It has been a while since I posted! So here’s a GIF of Elisabeth’s winking aunt from the educational DVD Penger PÃ¥ Papiret (Money On Paper). Hope Café Ambrosia is doing well.



It has been a while since I posted! So here’s a GIF of Elisabeth’s winking aunt from the educational DVD Penger PÃ¥ Papiret (Money On Paper). Hope Café Ambrosia is doing well.
I have been working at a radio station for a couple of years, during which I have been involved in a bit of everything: social media, technical maintenance, playlists and rotation, writing content, hosting and producing my own show, and probably more things that I’m forgetting.
I’m by no means an expert, but seeing how things work behind the scenes I have some simple advice to give to any artists and bands looking to approach radio stations and other media outlets (like television, magazines, and blogs). These bits of advice actually serve a dual purpose: while they should help with your promotional campaign (increasing your chances of getting noticed and getting some attention), several of these points are also to make life easier for whoever’s at the receiving end of your promotional campaign. The easier you make the jobs of those at the receiving end, the better their impression of you and your music will be. If it’s a hassle to download your latest tune or finding a usable press picture of you or your band, they might not bother, moving on to the next candidate instead.
First thing’s first. You need to have a webpage about yourself or your band. It should contain information about who you are, a few pictures (which can be freely used and distributed by media, and ideally both staged and live pictures), and links to all your social media channels. Remember to include contact information on your site, like an e-mail address you can be reached at.
Going somewhere to get interviewed? Bring merchandise, if you have any. Tote bags and coffee cups with your artist or band name are great, or other functional and reusable items. Chances are they will see some actual use and serve as subtle reminders of you and your music. I’ve seen this happen several times. Bringing one or more copies of your album doesn’t hurt either, if you have spares. They might get integrated into the studio’s collection, or find a home with someone else working there (and these are generally the people you want to be aware of- and have easy access to your music).
E-mail everyone about your new release. Don’t limit yourself to the big, obvious choices. Try to do some research, find the e-mail addresses of smaller radio stations, magazines, and blogs. Maybe there’s a local news show on TV?
If you have the capacity, send them all physical letters and include a physical copy of your new release. Yes, some outlets might hate getting mail (and if they explicitly state on their website that they don’t want mail, respect that wish), but it does force them to be exposed to your music in a more direct way and increases your chances of being noticed. E-mails are easily ignored and forgotten, but an actual press-release and CD on your desk might stay around for a while and serve as a reminder.
Make your music easily downloadable. When e-mailing, include a link to a Dropbox folder (or similar) where your release can be downloaded. Make sure they’re available to download as both compressed mp3s and uncompressed WAVs. Also make sure to tag the mp3s correctly (you wouldn’t believe how many leave their mp3s untagged, creating more work for those who will have to manually write in all the information for anything that goes into rotation or into any other kind of music database). In the download folder you could also include a PDF version of your press release, a higher resolution version of your cover art, and maybe a couple of bonus press pictures.
Unless requested specifically to do so, don’t share the folder directly with whatever e-mail address you’re writing to through whatever built-in sharing feature might be available, which Dropbox and Google Drive offer. Instead, just send a link that can be accessed by anyone who has the link. It’s a lot easier. The e-mail address you’re trying to share the folder with might not have a Dropbox-account, or the music might need to be accessed by someone else who also works there. While it might give you more control of who has access, it makes the whole process more cumbersome.
Also include a link to somewhere your release can be streamed. Being able to listen instantly to a release can be convenient, not having to download individual music tracks (which you have to remember where you saved, and they take up space). Dropbox sort of works for streaming, as they have an integrated music player, but Soundcloud or Bandcamp are even better. But be sure you do this in addition to making your music easily available for download, not instead of. Sometimes downloading is better, other times streaming, so offer both.
Are you getting interviewed on the air, or getting a feature piece in a music blog? Great! Now promote the heck out of it. Tag the outlet, share any of its relevant posts. Try getting a few exclusive pictures if it requires travelling somewhere (like to a studio). Post the pictures on your Facebook page. The outlet usually appreciates the social media attention, and your fans and friends will likely find it exciting too.
