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Non-Buyer’s Remorse: They Might Be Giants’ Then: The Earlier Years

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

I recently stumbled over a live version of a song by They Might Be Giants I hadn’t yet heard, entitled “She’s An Angel”. I was stunned by how great it was; their songs are a bit of a hit-and-miss affair with me, but this was definitely a solid hit. I was curious if it perhaps was to be found on their Then: The Earlier Years, a double CD compilation compiling their two earliest albums as well as some rarities which I’ve had on my wishlist for a few years now. I’ve wanted to buy it, but I’ve never seen it for under full retail price, and I rarely buy anything at full retail price.

My research revealed that, indeed, the song could be found on said compilation. Another good argument for buying it, or at least emphasising it when presenting friends and relatives with my wishlist next this Jul. But research also revealed that it was now out of production, and cheeky sellers on Amazon.com were charging over 80 USD for it. This ruined my mood for the evening, and I was left feeling moderately depressed until I went to bed.

It’s selling for the slightly more reasonable price of 28 USD through the band’s official website though, but that’s still a lot to pay, even if it’s a double album, and the retail price has been around 25 USD. It seems that it’s generally more expensive buying products directly from the artists (with a few exceptions), both through their websites and through their merchandising tables at their shows, which I’ve always found frustrating and ironic. Aren’t they cutting out at least one middle man when selling their own albums themselves? Possibly two, depending on what deal artists have with their record companies; usually they’ll let you have a certain amount of copies of your album for free, and will be charging you only the production costs for additional copies.

In any case, it’s rather annoying, and another case of non-buyer’s remorse. I could always buy it through the band’s website though, before they run out there as well, but then with the shipping of 6 USD, it’s a total of 34 USD for one album. That’s a lot of money. But maybe it’s worth it.

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The Mountain Goats’ The Life Of The World To Come: The Movie

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

For this year’s Record Store Day – an annual event where artists come together to help support independent record stores – record label 4AD released a limited edition DVD of The Mountain Goats playing through the entirety of their latest album, The Life Of The World To Come. It was filmed by Rian Johnson at John Darnielle’s old school with no audience present aside from the small crew involved. 1500 copies of the DVD were released, and no stores in Norway participated in the event, but thanks to a kind and helpful fellow fan of the band, I was able to get myself a copy.

This intimate concert is performed by John Darnielle alone, using either the piano or the guitar, with Rachel Ware adding backing vocals on a few songs. The music video released for the album, “Ezekiel 7 And The Permanent Efficacy Of Grace”, is actually taken from this session, and it gives you a good idea of how the rest of the performance is like.

I wasn’t too keen on the band’s latest album, as I stated last year, but I’d heard that some people who weren’t too keen on the studio album actually enjoyed the film. I sort of did enjoy the film more than the album (though it may only be the novelty factor talking), but I didn’t enjoy it that much more. The songs sound roughly the same as on the album, and most of them meld together without any one of them really standing out. I was hoping a few of the songs would sound radically different from their studio counterparts, maybe hoping to find a rocking piano version of “Psalms 40:2″ or to hear any other songs intended written for either the piano or the guitar being performed on the opposite instrument, but no such luck. Throughout the performance John’s vocals sound a bit too loud to go with his gentle piano and guitar playing, whereas Rachel Ware’s backing vocals were, as on the album Heretic Pride, not loud enough, being merely a whisper in the background. Her contribution is a nice addition, though.

The DVD comes with a roughly 30-minute long Q&A session taken from one of the screenings of the film, and it’s pretty enjoyable. John Darnielle comes off as a pretty likable, humble, down-to-Earth guy, and you get to learn a few interesting tidbits. It also comes with a booklet with some information regarding each song performed, what they’re about and how they were conceived, except for “Ezekiel…” which is kept rather enigmatic. Fortunately the packaging on the DVD is better than on the album, and you can handle it with your bare hands without staining it. But unfortunately it is a bit taller and wider than that of a normal DVD cover, so it stands out a bit – worst case scenario, you may not be able to fit it into your dedicated DVD space.

