on Sunday I'm still taking time to post a few random cover songs that have caught my attention over the past month or so. You are very very welcome. mp3 : Crooked Fingers - Under Pressure (Queen Cover) [...]

I was one of those arty middle-class music-and-theater kids - you know, the ones who spend their free periods in the band room, stay after school to paint sets, seem utterly disconnected from the mass media-driven marks of popular consumer culture, and demonstrate a complete and utter lack of coordinated ability in running shorts. But it wasn't just desire or common interest that kept me there. Natural talent, a strong ear, and an ADHD sufferer's tendency to misplace my instrument had led to formal voice lessons and private choruses as a child (lose [...]
Filed under: Clash of the Cover Songs The Rules for Battle: Each week, we pit versions of the same song by two different artists in a head-to-head death match for musical supremacy. (Sometimes it will be the original recording vs. a cover version; other times it will be two different covers.) Then it's up to you to decide: Listen to and vote on which version you think should emerge victorious and which should be sent packing. May the best band win! [...]

Like so many of our Covered in Folk feature subjects, I discovered country-folk singer-songwriter John Prine via coverage - through both his own "original" version of Roly Salley composition Killing the Blues , which Shawn Colvin attributed to Prine himself on her mid-nineties cover album Cover Girl , and Bonnie Raitt's ubiquitous version of Angel From Montgomery , a sentimental bluesfolk number familiar to anyone who has ever flipped the radio dial to a Contemporary station in the last few decades. It wasn't until much later, during a week in attendance at [...]