Finally, keep your expectations low and appreciate each success. You’ve gotten an interview in a magazine or a song on the radio, but that’s no time to rest on your laurels. Unless you’re one of the very few and very lucky bands or artists who manage to break through into the mainstream, chances are you will have to keep promoting and fighting for attention, for every single, EP, and album release.
Good luck!
Clearly this independent label (TTSCC) knows too much.
As a moderately interesting aside, my brother was actually a substitute teacher for Magnus Carlsen’s class once or thrice at the local school.
While browsing the pony section at a toy store in Stockholm (Sweden) during my last trip there, I stumbled over this obvious My Little Pony knock-off toy: Beauty Horse.
What’s fascinating is that they have combined two different pony toy design generations: the blue to the left is reminiscent of the older My Little Pony toy designs, while the one to the right is how the current My Little Pony toys look like. Perhaps they’re trying to offer the best of both worlds: why choose between old or new when you can have both?
Of course, it wouldn’t be a genuine imitation product without some lovingly crafted, borderline nonsensical marketing taglines on the box. At the bottom of the front we can read the following: fashion Horses. Why they capitalize the first letter in horses and not fashion I do not know. Underneath it says: Lovely Horses A Barrel Of Fun Best Friend as one long sentence. It just rolls off the tongue.
Now to the back of the box. At the top to the right there’s some text in an oval shape, announcing: Lovely Funny New Friend. It’s unclear which of the two ponies in the box is our lovely funny new friend. Presumably the pink one, as the informative oval is itself pink and has been placed closest to the pink pony. Further down there’s a yellow star announcing: Happy time. Now if we’re still in doubt as to whether this is the product for us, they list three final selling points at the very bottom: Funny series product! Best gift for children! Let your children grow up in happiness. Who wouldn’t want their children to grow up in happiness? Though for some reason, this final statement did not receive an exclamation point as the two previous statements did. Perhaps they felt the statement was so impactful on its own that an exclamation point would just be silly. Or maybe they left it out in an attempt to inspire a brief, quiet moment of contemplation so each consumer can consider their own children’s current state of happiness before making a purchasing decision. Beauty Horse works in mysterious ways.
They also had this beast there, collecting a total of four ponies based on (I think) three different generations of pony toy designs.
The box is similar to the previous one, but they have placed the taglines from the back of the smaller box – which were in the pink oval and the gold star – to the front of the box, putting them into three purple hearts. They have also divided the tagline from the pink oval in half so that it makes less sense (lovely funny?), and the word new has been entirely capitalized.
It was surprising to see these in a regular toy store right next to the legitimate My Little Pony toy line. I thought imitation products normally did not also make their way onto retail store shelves, and that if stores carried them they would normally not carry the authentic product. But perhaps it’s more common than I think.
I somewhat regret not buying one of the small double pony ones. 60 SEK isn’t all that much, and it’s a neat example of modern knock-off pop culture. It’s practically a collectible in its own right! It could also be an amusing joke gift to some brony friends of mine.
It has been a while since I posted anything new to this blog. This is due to a combination of life, obligations, and procrastination. The life part includes some very bad luck happening the first three to four months of this year, including head trauma and hard drive crash. But I do hope to get more into blogging again soon. Perhaps doing shorter entries, and/or more personal entries about creative projects. We’ll see.
As a treat of sorts, here’s something I’ve considered posting for a while: the Norwegian soundtrack EP released for the animated movie Jungeldyret (known as Jungledyret in its original Danish, and Go Hugo Go or Jungle Jack internationally). I bought the CD as a kid, and I believe I even bought it right after having seen the movie at the theater. My memory is a bit woozy. I think I maybe saw it with my aunt, but again, it’s a while back so it’s hard to remember clearly. I’m uploading it here as these songs (in Norwegian) are not currently available anywhere else, and who knows if they ever will be.
Enjoy!
Cover scan / Disc scan / WAV files
If you are the rights holder for this release and would like it taken down, let me know and I will remove it from this blog.
There’s a bus and car depot not too far from where I live. Some years back (in 2007 to be precise), I saw there was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles themed bus parked there, presumably to be scrapped or sold. So naturally, I went to take a few pictures.