In conclusion, it’s a neat product, definitely worth getting your hands on if you’re a fan. Just a shame about the album.

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The Society Of Poor Academics, Live At Fuel Café Bar In Manchester

Monday, May 10th, 2010

On Friday, roughly a week ago – 30th April – I made my live debut, performing under my pseudonym The Society Of Poor Academics at Fuel Café in Manchester. I had been invited to perform by my friend Tom, a fellow all-around creative guy who generally goes under the pseydonym Yossarian when doing music himself, participating in his mini-festival Night Of The Living Dead II. He had also invited me to perform at the predecessor the previous year, but I hadn’t been able then.

Two other acts performed before I was on: first there was Tom’s new band, then there was Sam & The Plants. (Someone named Aidan Smith was supposed to perform as well, but unfortunately was unable.) They had both done pretty well and seemed to have a good connection with the audience. Didn’t make me feel any less nervous in regards to my own performance, and with Icelandic volcanoes and having traveled around the UK for a week I hadn’t been able to do much practice beforehand.

Tom's band.

Once it was my turn, it started off with a clunky thud. For some reason I just wasn’t able to figure out the chords to the first song on my set list, and Tom admitted to me later that it made him briefly feared that our combined efforts in getting me to the gig had been wasted. But after the initial awkwardness I recovered by starting off with an “old” classic of mine instead, and then chugged through most of my planned set list.

Tom setting up the equipment for me.

I’m tempted to say my performance was a big success. There were waves of roaring applause and laughter from the small crowd, both in response to the actual songs and to my in-between banter. Got three people come up to me to say I was brilliant afterwards, and I sold three copies of my album – which apparently is good for such a small indie concert. The highlight for me was when I got most of the crowd to howl along with me (like wolves) during “Don’t Go Quietly”. I knew trying to get audience participation can be difficult, but fortunately most seemed to join in.

The audience’s response to some of my songs surprised me. I was surprised to hear a collective awww during “A Very Short Song About Ice Cream”; that they found “You Provoke Me” funny, as I’ve never thought of it as a particularly funny song; and that they laughed as much as they did to my song “A Very Short Song About A Random Online Guy” (though I think it was mostly due to my pre-song banter build-up). It was interesting getting such direct response to one’s songs.

But, there were a lot of mistakes. As mentioned, I actually had to give up on performing the first song on my set list after being unable to figure out the chords, probably due to being nervous. I later played it as an unplanned encore though, feeling slightly less nervous that time around, so it kind of worked out. I also messed up on several other songs, to varying degrees, leading to some awkward pauses. Had I been able to practice a bit more, the mistakes would have been greatly reduced. Thankfully the audience still seemed to enjoy it.

"Now, what were those chords again..."

For the event me and Tom had also prepared a split EP, Consider Yourself Covered, which was given away for free to anyone who came up to the merchandising table and asked about the available items – though he’d done the work of actually putting it together, burning the CD-Rs and getting the cover artwork done. The EP consists of six songs in total, with three songs each, and they’re all covers of each other’s music. After the concert he gave me half of the copies which were left. I’m guessing I’ll be trying to sell them off to unsuspecting indie hipsters, friends, and family members. If you’d be keen on a copy, get in touch and we may be able to work something out.

During the event, I got to talking to Sam of Sam & The Plants, and his crew. A pretty friendly bunch. At one point Sam also asked if he could get me a drink, but I declined, which seemed to surprise him. A short while later it dawned on me that he had probably meant if he could buy me a drink, which Lawrie, whom I’d been spending my visit to the UK with, confirmed my suspicion; I thought he had meant that he would buy it on my behalf, and that I’d pay him back, and that he’d offered to buy it as he was heading to the bar. I’ve never had a stranger buy me a drink.  Had I accepted I’d probably have had to study the drink’s menu for a minute or two though, being both a bit indecisive and fairly unfamiliar with the world of spirits. I’m curious if anyone else will ever offer to buy me a drink, or if this was my one and only shot.

