Cast Single From Rocky Horror Show @ Chateau Neuf, 1996

July 3rd, 2009

I mentioned a little while back stumbling over and purchasing the cast single from the Rocky Horror Show production from 1996 at Chateat Neuf in Oslo at a fleamarket. So I tried doing some research on it, most notably posting on the RockyMusic forum, and it turns out the CD is a real rarity and has sold for over 200 USD on eBay in the past. Certainly a lot more than I’d expected it to be worth.

Rocky Horror Show

Rocky Horror Chateau Neuf Back

The music doesn’t seem to be available anywhere else, through digital music shops or other sources, so there’s no real way for those who’d want to hear it to actually hear it other than getting their hands on an actual copy. But, as a few other Rocky Horror Show fans expressed their keenness on hearing this recording, I figured I might as well upload it here. (Though I’ve been worrying some that it might affect the resale price of the actual CD…) So, here it is, presented in the same order as on the CD. Enjoy!

“Deilig Transe”

“Science Fiction”

“Tidsflipp”

“Tidsflipp – Instrumental Remix”

The music is, in my opinion, not as good as on the Norwegian cast recording from 1977. But it’s not bad. It’s more rock oriented, with electric guitars. I really like their Columbia, which sound far better than the Columbia from the 1977 cast (which I really couldn’t stand). The remix I have mixed feelings about; the underlying guitar riff is pretty cool, but it gets drowned out by dull drum beats, and I wish they could have included an extra proper song instead.  The lyrics in this version are not the same that were used in the 1977 version, so they apparently did new translations for this production. There doesn’t appear to be any information included on who the performers are. The CD appears to be a promotional item for the show, with tons of sponsors listed but no record label, so I’m guessing it was never available for purchase in stores – though I could be wrong.

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Teacher’s Pet Turns Ugly

July 2nd, 2009

Back in the day I tried to regularly follow (as well as tape) the cartoon show Teacher’s Pet, which used to air on the Disney Channel. So I guess I was a bit of a fan. In 2004 they released a feature film based off the series, simply entitled Teacher’s Pet. I never got to see it, but now and then I would look up the title at web shops to see if I could find it for a low price.

Well, I finally did a few weeks ago, finding it for 5.19 EUR (postage included) through a trade shop on play.com. So I ordered it, and eagerly awaited its arrival, keen to finally get to see it.

But when it arrived yesterday, I was appalled. Here’s what the front of the regular DVD edition of the film is supposed to look like, and how I expected the copy I’d ordered to look like also.

Teacher's Pet

Nothing amazing, but nothing visually offensive either. But here’s what the actual copy I received looked like – both the front and the back.

Teacher's Pet DVD Front Cover

Teacher's Pet DVD Back Cover

They’d taken the original cover and given it a yellow blob frame, both shrinking and obscuring the original design. And they’d made the actual DVD cover’s plastic yellow, to boot. This looks ugly and it looks cheap, almost like some sort of bootleg. I’m guessing this is a re-release of the original DVD, and that some marketing buffon decided that they should give the new line of re-released DVDs matching yellow cover designs; I’ve seen at least one other Disney DVD out there with the same design.

I’m tempted to ask for my money back, but given postage and the fluctuating currency I’d most likely end up losing a bit of money. Not to mention the time and energy I’d need to expend in order to make it happen. Plus, I’d still be on the hunt for a cheap copy of this DVD, and I’d probably not feel safe ordering it from other online stores or sellers anymore, worrying that the copy I would receive would be of the ugly re-release with the yellow blob frame, and not the original. But do I really want to put this… thing… among my other DVDs?

A lose-lose situation for me, the consumer, and I now have the following dilemma on my hands: should I crack the plastic and try to be content with the ugly cover, or go through the fuss of trying to get my money back and not getting to see this film?

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Fidelity Wars #37: Nurse Witch Komugi – “Anata Ga Dai Kirai”

June 28th, 2009

I finished watching the five-episode anime series Nurse Witch Komugi a few days ago. It uses characters from the anime sci-fi action horor series The Soul Taker – which I haven’t seen – and recasts them in this magical girl parody show. Our heroine is Komugi, a professional cosplayer idol who can turn into a magical nurse with a bunny ear costume to fight off evil.