The bus is a so-called russebuss. It’s a strange Norwegian tradition where graduating high schoolers all chip in to get a party bus, getting it decorated to fit some particular theme. The russ tradition also includes wearing specific outfits (the colours are decided by what you’re studying), getting badges (similar to boy/girl scouts, except revolving around silly and vulgar things like spending the night in a roundabout or streaking), and getting together to party and play loud obnoxious party music. You can read more about it here.
I was never really a russ myself, not feeling comfortable in the teenage party miljø. Plus, it seemed like a bit of waste of money. Though I did idly speculate in getting a party hearse instead, maybe together with some other introverted counter-culture friends.
Anyway. This bus looks (or looked, as the case might be) pretty neat. Not all of my pictures are great, in part due to how the bus was parked and the lighting at the time. But they should give a good idea of what the bus looked like.
Note that the bus reads Teenage Hero Tørtels. The tørtels part is the common Norwegian phonetic pronunciation of the turtles; I believe the show aired as Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles on Norwegian and Swedish television (read more here); and I guess they just didn’t have room for the mutant part on the sign. It also reads Ã¥rets buss ’07, which translates to bus of the year ’07. So presumably it won an award or two in 2007 at one of the larger russe-gatherings.
Enjoy!
I have written about the anime series Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight! before. (Over here.) To quickly reiterate, the series was almost really good. It had so many things going for it, including a really excellent and heartfelt ending (which is a rarity for any series). At times it was incredibly interesting, like how the show did a 180 in one episode and suddenly became a dark psychological thriller, or how they tied up the opening sequence of the show with its ending. But it’s still hard to recommend due to the overall tedium of the series.
AÂ while back I stumbled over a curious remix/mash-up on YouTube, combining the instrumental arrangement of the show’s opening with the vocals from the pop song “What’s My Name?” by Rihanna. I’m not familiar with the pop song at all, but the mash-up sounds quite wonderful, the two complementing each other brilliantly. I’m curious whether any auto-tune type tweaking was needed or if the two were so similar that it was more or less just a copy and paste job. The mash-up is credited to Nakinyko, and it’s this week’s featured tune.
Another journal showing off some of the more interesting items I’ve found at fleamarkets this season (and possibly the season before that as well; things have kind of piled up). Due to length, I’ve this time tried sorting everything into roughly defined categories.
Figures & Figurines
A set of plastic figures from the Watership Down TV series. Was very surprised to stumble over these when going to a random fleamarket at Heggedalshallen in Heggedal (which was a pretty good fleamarket overall). I actually didn’t know what these were when I got them, but I thought they looked cute and interesting and I saw they were all part of the same series. It wasn’t until I got back home that I realized what they were, looking up the different names printed under the different figures. I got a couple of double ones (I bought all the ones I could find), but sadly there are a couple missing to make a complete set. I regret not using more time to browse in the boxes in the toys section, as maybe the missing figures were hiding there somewhere.
The bulk of figures I bought this fleamarket season.
Wile E. Coyote, Taz the Tasmanian Devil, and Sylvester and Bugs Bunny on surfboards. All well-known Looney Tunes characters.
A mouse by the name of Colette who’s from the Geronime Stilton book series, an unknown something or other (see below for more pictures and speculation), Fifi the pink poodle from Rugrats in Paris, a mole wearing a monocle pointing at his crotch while holding a caterpillar (no idea where he’s from, looks like something from Aardman Animations – see below for a close-up), and a pretty ugly version of the bloated duck from the Bonbon Andemad candy bags. (See below for more, and prettier, Bonbon figures.)
Finally we have Amy from Sonic the Hedgehog, Fluttershy from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and Puss from the Shrek movie-series and more recently the the Puss in Boots movie. As it’s a chubby version of the Puss character, it must be from Shrek Forever After.
There are two things I really like about this mole figure. The first is that his monocle is see through plastic (with gray painted along the sides), giving a neat effect. The second thing I like is his rather obscene gesture, pointing down while grinning. I do not know what movie or show this character is from.
Another mystery character. It looks like a mouse or an otter maybe. He (or she) has a football, has the Norwegian flag on his shoulders, appears to be wearing a captain’s / pilot’s hat, and has SAS on his back. (SAS being a Scandinavian airline.) An old mascot SAS used, perhaps? Something related to some football team or event? I have no idea. The figure itself isn’t bad though, and it has some impressive paint work and details.