After the show me and Lawrie crashed at Tom’s place, and we had to get up early the next morning to get me on my plane back to Norway. Probably the closest I’ve been to the rock-n-roll lifestyle.

Lawrie giving the locale a critical glance prior to the concert.

Would I like to perform live again? I think so. It’s a good way to promote yourself, it can maybe lead to some small profit (though travel expenses if you’re performing abroad pretty much kills any profit), and it’s even sort of fun. I’m fairly sure I’d do better if I were to do it again, making fewer mistakes. But I’m not really sure how you go about getting “gigs”, and I don’t really have a big enough catalog of songs to be able to have full-length concerts. Also, I doubt all audiences are as positive and responsive as this particular audience was.

Leaving you now with a few songs. The first is a song from Yossarian‘s album The Selfish Gene – which you can order for free from here – and then there’s my cover of the same song, taken from the Consider Yourself Covered EP.

Yossarian – “I Am Just A Complicated Vehicle”

The Society Of Poor Academics – “I Am Just A Complicated Vehicle”

The final song is called “Hey, Manchester”. I was playing around with the idea of writing an original song in relation to the event. I wasn’t really able to come up with anything good in the time I had prior to leaving for the UK, but I did manage to make this throwaway number. I had semi-planned on performing it at the event, just for the heck of it, but I had forgotten to print out the lyrics and write down the chords prior to leaving. Fortunately the demo was on my portable multimedia player, so I figured I’d try transcribing from it before my performance. Unfortunately on the day of my performance the database on my player had become corrupted and I was unable to actually play anything on it, so I was unable to access and transcribe the song. Thus, I could not play it. Maybe for the best, as it’s not very good. But I figured I’d share a recording of it here.

The Society Of Poor Academics – “Hey, Manchester”


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The Magnetic Fields @ Rockefeller 10

Monday, March 29th, 2010

On Thursday last week – which would be March 25th – I went to see The Magnetic Fields live. I was debating whether or not I really should, as the ticket prices were somewhat steep – 300 NOK a piece – and I’d already seen them the last time they were in Norway, when they performed in Gamle Logen in 2008. As I’d already gotten the live experience from the band, would this second concert be different enough to warrant attending? Might as well attend it to find out, I figured.

While it wasn’t exactly different, it wasn’t a waste of money either, and they were a bit more rockin’ than they were last time – perhaps in part due to incorporating (what sounded like) maracas into a few of their numbers, and having given up the mandolin for a ukulele. Personal highlights included “The Nun’s Litany”, “Shipwrecked”, “I Am Sorry I Love You”, and “Fear Of Trains”. Between the songs there was the usual dry banter between Claudia Gonson and Stephin Merritt. But unlike last time, they didn’t instruct the audience to restrict their applause to in between songs; Stephin has a hearing disorder known as hyperacusis, basically meaning he’s overly sensitive to loud sounds, so loud applauding mid-songs seems to throw him off his game. During the fan-favourite “The Luckiest Guy On The Lower East Side” the crowd starting cheering while the song was still playing, earning the crowd a strict frown and head shake while (I think) Stephin mouthed the word no. There were some other bursts of applause throughout, but nothing quite as loud or enthusiastic as during that song, and Stephin didn’t object. I was also surprised that they’d put out folding chairs for the audience, which I’ve never seen done at Rockefeller before. All in all, it was a rather enjoyable concert.

But as many bands tend to do, they performed an indecent number of songs from their latest album, Realism. It is an understandable practice in some ways, as the band may have tired of their older songs and are having fun playing new material, and they also want to expose people to their newest music in the hopes that they’ll buy it. But what about leaving the audience wanting more? Giving them a taste of your newest album, but playing little enough so that they’ll still have a few surprises after they’ve purchased it. And what about representing your back catalog and getting people interested in your other, older releases as well? What about surprising the audience with a diverse selection of tracks from all facets of your career?

