Full Details On Mikey Hawdon's At-Home Quarantunes With His Ukelele!!

Over the past two months, friends of veteran local punk musician Mikey Hawdon will have seen his (mostly) daily series of "quarantunes" on his personal Facebook page, where he does video covers on vocals and ukelele. We addressed his publically shared Monty Python cover on the site last month, but the floodgates are now open for the Inner City Surfers drummer's quarantune videos, as Mikey has slowly been uploading them to his YouTube channel over the past week! All 60 videos (to date) can now be watched there, and you do get a sense of the series' progression, starting with spare solo performances and increasingly featuring special guests filmed remotely. Each video is bite-sized, with most running for under 2 minutes, and none exceed 3 minutes, so it won't take much time at all to see all of these. The first episode of Mikey and his uke saw him cover Bad Religion's "Infected", but there is a lot more to see than just that cover!

Punk, hard rock, and metal fans will be interested in seeing Mikey's acoustic take on songs by The Beastie Boys, Blind Melon, The Clash, The Dickies, Green Day, The Misfits, Motley Crue, Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, No Doubt, The Offspring, Queen, Rancid, The Salads, and even his own current Toronto punk band The Fairmounts, but songs in our genre range are not the majority. If you peruse Mikey's channel, you'll find pop, comedy, indie, classic rock, reggae, and country tunes, and even TV show themes, so there's something for every taste! A number of name musicians do turn up in the quarantunes from #23 onward, including many of his past and present bandmates, and while many are not from the Soo (Mikey lives in Toronto), there are lots of familiar faces. For example, look for Tidal Records colleagues like Jay Case, Frank Deresti, and Sheldon Jaaskelainen in guest spots, among others. Given Mikey's vast music connections, there are some huge gets along the way as well!

His cover of The Offspring's 'The Kids Aren't Alright" features that band's guitarist Noodles, members of The Salads factor on multiple videos (particularly "Get Loose"), and arguably the most notable of all sees Mikey and friends covering The Penguins' "Earth Angel" in a throwback to Mikey's favourite movie, Back To The Future (if you know him well, you know how much he loves that franchise.) This cover just so happens to feature lead vocals from Harry Waters Jr., who played Marvin Berry, the frontman of The Starlighters during the Enchantment Under The Sea Dance in 1955 Hill Valley, where they played "Earth Angel" with Marty McFly. I'm sure most of you know the scene, but just in case some readers needed context! Mikey outlines how this cover came together in this SooToday article from Chris Belsito earlier today, and it's a great read if you're curious about the quarantunes series, it's growth during the pandemic, and it's future!

Mikey does plan to continue posting quarantune videos with his uke as long as the pandemic continues, and I hope to cover them more regularly now that they have a public outlet on his YouTube channel (including 5 proto-installments recorded in Hawaii two years ago.) Mikey's a good punk singer, and while his chosen cover songs vary in suitability to the ukelele, most work in fun and/or poignant ways, and it's great to see collaborations that wouldn't be readily possible if it weren't for the internet! To feature in this post, I wanted to pick the most relevant cover for the local punk scene given Mikey's deep local roots, and I settled on last week's quarantune cover of The Misfits' "Some Kinda Hate", which features Mikey on ukelele alongside Anti-Queens frontwoman Valerie Knox on lead vocals, Mikey's ex-Lion Ride bandmate Mark Rand on bass, his wife/Cross Dog bandmate Tracy on backing vocals, and Mikey & Mark's old Taliband bandmate Aaron Mooney on percussion (not really drums.)

In this format, the cover has a very indie/pop rock vibe, and it's a fun (if short) listen! I like how the musicians pop into frame in separate windows, though I'd have oriented them more like Black Flag's logo. I don't know if this will make up for this month's cancelled Anti-Queens concert in the Soo, but it's nice to see Valerie grace a virtual stage with Saultites, at least! Give this cover a watch below, see much more at the above links, and kudos to Mikey for giving everyone something to look forward to every day during this nonsense! I hope to feature more of these videos on the SMS soon, but look for a new news post tomorrow! Thanks everyone!