The Treble Tribute

by Jeff Terich

02.13.2006

Nearly a year has passed since the last installment of the Treble tribute. We didn't forget about it, we just got a little distracted. After seeing Akron/Family at The Casbah a couple weeks ago, the seed for a new tribute was planted in my head, however. Opening band Silver Sunshine played a space-rock cover of David Bowie's "Andy Warhol" that rocked, but immediately diverted my imagination to how cool the song would sound covered by other bands. Doug Martsch's old band Treepeople once covered it in the early '90s to rockin', yet sloppy effect. And Stone Temple Pilots covered it when they played MTV Unplugged. Yet, at the time, I had a strange desire to hear Destroyer play the Bowie classic. Something about Dan Bejar's voice just seems to work with that particular vocal melody. But the more I thought about it, the more sense it made for Bejar to cover "The Bewlay Brothers," the epic closer to Bowie's Hunky Dory.

At this point, I had already started a new tribute. In that there are so many tribute albums that suck (there are scant few that don't), it was my goal to plan a truly awesome one. Seeing as how it's only a fantasy tribute league here, we may never actually hear any of these covers happen, but the concept alone was enough to write a column about it: an all-Canadian tribute to David Bowie. Why all Canadian? Well, first of all, Destroyer's Canadian. Second of all, Bowie sang with the Arcade Fire recently, so there's another one. And Wolf Parade sounds like Bowie from time to time as well, so that sealed it. Three bands turned into 18, and one disc became two. At nine songs per disc, that may seem like slim pickin's for a double-album, but once you see the tracklist and the bands involved it'll make a little more sense.

Panic in Toronto: A Canadian Tribute To David Bowie

Disc one

1.The Dears "Space Oddity"
2.Russian Futurists "Sound and Vision"
3.Death From Above 1979 "Breaking Glass"
4.Wolf Parade "Andy Warhol"
5.Feist "Starman"
6.Arcade Fire "Life on Mars"
7.Metric "Queen Bitch"
8.Destroyer "The Bewlay Brothers"
9.The New Pornographers "Rebel, Rebel"

Disc two

1.Caribou "Speed of Life"
2.Stars "Ziggy Stardust"
3.Black Mountain "Watch That Man"
4.Hot Hot Heat "Panic in Detroit"
5.Jason Collett "Soul Love"
6.Constantines "Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)"
7.Junior Boys "Let's Dance"
8.AC Newman "Ashes to Ashes"
9.Broken Social Scene "Heroes"

The first disc begins with…we'll say…a 7 minute rendition of "Space Oddity," done by Montreal's Dears, as epic and emotional as all their songs tend to be. Then The Russian Futurists get to do their drum-machine electro-pop thing with "Sound and Vision," while Death From Above 1979 fuzz-bass the hell out of "Breaking Glass." After giving "Bewlay" over to Bejar, "Andy Warhol" only sounded right if handed over to Wolf Parade, so it was. Feist's loungy versions of Bee Gees songs worked so well that she gets to do the same thing with "Starman." Another extended version pops up when the Arcade Fire do "Life on Mars," and only Metric seemed sassy enough to take on "Queen Bitch." The first disc then gets closed out with the New Pornographers doing their Pornographic thing to "Rebel, Rebel."

The second disc finds Caribou psych-Krauting up the sole instrumental here, Low's "Speed of Life." Stars lend some new wave ethereality to "Ziggy Stardust," as Black Mountain do "Watch That Man," Sabbath-style. Hot Hot Heat was a tough one to handle, but "Panic in Detroit" seemed an appropriate choice for them to spazz it up. Jason Collett would do a fine job with Ziggy Stardust's "Soul Love," as the Constantines would destroy "Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)" with their mighty rock. The last few are my personal favorites, however. First, Junior Boys do a sleek, icy version of "Let's Dance" with just a little bit of stutter step danceability. AC Newman, appearing for the second time here, would most certainly cover "Ashes to Ashes" to great effect. Just think of "Come Crash" and "Better Than Most" played simultaneously and you get something close to the original. And lastly, and here's the kicker: Broken Social Scene does heroes, noisy and shoe-gazey, with each of their singers trading verses (because, you know, there are six). Kevin Drew gets one, Emily Haines gets one, Feist gets one…it's just a big messy party, as it usually is.

After reading all that, wouldn't you buy this record? Now it's up to the artists and a label to actually pull it off.