I am fairly sure they performed the following songs from their latest album: “You Must Be Out Of Your Mind”, “Interlude”, “We Are Having A Hootenanny”, “I Don’t Know What To Say”, “The Dolls’ Tea Party”, “Always Already Gone”, “Better Things”, and “From A Sinking Boat”. So that’s eight out of thirteen tracks from the CD, if I’ve counted correctly. A bit much, in my opinion. If a band has a big enough back catalog, they should try restricting themselves to playing no more than four tracks from their latest album.

Speaking of Realism, I found the album – just like their previous album, Distortion – rather disappointing. The only really good song from it is arguably “You Must Be Out Of Your Mind”, and the rest sort of blend together into one with no melodies nor lyrics really standing out (at least not in a good way). Also, it took me forever to get the CD out of its cardboard sleeve. Actually got the whole family involved on the project, and it took a few hours until we managed to get it out, the sleeve by then slightly worn. I’m curious if there was some sort of product error with mine, or if they’re all equally hard to un-sleeve.

Leaving you now with one of the songs I managed to record from the concert. Unfortunately I didn’t get anything from their first part (yes, they had an intermission), which was probably the best part. Still, this one ain’t half bad. I also have some other songs from the same performance, if there’s any interest, and if the sound quality of this is tolerable.

“Fear Of Trains”

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GameStop January Bargains

Friday, February 12th, 2010

January is apparently supposed to be a good month for bargains. I’ve generally been unimpressed by the January sales I’ve stumbled over, though. They’re pretty much like any other sales; sometimes you find good products at low prices, and sometimes you don’t. The prices aren’t particularly lower nor is the stock particularly better than during any other sales through the year, and stores pretty much have some sale or other going on all the time. May just be that I haven’t been looking in the right stores, or that Norway is behind on the January sales trend.

But I did find some good items on sale at GameStop, an international (and often reviled, for reasons I won’t go into here) chain which has only recently started popping up here in Norway. Here’s what I ended up picking up.

Cursed Mountain for the Nintendo Wii, bought for 80 NOK. A survival horror game with supernatural elements based on Buddhist religion and Tibetan folklore. You play Eric Sommons, a mountaineer who’s, emh, mountaineering a Himalayan mountain in search of his mountaineering brother Frank Simmons. I completed it not too long ago, and, as with most games, my feelings about it are mixed. It starts off pretty good, with great atmosphere and some good scares, not to mention a unique setting and some great sounds and music, but the game has plenty of clunk, both when it comes to the gameplay and when it comes to the storytelling (such as your character having been exposed to supernatural elements for a while, yet he denies their existence in the cut scenes; and his lack of surprise or relief whenever he comes across a normal human in otherwise deserted areas), and by the end all the clunk starts wearing on you. If you’re interested in the horror game genre though, it’s definitely worth looking into. Also, I just found out that there’s a limited edition version of the game including a soundtrack CD and behind-the-scenes DVD, which sounds very neat and which I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on. No idea if it’s been released in Europe or not.

The Dog Island for the Nintendo Wii, bought for 50 NOK. When I first saw this game I figured it was another one of those awful mini-game collection or pet simulation games, aimed mostly at  undiscriminating parents. Still, I was curious what it was, so I decided to look it up. I found a trailer for it on amazon.co.uk, which had one of the most adorable songs I’d heard in a while, inspiring me to do further research into the game. Turns out it’s actually a roleplaying game! And the game’s tag line is journey through an adorble quest. As an adorable quest sounded like a good remedy against all these action-heavy shooting games that are all the rage these days, I picked it up, but I haven’t yet played it much so I can’t give a quick review as I did with Cursed Mountain.

Many were apparently of the same initial impression as me when they saw the game, but rather than doing research into what the game is actually like – to find out whether or not their initial impression was correct or not – they bought it, leading to some amusing reviews. Here’s a snippet from such a review on amazon.co.uk.

I bought this for my 4 year old who is very good with most wii games. We wanted one of those dog games where you can customize and train your dog, but this certainly wasn’t it.

