John Gushue . . . Dot Dot Dot

How to get through the tail end of a long weekend

A little late, but here's Alan Doyle's contribution to Strombo for the end of the Victoria Day weekend: 

 

It's The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

Rapture this, dudes. It's Great Big Sea covering R.E.M.

Great Big Sea gets a nod in R.E.M. covers list

When I saw that Paste magazine has compiled a list of the best covers of R.E.M. songs, I thought to myself, "I sure hope they know about Great Big Sea."

Of course they do. The GBS cover of It's The End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) is there, with a particular nod to the mandolin. It's a daunting song to cover, if only because of the speed-train of a beat and a truckload of complicated words.

You can sample the whole list here.

Here's the Great Big Sea cover:

Here's the R.E.M. original, from 1987:

Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom.

Good People

My favourite Great Big Sea song at the moment. (Subject to change.)