The Newfoundland and Canadian newspaper ‘The Overcast’, an alternative
paper Newfoundland Arts and Culture paper wrote an interesting article about
the project available on their webpage.
‘The Once & Passenger Have Been Recording Fitting Covers in Different Cities During Their American Tour’ published in September 2014. The site also contains links to the videos on YouTube and available at overcast.ca (no copyright infringement intended).
‘The Once & Passenger Have Been Recording Fitting Covers in Different Cities During Their American Tour’ published in September 2014. The site also contains links to the videos on YouTube and available at overcast.ca (no copyright infringement intended).
If you’ve
been reading the paper, you know The Once are on a world-wide tour with
Passenger. While on tour, they’ve banded together to record a series of classic
covers, befitting of the city they’re in as they sweep across The States.
They’ve
been releasing these covers about once a week, starting with John Prine’s epic,
“Angel from Montgomery.” The project’s aim is to “document our travels and
give you guys a little insight into what we’re up to.”
They
recorded “Angel from Montgomery” in Nashville, because Passenger frontman
Michael Rosenberg was in Nashville six or seven years ago, and went looking for
John Prine himself.
“It was
good fun and a great learning experience, but also a bit of a weird time as I
didn’t really know anyone, so I found myself with time to kill.” To kill that
time he decided to go meet John Prine “and play him some songs … whether he
liked it or not … god that sounds really creepy!”
“When I
finally turned up at John Prine’s record label, I was a sweaty and sunburnt
mess but elated that I’d finally made it. I pressed the buzzer and to my
disappointment found out that John was in Chicago . I still hope that i
can one day meet john but for now this will have to do.”
“The idea,”
Rosenberg says, “is that each song will in some way be linked to the place
we’re playing in – for example it could be the artist/band’s hometown, or the
song will reference the city in some way, or it may have a personal story
attached to it.
They
recorded Simon & Garfunkel’s “Only Living Boy in New York” in New York, for
example.
One of my
favourite spots on earth,” says Rosenberg, “[is] New York’s Central Park …
Central Park has always amazed me as one minute you can be in the hustle and
bustle of the city and the next thing you know you’re in this beautiful green
expanse. I love it … Secondly, growing up, my favourite album was Simon and
Garfunkle Live in Central Park . We used to listen to it over and over again in
the car to the point that the cassette broke and the sound went all wobbly.”
One of the
most recent covers to emerge has been a version of “Nothing Compares to You,”
in Minneapolis: home of the man who wrote the song, not the woman who made
it popular (Sinead O’Connor).
“Prince is
originally from this city and made this venue famous by playing it a bunch of
times, and also shooting scenes here from his movie Purple Rain. It
was pretty surreal to be playing this song in a dressing room that he must have
been in so many times. This one has a very different feel to the other videos –
Bryan decided to shoot it in black and white, and I think it gives it a really
great quality.”
“Also, Geri
is taking the lead for this one, as it was Sinead O’Connor’s version that
became such an enormous hit. I need to say that vocally this is possibly one of
the most difficult songs that we could have picked and Geri absolutely nailed
it. She is a phenomenal talent, as are Phil and Andrew, so please, if you
haven’t done so already – please check out The Once and their new record
Departures!”
The Once band with Passenger and Stu Larsen making a video in Stanley Park Vancouver from the Twitter page of Bob Hallett (no copyright infringement intended).