Buttercup and Blossom from The Powerpuff Girls. A great show, and these figures look pretty good too (though Blossom’s hair is slightly damaged, but you can’t see it from the front). Sadly they can’t stand on their own, so I’m guessing they were a part of… something that would keep them erect. Maybe some sort of decorative mobile you’d hang in the ceiling?
Figures from the Danish Bonbon brand of candy which was popular here in Scandinavia, who’s schtick it was to feature somewhat vulgar anthropomorphic animal characters on their candy bags, with the contents made to simulate whatever the vulgarity was. Below you will find the mascots for: Andemad (translates to “duck food”; the bloated duck), Tisse-bleer (translates to “pee/wet diapers”; the baby hippo with the blue head), Puh-bæ (I think it translates to something like “yucky poop” or “smelly poop”; the pig on the potty), Bladlus (translates to “aphids”; the green bug on the leaf), and Bøvsss (translates to a long “buuurp”; the baby lion laying on its back). These are very small and easy to overlook when you’re looking through containers of toys.
Three figures from Rugrats. Some googling reveals that these are actually pencil holders/huggers (in the same series as Fifi the poodle seen above). I actually thought they were supposed to combine together in some way to be a decorative piece, so I was keen on getting more of them. Pencil holders are slightly less exciting, but the figure designs are still nice.
A sassy/saucy/sexy reindeer ornament. Unlike Santa, she doesn’t care if you’ve been a naughty boy.
I presume this figure is supposed to be of Minnie Mouse, but it really just looks like Mickey Mouse in a dress. Or did Mickey wear a dress at some point in some cartoon, and this figure is based on that?
Games
Some random video games I picked up cheaply. Alas I own neither a Sega Dreamcast, nor a Sega Genesis (nor a Sega Mega Drive for that matter). But who knows what the future might bring; I never thought I’d get a PlayStation 2, and now I have two of them! (See below.)
Yes, that’s right, I now have two PlayStation 2 consoles. A friend was kind enough to donate one to me a couple of years back, complete with game pads and a memory card. Then at a recent fleamarket, I stumbled over one for sale. But they didn’t know whether or not it was working; they only had the power adapter for it (and one controller), and not the TV cable. So they weren’t able to test the picture. But as it was clearly able to be turned on, I figured it was a fairly safe bet that the picture and everything else would be in order. So I got it for 100 NOK, and indeed when I came home to test it with the TV connector from my other PS2, it worked fine! (Unlike the PSOne I’d bought at a previous fleamarket, which didn’t work at all. But thankfully I’d only spent about 20 NOK on that one. If I had the necessary skills, I’d try making it into a waffle iron or somesuch.)
Books
Some near mint condition Disney story books. They had a few more, and I now regret not buying more of them.
Various Lion King books in varying states of decay. The hardback ones are in pretty good condition, the non-hardback ones… in less good condition. I’m particularly interested in spin-off books, those that tell original stories not seen in any of the films. Those are harder to come by. I believe the most famous and sought after ones – compiled in the Six New Adventures box set – were never published in Norway, so there’s not much chance of ever stumbling over those. Still, I can hope.
I loved Tiny Toon Adventures as a kid. (Or Tiny Toons, as I’d normally call it.) One of the funnier cartoon shows at the time. Then Animaniacs came along, which made TTA seem dull and dumb in comparison, making it effectively obsolete for me. Anyway, here are two story books, both in pretty decent condition, and one still even has its price tag.
A horror manga I hadn’t heard of before: Cat Eyed Boy by Kazuo Umezu. Looks to be in almost mint condition, except for a slight tear at the side. Annoyingly it’s just volume one, and I need to purchase volume two to complete the story. I guess I should be thankful that there aren’t even more additional volumes.
Eventyrbånd
Turns out, EvetyrbÃ¥nd are fairly collectible. I was actually contacted by someone in relation to my find of two sealed copies of Alf Blir Detektiv, who offered to  buy them from me. Then later I was contacted by yet another guy wanting to buy them from me, but by then I’d already sold them to the first guy. Sorry!
