Jacob Moon steals Rush's "Subdivisions" and makes it all his own

I'm not typically a fan of the cover tune.  At first glance, it's always seemed like a cheap cop-out or a shortcut to getting your foot in the door as a musician...like you're not being authentic or something...I don't know, I'm sure I'm being way to critical of the idea.

There are exceptions to the rule, however...and from a cursory all-encompassing arc in my head (with eyes squinted shut), I can think of three sets of circumstances. 

1. The first circumstance would be when an artist is really able to outshine the original version if it because it was subpar...or, dare we say, it completely sucked.  Examples (arguable, as many might disagree) might include Van Halen covering "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks.  All respect for Ray Davies & Co., but VH simply blows their version into the 4th Dimension.
2. The second circumstance would involve the cover of a song, from an original version that's simply unknown...to the effect that the cover becomes the famous version.  The perfect example here is Jimi Hendrix covering Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower."  Even for some of you reading this for the first time, that may be news to you...if you're wondering: "You mean Dylan originally sang that?  Really?"  I've even known Hendrix fans to be unaware of that little factoid...so sorry everyone, Jimi didn't write that.  He just did a killer version of it.
3. Then there's the third instance, which to me is the most special...it's where the original version is a classic ingrained in the pantheon of music...YET an artist, perhaps many years later, is able to come along and morph it into something new and engaging.  This post is about that instance.

Canadian artist Jacob Moon, out of Hamilton, Ontario, accomplished that in 2008 when he shot this video covering "Subdivisions" by Rush -- a very, very difficult act to follow -- and he pulled it off all by himself.  

Moon reinvigorates the song in a way that I could have never imagined.  Through his tinkering with it and use of acoustic guitars, he makes "Subdivisions" even more engaging, tender, and emotional.  For those who understand the significance of the lyrics, it's as if he's "us" -- an audience of Rush fans going back decades with the band -- and representing a real perspective and emotional interpretation of it.  It's like he was the guy you knew in the neighborhood who went through all those things with you.

Not to mention this video of him, a performance taking place on the rooftop of a house in a subdivision...that's a suburb of Toronto...in Canada. It adds even more to the effect and aesthetic of the song.  Whoever thought of that is an absolute genius.

So watch Jacob Moon pull off what I never thought I'd witness in my lifetime: someone taking a classic from the Rush cannon and reworking it into something all their own.  This is great, great stuff.  Thank you Jacob Moon!

Thoughts on Michael Jackson's memorial: You can't fake genuineness

Wow, what an emotional day.

You can't fake genuineness. That's what came to mind today as I was watching events unfold at pop icon Micheal Jackson's memorial service in the L.A. Staples Center.

More on that later in this post.

I have to admit that my R&B/Motown leanings fall on only a handful of artists; Jackson 5, Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, Bill Withers, Stevie Wonder (of whom I own no albums...yet), and...and...well, there you go...and of those artists, I've only experienced certain albums and shapshots of their careers at best. I have some Smokey Robinson and James Brown explorations in my sights.

I dropped in on the Michael Jackson thing in the early 80s right after Off the Wall came out (his first post-Jackson 5 solo album, a disco-influenced pop extravaganza that appeared under the tree Christmas 1979), and followed his career through the Thriller album along with everyone else at the time, as it's the greatest-selling music project of all time with over 100 million units sold...

...but then I took off through high school with completely different forms of music and immersed myself in bands like Rush, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Who, and the Rolling Stones.

In college and over time, I was exposed to many other forms of music...and eventually started circling around to Motown again in the late 90s...then I dove heavily into jazz in 2003, where I realized the reach of Quincy Jones' talent as a songwriter and producer.

Then, a couple years ago as I was passing through a magazine shop in an airport, and my eyes fell on a CD rack displaying the two Michael Jackson albums I was familiar with; this time in a reissued and remastered special edition CD, and I decided to pick them up...and I was beautifully reunited with my 10-year old music self. What a treat that was rediscovering that music again.

In these special issue CDs, Quincy Jones interviews were peppered throughout extra tracks on those projects...and having slightly more interest in CD liner notes in my late 30s than I did as a pre-teen, I learned some stories behind the recordings.

While the events of his personal life brought up questions, and while his changing appearance seemed like something along the likes of what's witnessed on Halloween, Michael Jackson's talent and influence can't be ignored.

As a child star with the Jackson 5, he had the voice, the dance moves, and the stage presence at an incredibly young age. He then morphed into an adult performer and blew everyone away as a creative innovator. He was a songwriter and performed his own material with incredible flair. He broke racial barriers. He set the world of MTV on its ear with the "Thriller" video. He invented the moonwalk. He co-wrote "We Are the World," the first philanthropic project of it's kind.

How he transformed pop culture as we know it cannot be denied.

While his personal life came across as slightly bizarre (politely speaking), the man didn't have to die on June 25. It's not like he was going downhill like Elvis...HE WAS REHEARSING FOR AN UPCOMING TOUR THE NIGHT BEFORE HIS DEATH. We'll learn more about those details in the coming weeks.

Today's memorial events were very emotional, and many performers gave their tearful tributes to him through words and song. Some of them barely kept it together, and some of them didn't.

Jackson's influence was cited and obvious in the memorial performances we saw today...his influence is all around us. Through it all, all these tributes were genuine and from the heart. Today helped to humanize the Michael Jackson mystery.

You can't fake that. You can't fake genuineness.