I was first made aware of this series when I stumbled over the catchy and hyperactive Miko Miko Nurse music video. I was curious what anime it was, and set off to do some research to find out. It turned out the song is actually from a game called Miko Miko Nurse, but that the video was footage from the anime series Nurse Witch Komugi. Later I stumbled over the Nurse Witch Komugi DVD collection for about 5-7 EUR over at play.com. Sold!

The series was fun, but perhaps not particularly memorable. It’s like a less hyperactive, less offensive, more otaku oriented, easily digestible, but ultimately less funny Puni Puni Poemy, which is one of my all-time favourites. It is funny though, the visuals are bright and clean, the opening and closing songs are some of the catchier ones I’ve heard, and Komugi’s voice is like velvet coated with sugar in my ears (in other words, great voice acting). The series works very well as an aesthetic whole.

One of the episodes was a music video special, featuring songs and videoes starring the show’s cast. Rather unusual, and somewhat confusing at first, but overall very enjoyable due to the fun visuals and the high quality and the variation of the songs. The voice actress for Komugi, Haruko Momoi, is actually a professional singer as well, so I’m guessing they wanted to use that to their advantage.

A handful of CDs from the show has been released, featuring both songs from the actual anime and new original songs, but unfortunately these CDs are nigh impossible to find here in the west. It’s also night impossible to find any of the music for download, be it legally or illegally. I was able to find one of the show’s CDs for downloading though, but it was encoded in the esoteric mpc file format, and the quality seemed to me sub par. But better than nothing. Fortunately it did have my favourite song from the series, from the music video special, entitled “Anata Ga Dai Kirai” – and this is my pick for the week.

Nurse Witch Komugi CD

Nurse Witch Komugi – “Anata Ga Dai Kirai”

This is a pretty good pop sing! Not only is the melody catchy, but the lyrics are actually somewhat clever and relatable – at least judging from the English translation, though some of it may have been lost in translation. Here is a transcription of the first part of the song, transcribed from the YouTube video which you’ll find below.

About what I felt for you

I may have thought I loved you

But I was just being caught up in the moment

This weekend you stood me up again

Then on Monday, you just say “Sorry”

It’s about time I make you pay

Suddenly with a serious face, I call your name

As you turn around, I make my final special move

I really hate you

Everything about you

I hate it all

I don’t want to see you ever again

I threw away my pride, wanting to fall in love

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The Problem With Malkavians

June 25th, 2009

The Malkavian are one of the thirteen vampire clans in the (popular but now defunct) roleplaying game Vampire: The Masquerade. Each vampire clan have their defining characteristics, like the Gangrel who are known for being feral loners, or the Toreador who value beauty and passion above all else. The Malkavian are mainly known for being insane; all clan members have some form of mental derangement.

LogoClanMalkavian1

The Malkavian clan's official emblem.

The Malkavian clan seem to be a favourite among fans of the game, but Malkavian characters are often mishandled. Too many see it as an excuse to simply do whatever they see fit, and to generally “act silly”. Why not wear bunny slippers and carry a big teddy around? That’s pretty crazy! Or how about blurting out random nonsensical words and phrases, and laughing loudly afterwords? That’s also pretty crazy! In short, Malkavians are often played for comedic purposes. And for geeky comedic purposes at that; no pretensions to Oscar Wilde wit here.

To quote one of my own songs, insanity is no joking matter. Actual mental derangements are usually quite tragic, and not funny. And considering that Vampire: The Masquerade is a roleplaying game in the horror genre, I imagine that Malkavians and their derangements should be played for creepiness; being in their presence should be unsettling – as opposed to an experience that’ll simply give you a head ache, as seems to too often be the case.

Straight Jacket

Those crazy, lovable Malkavians...

One of the best Malkavian characters I have been exposed to so far would probably be Dr. Grout from the PC game Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (an awesome game, by the by, even though they’re also guilty of portraying the more stereotypical Malkavian as well). He’s subtle, creepy, and intriguing, not wearing his insanity on his sleeve. Just listen to this dictation message by the good doctor.