So I’ve started picking more of these up when I’m able. They’re often in pretty bad shape though, and those copies I usually just ignore. But here are a few of the ones I ended up picking up.
I found two almost sealed, almost mint condition copies. There’s Barnas Ønskejul, which seems to have been meticulously opened so as to cause the least amount of damage, and the book has been re-inserted. I guess whoever owned it wanted to enjoy the contents, but at the same time appreciated the packaging and wanted to keep them in as good condition as possible. Hence this compromise. But, it was missing the tape, though at the same fleamarket I actually found both another copy of the book, and the tape. They were in a plastic bag, somewhat hidden away. The tape was in mint condition. Which made me believe that maybe the tape was the original one from the packaging. Rather curious.
Then there’s Dumbo, which seems to have sustained some damage. Maybe at the fleamarket when being shuffled around, or maybe prior. So the plastic container for the tape has been kind of crunched. But other than that, it doesn’t look bad, and unlike Barnas Ønskejul it doesn’t seem to have been opened at all.
And two worn copies of just the books without the tapes: Bambi – Sommerfuglenes Hemmelighet, and Den Lille Havrfruen. The former I got because I haven’t seen many Bambi spin-off stories and it’s one of my favourite Disney films, and the latter because it was a plastic bag sale (you buy a plastic bag and fill it as much as you want and are able) and I had the room for it.
VHS & DVDs
I was very surprised to stumble over five movies by renowned B-movie studio and distributor Troma Entertainment. But this was during the first day of the fleamarket, so the prices were still steep, and knowing I’d come back the next day I figured I’d buy them then, when the prices were lower. What were the chances anyone would be interested in these?
Of course, two of them were gone the next day. But thankfully it was Toxic Avenger (which I already own a copy of) and Sizzle Beach, U.S.A. (which, from what I’ve gathered, is a forgettable soft core erotica comedy film starring Kevin Costner), which were the ones I was the least interested in. So I ended up with Surf Nazis Must Die, Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D., and Troma’s War.
Four “films” by the Spanish animation studio BRB Internacional. I say “films” as I believe they’re all just heavily abridged versions of cartoon series with the same name. Â The “films” are:Â Gnomenes Fantastiske Reise, Willy Fog: Jorden Rundt PÃ¥ 80 Dager, Dogtanian: En For Alle, Alle For En, and Sondokan.
Two more DVDs: Dunderklumpen, a Swedish animated film I’ve been curious about, and Den Lille Gjetergutten, which I’ve no idea what is.
A VHS special collector’s edition of Titanic, which I only bought because I thought it could be worth something. Plus, it was cheap. I don’t care for the movie at all. The box comes with prints from the film, as well as a few frames from one of the film rolls.
Of course, it turned out it was pretty worthless. So now I own a worthless copy of the Titanic collector’s edition VHS.
A collection of animated films (and series) on VHS. Most of which are fairly obscure, and I don’t think they’re available on any other formats (yet). At least not the Norwegian dubs.
Jungel Patruljen: De Tre SmÃ¥ Grisene, Leo The Lion: Jungelens Konge (curious that they didn’t translate the title of the film into Norwegian, but that they did translate the sub-title), Skriket Fra Villmarken (which is a slightly odd translation of The Call Of The Wild, as it translates back to The Scream From The Wild; I think Villmarkens Kall would have been a better translation)…
… Jungel Boken (written incorrectly as two words), Jorden Rundt PÃ¥ 80 Dager…
… and another Jungelboken (this time written correctly), and De Morsomme Kattene.
More VHS tapes! More animation, and a few live action ones.
Beyond: Behind The Scenes – Universal Studios Hollywood (still sealed and unopened), Panda PÃ¥ Äventyr (the Swedish dub of a film I remember watching as a kid, which I’ve been wanting to get my hands on for a while; while a neat find, I still need to get a hold of the Norwegian dubbed version)…
… Sealab 2020 (am a big fan of Sealab 2021, so figured this could be a fun and interesting watch), Aladdin Og Den Vidunderlige Lampen…
… and finally, Løvinnen Elsa (original title: Born Free), and Born To Be Free (the follow-up to Born Free).