Play! A Video Game Symphony LIVE! audio CD-DVD combo, bought for 9 NOK. Live performances from a touring symphony which plays video game music. They’ve been in Norway twice now, but due to steep ticket prices and a program mostly including games I’ve no familiarity with (where’s Gabriel Knight 3?!) I’ve not seen them. But I guess now I can both see and hear them, thanks to this CD-DVD combo. The clerk behind the desk actually asked me if I wanted to just buy one copy, as they had a large stock of this item. Not giving it much thought, I said I only wanted the one copy. But really, I should’ve said I wanted all of them. I’m sure I could resell them for 18 NOK to both friends and strangers alike, making a 100% profit. I’d be rich in no time! And might’ve made for good presents for my friends who like video games. Their stock was pretty much gone the next day.

I’ve worked my way through the CD, but not the DVD, and I think I should re-work my way through the CD before I pass a final verdict. Of the games they perform music from, I’m really only intimately familiar with Sonic The Hedgehog, and their medley of music from the first game in the series is pretty good. Other than that, the electric guitar-driven Silent Hill 2 piece was also very nice, though I’m not familiar with the original. But besides those two, the music didn’t do much for me; there are some nice melodies here and there, but they seem to be mixing a few different pieces together, making it difficult for those who’re not familiar with the games’ music to get into it, and so it ends up sounding like generic, bombastic orchestral music. Also, there is a surprising absence of music from any of the Nintendo-owned franchises, which I know has been performed at the actual concerts, so I’m guessing they weren’t included due to copyright issues. Still, definitely worth 9 NOK, and probably 18 NOK too. For a more in-depth, more favorable, and probably all-around better review, I recommend giving Original Sound Version‘s review a peek.

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Hefner’s We Love The City Re-Issued 2-Disc Version… Deluxe

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

On September 28th 2009 the new double disc reissue version was released of Hefner‘s We Love The City album, an album originally released in 2000. Darren Hayman, the band’s singer-songwriter, hails this as his favourite album from the band’s career, and it was definitely the most commercially successful one.

Personally I’ve always ranked it as my least favourite out of their four albums. That’s not to say I’ve disliked it; I’ve enjoyed it very much, just not to the extent that I’ve enjoyed their other three albums. But having re-listened to it after getting the reissued version, it’s an album that’s definitely stood the test of time, holding up remarkably well. I found myself almost re-discovering the album as I listened through it again, feeling as if I was hearing the songs for only the fourth or fifth time around rather than the fiftieth, although I still knew most of the lyrics by heart. (I was in fact amused, and perhaps a bit proud, when the album’s opening track started playing and I managed to pretty much sing along to the entire thing from start to finish.)

The double disc reissue.

Other than the original twelve-track album, the double disc reissue comes with a plethora of bonus tracks – twenty seven in total. I have expressed some disdain in regards to the reissued double disc Hefner albums; I’ve felt that they’ve stuck too close to the more is better philosophy and have in effect ended up clogging up perfectly good albums with unnecessary demo and rehearsal tracks – which for the most part sound very similar to the studio versions but with lower fidelity – and have in effect detracted from the overall listening experience. I’ve been wishing they could’ve made their reissues more like Billy Bragg’s double disc reissues, which have the original album on the first disc and then a second disc containing a dozen or so extras from various places, a few of which may be demos and alternate takes. In effect, keeping the original album experience fully intact.  The reissued Hefner albums have been difficult to listen to from start to finish.

But I was pleasantly surprised at how well this new reissue worked in terms of the added content; it’s definitely the best overall reissue so far, and whereas the other two almost felt like a chore to get through, this one was mostly enjoyable. Things do slow down when the onslaught of demo tracks hit, but overall the demos are more listenable than they have been with the past releases, at times even genuinely good, and they’re surrounded by more interesting and high-quality tracks than before, this time also including remixes.

This release is actually so full of bonus tracks that they neglected to include four of the B-sides which were on two of the singles released in conjunction with the original album. I’m guessing these will then appear on the next, and final, reissued album from the band. Not quite ideal, as it would be better to have all of the B-sides from one album release – and thus one era – in one place rather than two, and it certainly won’t help make their next reissued album any more of a cohesive listening experience. A better solution would’ve been to simply remove a few of the less interesting demo tracks; there are a total of eleven demos to be found here, and removing Between four and six of them should’ve made enough room for the missing B-sides.