Legendary Showman "Mr. G" aged gracefully, laughing with dignity... and passed on Halloween, of course.

Robert Goulet, a.k.a. "Mr. G," a nickname he embraced, passed this morning in Los Angeles at the tender young age of 73.

Goulet suffered from a rare form of pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive and fatal condition. He was being treated at Cedars- Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and was awaiting a lung transplant.

Some of you may recall his ads for Emerald Nuts earlier this year, which were pretty damn funny (thanks for the reminder, Thelonius Jay!). I own a CD by Robert Goulet... and I'm damn proud of it. Sure, some of it's cheesy, but the guy makes me laugh. I absolutely love the guy for his humor. You have to respect someone who isn't afraid to laugh at themselves. ...and his voice was pretty good too...

Mr. G won a Theatre World Award for young performers for his Broadway debut as Sir Lancelot in Camelot, the 1960 Lerner and Loewe musical that also starred Richard Burton and Julie Andrews. The role propelled him to popularity in nightclubs and on television, where he became a regular guest during the heyday of variety talk shows, though he never achieved another breakthrough success on par with Camelot.

His later stage appearances included Carousel, The Pajama Game, South Pacific and, on Broadway in 2005, La Cage Aux Folles. He won a Tony Award for best actor in a Broadway musical for The Happy Time in 1968.

Goulet starred in television specials and appeared in series including Fantasy Island, Cannon and Mission: Impossible.

His movie credits included Honeymoon Hotel (1964), Atlantic City (1980) and Beetlejuice (1988), and who could ever forget his role in Naked Gun 2 1/2 (1990). He also voiced the role of Wheezy the Penguin in Toy Story 2 (1999).

Goulet won a Grammy Award for best new artist of 1962. He also became a spokesman for the American Cancer Society after surviving prostate cancer, which was diagnosed in 1993.

In a 2006 poem on his Web site, Goulet mused on the thrill of first experiences: "I'll probably never be that young and green again, and I miss it.''

Robert Gerard Goulet was born Nov. 26, 1933, in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the only son of French-Canadians Joseph and Jeannette Goulet. At age 11, Goulet won the approval of his father, a guard at a textile mill, by singing "Lead Kindly Light'' during a church function, according to his official biography. As he lay dying just weeks later, the elder Goulet told his son: "God gave you a voice. You must sing.''

So then a legendary showman was born...

At 16, Goulet made his professional debut with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. He worked two years as a radio announcer, then won a singing scholarship to the Royal Conservatory of Music at the University of Toronto.

He appeared on stage, radio and television in Canada and hosted a weekly variety show, General Electric's Showtime, for CBC-TV.

In Camelot, which opened on Broadway in December 1960, Goulet's big number was the ballad "If Ever I Would Leave You.'' Reviewer Howard Taubman wrote in The New York Times that Lancelot as a character was "a pompous bore'' but that Goulet sung and played the character "splendidly.''

The show catapulted Goulet, in his late 20s, to be a regular on top American television talk shows, as well as the variety program the "Ed Sullivan Show,'' where his handsome looks were as welcome as his rich voice.

He presented a humble front. "I wish I were a tenor or a bass,'' he said in a 1962 interview with the Times. "I'm a lousy middle-range baritone. It's much more thrilling to sing the very high or the very low notes.''

Regarding the National Anthem; Goulet received some notoriety in 1965 when he flubbed the words to the "Star Spangled Banner'' at the heavyweight fight between Sonny Liston and Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay) in Lewiston, Maine. He always felt he got a bum rap.

"I sang one word wrong,'' Goulet told the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times in 2001. "I sang, 'Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early night' . . . instead of 'light.' One word is all I messed up, and everyone built it up from that time on into something else entirely.''

ESPN introduced Goulet to a new generation in the 1990s by featuring him in retro, humorous advertisements for its college basketball schedule. Goulet also lent his name and voice to a 1993 episode of The Simpsons, showing up to support the casino that young Bart builds in his tree house.

In 2005, Goulet returned to Broadway as a fill-in co-star in a revival of La Cage Aux Folles, playing half of the gay couple at the center of the script. The show gave Goulet, then 71, a chance to show off his lasting skills as a balladeer.

Goulet and Vera Novak, his manager, married in 1982 and shared a 7,000-square-foot house in Las Vegas next to a close friend, the entertainer Wayne Newton.

Goulet had a daughter, Nikki, with his first wife, Louise Longmore, and two sons -- Christopher and Michael -- with his second wife, the actress Carol Lawrence. In a 1990 book, Lawrence said their 12-year marriage ended in 1975 because Goulet was an alcoholic who abused her and their children. Goulet denied ever being "a run-down-in-the-gutter alcoholic'' and said he never missed a performance (most of this information provided by the AP).

Goulet's most memorable performance, however, is a fictional one that occurred on New Year's Day 2002 at the breakfast buffet in Las Vegas' Excalibur. That morning Thelonius Jay (TJ), MH and I mused at the idea of Goulet performing at one of the buffets in Vegas---where he would interrupt himself in the middle of songs to recommend certain food items to buffeters as they stood in line loading up their plates. The musings were revisited between TJ and I, much to the horror of KJ & Sam, on a day trip coming back from Mt. St. Helens in 2004 over Memorial Day weekend.

Thank you, Mr. G, for the years of entertainment and amusement. You will be missed! I'm sure you're laughing your way through the pearly gates, poking fun at yourself. S