But the Malkavian are a diverse bunch. There probably is room in the Malkavian clan for the in-your-face bunny-slippers-wearing ha-ha-look-at-me-and-how-crazy-I-am types as well, but too often it seems like the clan consists of nothing but these types. My guess is that those particular Malkavians would have a fairly short lifespan (or un-lifespan – get it?), unless the powerful vampire elders are a more tolerant bunch of guys than me.

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Fidelity Wars #36: Sonic Rush Adventure – “Hidden Island”

June 23rd, 2009

The super fast hedgehog Sonic made his debut in 1991 on Sega’s Mega Drive video game console, giving Nintendo’s mascot Super Mario a run for his money. Sonic spawned a number of successful sequels, loved by both fans and critics, until the games took a big dive in quality once the developers started dabbling with 3D. The more recent Sonic games have been panned by critics, but consumers seem to like the character enough for the games to actually sell well, despite low overall review scores. There has been the odd genuinely decent Sonic game among the newer ones though, namely the non-3D games for the handheld consoles, and this week’s track is from the Nintendo DS game Sonic Rush Adventure.

Sonic Rush Adventure Soundtrack

Sonic Rush Adventure – “Hidden Island”

The music from the first Sonic game is still a favourite among video game fans, and I’m definitely a fan of its score as well – although a casual one. I’ve tried idly looking into the scores of the newer games, but haven’t found anything that’s really grabbed me. Then I heard that Sonic Rush Adventure was supposed to have pretty good music, so I gave the soundtrack a try.

While I wasn’t blown away by it, it did have a handfull of decent tunes, of which this was the best. It’s an instrumental version of the title track, I’m guessing it’s used on the Hidden Island level(s?) judging by its name, and it has a nice tropical video game groove to it. Perfect for your 16-bit retro Summer.

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Why I’m Not Very Keen On Buying Digital Music

June 18th, 2009

I’ve been wanting to buy two Darren Hayman releases for a while: the EPs Losing My Glue and Songs For Harmonium And Drum Machine. The former was only available on CD as a free give away at a show, whereas the latter was released as a limited edition vinyl record and I ain’t got no turntable. Fortunately, they’ve both also been released digitally at various online stores.

So I looked into buying both EPs from the store emusic, and they even advertise that you’ll get 25 free downloads if you sign up for a free trial. Hey, that means I could sign up and get both of those releases for free! However, to sign up you have to give them your credit card information. The site also uses a monthly subscription model, as you pay a monthly fee to get a fixed number of downloads for that month. I’m a bit weary of signing up for something like that; though they say it’s a free trial, it may say somewhere in the small print that you also need to subscribe to their services for at least a month after the trial period. I’m not very keen on this kind of subscription model overall; I want to pay for what I want and what I use, not end up with a number of slots I need to fill. Not to mention that there are several albums that have many, often shorter, tracks, which would require a lot of slots to get, and in effect costing more.

So emusic clearly wasn’t the way to go for purchasing these releases digitally.

Then I looked into buying them from the  iTunes Store. So I downloaded the needed software to access it – and boy do I hate it when you have to download software just so you can access a store – and made the needed registrations. The Losing My Glue EP was priced at 16 NOK, which seemed like a reasonable price. I tried finding out some more information about this particular digital copy of the release, such as how the files I’d get would be encoded, their file type and quality, and if there’d be any copy protection, but I wasn’t able to find out anything at all. So I just tried buying the release, figuring it’d probably work, and with 16 NOK not being all that much to potentially lose.

Success! Except, it turned out the files were in the m4a format, which my PMP (Portable Media Player) can’t read.

