The bands in our 2012 Rock Camp were out of this world. They were all tight and well-rehearsed. In fact, many of the songs were so good that YouTube mistook them for the original tune and attempted to block them. We appealed and won. In 2012 our groups did everything from All Day, All Night by the Kinks to Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit. We even had an original composition, To Live Another Day which was written by one of our frequent campers. This year, three different bands covered Canadian rock groups, and no, they weren’t all Rush. The other two were from the independent (indie) music scene and gave our campers some extra challenges.
If you are not familiar with this genre of music, it’s music outside of the major recording companies and it is teeming with exceptionally talented and creative musicians who push the boundaries of their art. Picking songs that incorporate this level of artistry often opens the door for our Rock Camp groups to explore new genres of music and imagine new horizons for their own music.
Here they are, the three Canadian rock covers as performed by Toronto Music Camp:
Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains). Arcade Fire is well known on the indie circuits. Based out of Montreal, their music is inimitably eclectic, bringing in elements from world music, jazz and new wave, among other things, to create a truly unique sound.
TMC’s Elbow Grease took on Arcade Fire’s Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) and did a great job reflecting the song’s upbeat tempo and a high vocal range.
Soldier. TMC’s Trapped in Chinatown covered Soldier, a tune by none other than Toronto’s own illScarlett. The Rock Camp group performed the song with style and grace, capturing the song’s heavy reggae sound and filling in the essential rock elements.
Xanadu. The TMC rock band quartet known as The Results put themselves to the test by taking on Rush’s Xanadu. Like most of Rush’s songs, Xanadu has a lot of intricacies that many musicians might shy away from; The Results performed it beautifully. Perhaps they set the bar a little too high. No group in 2013 attempted such a feat as the all-mighty technically precise Rush.
These are just a few of the Rock Camp videos from 2012. Frankly, there are many incredible videos that are worth watching; too many to list here. The talented kids that walk through the door summer after summer are real pros in the making and so are the videos. Our sound engineer and videographer spend half the day setting up professional recording equipment and syncing the camera with the music. The proof is in the pudding – our weekly bands walk away from camp with a beautifully recorded video to commemorate their week of Rock Camp. You can see all of the videos on our YouTube channel.