CDs
Four CDs I bought because they seemed potentially interesting, and they were cheap or free. There’s Ophelia Ragtime Orchestra with From Ragtime To Radio (which I got because I was undergoing a minor ragtime music kick at the time), SeljÃ¥sen with Dyretrall Og Trollevers (which I got on a whim as I had no idea what it was, and which actually turned out to be kind of wonderful when I listened to it), Sver with Fruen (which I got because of the artwork; see more pictures below), and Total War: Eras (compiling music from the Total War computer game series, which I got because, hey, it’s video game music and I like video games).
Fruen by Sver. I bought this CD due to the neat artwork, predicting it would either be a punk or a Norwegian folk music album. It turned out to be folk music! It’s not half bad either.
A  promo copy of the album Do Things by Dent May, an artist I’m a very casual fan of. The seal is still unbroken. I was amused to see that this was a copy addressed to Thomas Talseth, a music journalist now working at the Norwegian newspaper VG. He used to be the editor and a writer for the Norwegian youth magazine Spirit, and usually wrote the bulk of the album reviews. I remember I used to get quite annoyed with his writing, as it seemed so forcefully youthful; I was never a very youthful youth.
I’m curious how it ended up in a fleamarket in Lommedalen, my hometown. Does Thomas Talseth actually live here? Shouldn’t he have turned the copy in or destroyed it, rather than letting it end up being resold?
I’m also curious what the heck “watermarked audio” means.
Miscellaneous Electronics
A folder of home-made MiniDisc compilations, and a MiniDisc player. Sadly the player doesn’t seem to work.
A keyboard! A Casio SA-21. I think I paid 20 or 30 kroner for it, getting it cheap as they had no idea whether or not it was working. When I came home and got it powered up, I found that it did indeed work! While not a Casio PT 30 or 50, nor a Casio VL-Tone 1, it’s definitely a nice find.
Prints
Three framed prints of stills from the Norwegian animated movie Solan, Ludvig Og Gurin Med Reverompa, set in the same universe as the cult classic FlÃ¥klypa Grand Prix and featuring many of the same characters. I’ve yet to see it, but from what I know it’s not supposed to be very good. I will probably watch it eventually.
A framed (though the frame is way too big) shiny metallic print thing of The Lion King. It’s hard to see the effect properly here, but it doesn’t look half-bad. Need to find a good frame for it, as this one doesn’t fit at all. (The white borders aren’t part of the print, they’re just empty space.)
An adorable art print of what appears to be a black/brown bear cub snuggled up with a bigger/older polar bear. I just wish it didn’t say Cliff Wright in big letters at the bottom, which somewhat ruins the aesthetic. I wish the white borders were thinner too (which here are a part of the print and not just empty space between the print and the borders of the frame), or that they were entirely absent.
A drawing of a river boat. At the bottom it reads “Steamer Natchez, New Orleans”. Can’t quite make out the artist. “Don” something, and it says “copyright 1976”. I’m pretty sure this is just a print of the original drawing, and not the actual original. It has a nice detailed sketch look, and I rather like it.
Miscellaneous
This got me pretty excited: a My Little Pony cup from 1986. I was really surprised at the condition it was in, as it looked unused, with very little wear on the image print.
A Disney’s Gummi Bear jigsaw puzzle. While the box is worn and tattered, the actual pieces are in almost near mint condition, and I was happy to find that none of them were missing.
Sweden
When I was in Sweden earlier this year, we were able to stop by a fleamarket on one of my last days there. It was a gravel field where people could bring their cars and sell their wares from tables set up by their car trunks. It was the first time I had been to a fleamarket like that. While I didn’t make any super exciting, jaw-dropping finds, I did find some nice items – which I’ll of course list below.
Starting off with more figures. Here we have Scar from The Lion King, Sebastian and Flounder from The Little Mermaid, Thomas O’Malley from The Aristocats (and for some reason, the figure has wheels so you can vroom around with it – since when do cats come with wheels?), Wakko from Animaniacs, and Friend Owl from Bambi.