So then I had to find, download, and install software that would let me convert m4a files into mp3 files. I did, gave it a go, but for some reason the time counter (or whatever it’s called) on the files went haywire; they played okay, but when I played them in Winamp the files registered them as being about six times as long as they actually were. I’ve experienced some audio files with the same problem here and there, and they generally make things tricky when you want to bookmark, skip, or fast forward using any standard audio player or your PMP. Fortunately the same program let me convert m4a files into wav files also. So I did, then used my standard CD ripping software, CDex, to convert the wav files into mp3 files. Somewhere along the road I started doing some research on audio encoding quality as I started worrying that maybe I weren’t churning out mp3 files of the optimal quality level, and maybe that some quality had gotten lost on the way from m4a to wav to mp3.

So no more iTunes store for me. Using three different programs to get the files you want – plus having to do some research on encoding – is too much of a hassle.

So for the EP Songs For The Harmonium And Drum Machine I gave amazon.co.uk a spin, which also has a download store. A bit over 3 GBP for the release seemed like an okay price. They also advertised that the files would be in mp3, encoded at 256 Kbps, and that they’d be playable on most any mp3 player. So that sounded good and reasonably straight forward. I tried using the one-click purchase function, but then I’m told I need to download and install some odd program of theirs before finishing my purchase and downloading the files. Oh joy, another piece of software I need to download and install just so I can be allowed to buy stuff. How consumer friendly.

I download and install the software as they ask me to do, I try again, and I’m told that their download store is not available to non-UK residents.Yes, that makes sense, as it’s awfully expensive to ship non-physical digital purchases abroad. The American amazon.com site seems to have the same policy, not selling mp3s to non-US residents.

So I guess I’ll just wait until someone makes this release available for free online and get it that way, then maybe send Darren a couple of pounds by PayPal or mail.

There are actually a couple of decent-ish, nearly no nonsense digital music stores I’ve used though; there’s CDBaby – (which can be a bit expensive) and there’s the SimBioticStore (which, unfortunately, no longer exists). They’ve been good at just giving you direct links to the files you want, letting you download and re-download freely, with no convoluted hoops to jump through. The SimBioticStore would also let you download the files in the lossless FLAC format (in addition to mp3), the format of choice for audiophiles with gigantic hard drives or very small music collections.

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Fleamarket Findings

June 16th, 2009

For the last three or so years, I’ve taken to hitting the quarterly fleamarket scene. Perhaps odd considering that I’m a bit of a mint condition freak,as most items at fleamarkets have been heavily used (or at least not been taken care of properly). But it’s a good place to find rare gems, and for picking up various crud for a small sum. I do try to keep my fleamarket purchases separated from my regular purchases though, so as not to sully their near mint condition’ness. But with some exceptions. For example, if the fleamarket item is new, or in perfect condition, or if it’s sufficiently awesome.

Here are a few of the more interesting items (to me, at least) I’ve bought at fleamarkets.

Deer

A beautiful original drawing of two deer bought earlier this year, with its own custom glass frame. I believe I paid 15 NOK for it. (Think of it as 1.5 USD.) Very happy with that purchase. According to the signature it was done in 1961. The first name of the artist is Finn, but the last name is harder to make out – looks like it might be Brenvig. No idea who he is; maybe he was an art school student, or a hobby artist, or maybe a full fledged professional artist. Regardless of its origins, I really like it. Fleamarkets are a good place to loot for original art.

Cyberpunk

The source book for the roleplaying game Cyberpunk 2020. The book could’ve been in better condition. Will I ever get to use it? Probably not. Have about half a dozen roleplaying game books in my shelves which I haven’t yet used – like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Sailor Moon roleplaying games. Still, it’s nice to have your own li’l library of roleplaying books readily available.

Snowboard Kids + Mission Impossible

Two games for the Nintendo 64: Snowboard Kids and Mission Impossible. Not exactly games I’ve been dying to play (though I vaguely recall playing the latter game some when I was younger), but I always get excited when I stumble over console games at a fleamarket.  At the same fleamarket they also had The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time, Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, and 1080 Snowboarding. The first two I mentioned I already have, and I felt that I had the two genres that the two remaining games represented pretty much covered – for my kart gaming needs I have Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and for my semi-serious snowboarding game I have SSX 3, both for the GameCube. So I ended up with the two games as pictured above. No idea when I’ll get around to trying them; been ages since I played my Nintendo 64.