The idea of these reissues, from what I’ve gathered, is threefold. First of all, after Darren Hayman’s legal battles with Hefner‘s record label Too Pure, he now owns the right to the band’s music and wants to make it readily available again. Secondly, to make it easy for consumers to get a hold of all the music Hefner has released, not having to pay big money to get a hold of the slightly more obscure stuff, like singles and EPs. And thirdly, including previously unreleased recordings – which seem to be the demos – to make it interesting for fans who already have all the band’s releases. And now they only have one reissue left in which to compile the rest of Hefner‘s non-album material. So here’s what they’ve skipped so far:

  • “You Need A Mess Of Help To Stand Alone” (2:40) from The Hymn For The Cigarettes
  • “Milkmaids” (3:59) from The Greedy Ugly People CD1
  • “Kate Cleaver’s House” (3:03) from The Greedy Ugly People CD1 single
  • “Everything Is Falling Apart” (4:51) from The Greedy Ugly People CD2
  • “Don’t Give Up On Us Baby” (4:18) from The Greedy Ugly People CD2 single
  • “To Hide A Little Thought” (3:03) from I Took Her Love For Granted and Boxing Hefner
  • “The Science Fiction” (4:32) from Boxing Hefner
  • “Twisting Mary’s Arm” (5:03) from Boxing Hefner
  • “Mary Lee” (3:03) from Boxing Hefner
  • “Nobody Knows” (2:19) from Revelations!
  • “Dragnet For Jesus” (2:53) from Revelations!
  • “He Got Better Things For You” (3:24) from Revelations!
  • “Turkle Dove” (3:02) from Revelations!

That’s over fifty minutes worth of music. This is all material prior to 2001, when they released their final album.

There’s also the band’s very first release, a cassette tape EP called The Devotion Chamber from 1996, but which Darren has doubts as to whether or not should be included in Hefner‘s discography as it’s mostly a solo affair. The release has four tracks, recorded on a four track, all of which, except for one, have been re-recorded and released on the band’s proper albums.  I’ve never heard this release, so the tracks in question may actually have already been included on the reissues; there are several tracks marked “4 track” among the extra tracks on the reissues, and three of these are indeed the same songs as from the band’s semi-debut – but are they the same recordings? As for the fourth track, “You’ve Been Prayed For”, it may have been included on the band’s compilation Catfight!, but again it’s not clear if it’s the actual recording from The Devotion Chamber, or if it’s a different recording of the same song; the otherwise informative booklet that came with the compilation doesn’t make it clear, and the reissues themselves are all booklet-less.

There was also a mystery as to whether the version of “China Crisis” included on this reissue, listed as only “4-Track Demo”, was the same as on the London split EP, but then I noticed that on iTunes this track is listed as “4-Track ‘London EP’ Version” instead, thus solving the mystery. I guess the line between a demo and a version is a thin one. And of course, strange that the description should be different on the two versions.

Anyway, there’s a lot of music they need to squeeze onto the final reissue if they are to reach the goal of having all their previously released music easily available, both music from the final album’s era (two album singles, two remix singles, and one EP) and the music they’ve skipped so far. Will this leave much room for demo tracks? While I’ve generally not enjoyed these and felt that they’ve clogged up the listening experience, this is the album for which I’m the most interested in hearing the demos; most of the studio songs are of the retro electronica variety, and so I’m curious if any of the demos were done acoustically, which would be interesting to hear. But will they have room for them this time around? Guess we’ll have to see.

The asymmetry...

Oh, and a minor annoyance with this reissue is that they’ve made the sleeve a bit taller than it were on the two previous reissue releases. I’m always a bit annoyed when authors or musicians do this, suddenly releasing a product which breaks from their the trend of their previous packaging, unless there’s a good reason for it or if it looks better, as it detracts from the aesthetics of your collection. Worst case scenario, if the artist suddenly decides to go for some crazy over-sized sleeve, it may not even fit into your designated area for CDs (as is the case with Radiohead‘s I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings and Jonathan Richman’s Not So Much To Be Loved As To Love). Fortunately this one isn’t quite big enough to make it an issue.