The Scar figure looks really nice! Except for the fact that he’s a wind-up figure, so his front legs both have visible screws, and there’s an obvious line dividing his body in two. I wish it had just been made as a normal, decorative figure; the sculpt and paint job are both great.
Two Disney cups: one with a 101 Dalmatians motif, and one with a Baby Mickey motif.
A children’s book with some cute looking art. While neat, I could have skipped it, but I was urged to buy it by my friend.
And finally, a jul-themed animated quasi movie entitled Den Magiska Julnatten. Depicting a creepy looking 2D drawn Santa and a clunky looking CGI mouse. It might be fun!
A Little Bit for Charity is a creative charity project where indie bands and artists cover songs from the ongoing animated TV series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. The songs are uploaded to our bandcamp page, where you can pay what you want—including choosing to not pay at all—and all the money will go to an animal-rights charity organization.
http://alittlebitforcharity.bandcamp.com/
Our current charity is the Animal Welfare Institute. It’s a non-profit organization dedicated to reducing the detrimental effects human actions have on the well-being of animals. This includes working to improve the conditions of farm animals, preserving vegetation to benefit endangered species, and much more. For more information about the organization and their work, please see their website.
First up is for the project is a cover of “Art Of The Dress” by Heart-Sick Groans, a quirky Swedish twee folk band. They give Rarity’s song a lush and relaxed, mainly acoustic arrangement, and combined with the quaint and unmistakably Swedish-accented vocals, it turns into something quite special and pleasant. While it may not be the music of choice for most bronies out there, we hope pony fans will find it enjoyable and feel adequately inspired to give a bit to charity by choosing to pay for the song.
For more music by Heart-Sick Groans, please check out their bandcamp page, and for the latest news give their facebook page a look.
Now, to go along with the launch of this project and to hopefully answer any questions you might have, here’s a quick Q&A. Feel free to get in touch if your question is not answered below.
Q: What exactly is “indie music”?
A: That’s a tricky one. Indie is short for independent, and was initially used to distinguish between the established, mainstream, popular acts signed with the big labels and record companies, and the lesser known acts signed to smaller, “independent” labels. Now indie music has become more of a genre label, mostly used to refer to alternative and experimental music in the pop/rock tradition, with a plethora of sub genres.
Q: Why indie music?
A: While the series has an impressive creative community, including a thriving music scene, there hasn’t really been much fan-made indie music produced related to the show. Seeing as how most of the music we love fall within the indie genre, we wanted to help rectify this (while at the same time trying to help raise some money for causes we believe are important).
Q: Why My Little Pony?
A: It’s a genuinely good series with some genuinely good (and award-nominated!) songs. It might not appeal to everyone, which is fine, but if you’re not averse to animation it’s certainly worth giving a try, and the series has a special place in the hearts of many.
Q: How often will new songs be released?
A: We’ve unfortunately no idea. The original goal was to release a cover by a different band once every month, but that was quickly proven to be too ambitious. Even once every other month seemed like it could be difficult to pull off. Many bands and musicians have tight schedules, with various  real life obligations above and beyond that of music (especially pro bono work, even if it’s for charity), and it takes time finding the right musicians for the project as well. So right now it’s running on a “whenever we’re able” schedule. Follow us on bandcamp and you should be getting notified whenever new music is made available. (News about new songs will also be made to this blog, but it’ll also include blog posts on many entirely unrelated topics you may have no interest in.)
Q: This sounds fun! Can I help out?
A: We are certainly open for folks who want to help us out! Having a couple of visual artists interested in doing covers for future songs would be great, maybe doing a few different banners we can rotate between too. As for the actual music, if you can get us in touch with other indie talent, then sure, that would also be great! You can also get in touch if you’re an indie musician yourself, but please note that we prefer musicians and bands who are not already known for doing pony-themed music. Just send an e-mail to eivind@kirkebykvalitet.com with the topic “A Little Bit for Charity”.
And before I stop typing and let you all go on with your daily lives, I’d just like to give a special thanks to Rommel from Bronies For Good for some initial advice and encouragement; an equally special thanks to Heart-Sick Groans for their heartwarming enthusiasm, truly embracing the challenge, and for their excellent contribution; and a super special thanks to you for reading, listening, and helping to support animal rights. Thank you all.