Rocky Horror Show

My jaw must have dropped when I stumbled over this at a fleamarket last Saturday; I had no idea this existed. It’s a cast single from the Rocky Horror Show production from 1996 at Chateat Neuf in Oslo, featuring three tracks from the musical and one remix track. While not as good as the other Norwegian Rocky Horror Show cast recording (which I stumbled over in a bargain bin about five years ago), it’s pretty neat. If there’s any interest I may be persuaded to upload it, seeing as how it’s ten plus years old and out of production and only available through fleamarkets.

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Fidelity Wars #35: The Books feat. José González – “Cello Song”

June 14th, 2009

My internet problems are still present, but the music won’t be stopped! It marches through my veins like giant radioactive rubber pants! The pants command me. Do not ignore my veins!  </Invader Zim reference>

My pick for this week is a track off the charity compilation Dark Was The Night, in which the North American experimental electronica folk band The Books team up with less experimental Swedish-Argentinian singer-songwriter José González to cover Nick Drake’s “Cello Song”.

Dark Was The Night

The Books feat. José González – “Cello Song”

I’m not sure if The Books really needed the help of José on this one, as they’ve done a perfectly fine solo performance of the song previously. All the same, it’s a wonderful take on a wonderful tune, relaxing, and it helped re-introduce me to the music of Nick Drake.

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Fidelity Wars #34: Chicken Damage – “Furniture Store / Keep On”

June 6th, 2009

I was introduced to the song “Furniture Store” through a recording of The Mountain Goats. Through research I find out that the song is originally by the band Furniture Huschle, and was later covered by the band Chicken Damage, for which John Darnielle – aka. The Mountain Goats – occasionally played drums.

The cover by Chicken Damage is pretty rockin’ and has been on heavy rotation on my Winamp. This is what DIY lo-fi indie rock should sound like! They’ve also mixed in the song “Keep On” from the popular The Brady Bunch sitcom. I wish they could’ve repeated the actual song “Furniture Store” (which is pretty brief) one or two times more though, before shifting to “Keep On”. It’s a fun piece none the less, and my pick for the week.

Chicken Damage – “Furniture Store / Keep On”

As an added bonus, I’ll throw in the live version by The Mountain Goats mentioned above, too.

The Mountain Goats – “Furniture Store”

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Master’s Thesis Reference Tower

June 5th, 2009

Due to problems with the internet (or rather the router and my computer’s network card), I have been unable to do any blogging for the past couple of weeks. There are still problems present, but I’m hoping everything will be functioning and stable in a week’s time or so.

In more exciting news, yesterday I found Viewtiful Joe 2 for the GameCube, new and sealed, for 40 NOK in a bargain bin at Europris. (Think of it as 4 USD.) And I bought it, too. I haven’t played any of the games in the series, but I’ve heard the first two are pretty original and fun. No idea if you ought to have played the first game before the second, or if it’s pretty redundant.

At the same store I also saw some beautiful candle lights in neon lilac that I was tempted to buy. But not sure what I’d use them for. Seemed most appropriate for romantic dinners, which don’t happen all that often due to the lack of a romantic dinner partner. Perhaps I could have a faux romantic dinner with a friend, where we’d stare ironically into each other’s eyes and sarcastically compliment one another. Then we’d play Viewtiful Joe 2.

I also finished my master’s thesis for my master’s in philosophy about a week ago. (And yes, that was pretty much the worst possible time to lose the internet connection.) I was done at 8 in the morning, and didn’t manage to get much sleep after my li’l all nighter. So I amused my sleep deprived brain with building a thesis reference tower – taking every single book and text I’d used for my thesis and stacking the literature on top of one another. Then I amused myself by putting a few other items on top of the tower again, and taking pictures. Here are a few of them.

A total of 36 sources, books and papers.

re_0905260154

Who’s this mysterious figure standing atop the tower?

re_0905260160

Why, it’s Resident Evil 3’s mutated menace Nemesis!

re_0905260162

Looking smart in a new hat.

re_0905260177

Oh my… I apologize, miss; I should have knocked.

re_0905260184

I’ve created a monster!

re_0905260181

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