I’ll leave you with a few choice Hefner tracks which all indirectly from their We Love The City album. First there’s a remix of “The Greedy Ugly People” by Baxendale, which can be found on this reissue. Then there’s the song “Don’t Go”, one of my favourite songs by the band, from a radio session. Apparently there’s a Hefner radio session compilation in the works too, so I’m curious if this will be included there. I’d love to hear the rest of this session, as this version is really good, and it sounds like the band’s having fun playing it. And finally, there’s “The Day That Thatcher Dies” from a more recent radio session with only Darren and Jack Hayter (aka. 50% Of Hefner). I’ve never liked this song much, but this slow version is pretty decent!

Hefner – “The Greedy Ugly People” (Baxendale Remix)

Hefner – “Don’t Go” (Session)

Darren & Jack – “The Day That Thatcher Dies” (Session)

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The Mountain Goats’ The Life Of The World To Come

Friday, October 30th, 2009

As The Mountain Goats is one of my favourite bands (Hefner is still the favourite band), I of course had to acquire a copy of their new album, The Life Of The World To Come, which was released early this October. Unfortunately, as with the band’s two previous studio albums, I was left unexcited.

Mountain Goats - The Life Of The World To Come

The Life Of The World To Come

A problem with The Life Of The World To Come seems to be that the songs sort of blend into one another, with few melodies or arrangements that really hit you over the head and steal your keys. I’m not sure if there’s a single song on the album I’d call bad, but given the context of the album none of the songs really get to stand out either, except maybe “Psalms 40:2″ – the only song on the album which could possibly be characterized as loud and rocking, and with no piano in sight. Doesn’t exactly help that all the songs have their names taken after a bible verse either, further aiding them in their blendage. I’m also a wee bit annoyed that the album supports what I believe is a very wrong stereotype, namely that the piano is a gentle instrument preferably used for slow contemplative songs and not an instrument you can rock out on.

Oh, and another problem with the album is that it uses the glossy kind of digipak cover which easily gets fingerprint stains when you handle it. That’s no good.  Fortunately I have a pair of nylon gloves at the ready for whenever I want to handle this or any other albums using glossy digipak.

Mountain Goats - Life Of The World In Flux

Life Of The World In Flux

If you bought your album through Rough Trade, you’d also get a bonus CD containing Life Of The World In Flux, which is a collection of demos recorded for the album. What’s been said about the album pretty much goes for this collection as well, as these slightly rougher and more sparse versions of the songs are still performed in more or less the same manner as the studio versions. It does feature some songs not on the album though – four, in fact – but they’re pretty much more of the same; they’re not bad, but given the context, they’re forgettable. Listening through it for the first time I actually didn’t notice that it featured any song which were not on the album, except for the song “Matthew 11:14-19″.

Leaving you now with a sample song from each of the two CDs, the only two songs I mentioned by name in this entry.

The Mountain Goats – “Psalms 40:2″

The Mountain Goats – “Matthew 11:14-19″

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Cast Single From Rocky Horror Show @ Chateau Neuf, 1996

Friday, 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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Why I’m Not Very Keen On Buying Digital Music

Thursday, 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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Wulle Wulle Wap Wap’ing The Whole Day Through

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009

One of the things I’ve wasted time on recently is watching, and re-watching, perhaps a dozen or so times over the last couple of days, a song I stumbled over on YouTube. It’s a song from the sequel to the Danish animated film Jungledyret, which literally translates to jungle animal. I remember seeing the original in the cinema as a kid, but I haven’t seen the sequel. There’s now also a third Jungledyret film, in CGI this time ’round, and there’s even been an animated series based off the films. So I’m guessing the concept and characters have been at least moderately successful, having spawned an actual franchise.

The song in question features Hugo, the star of the film and the actual jungle animal that the title refers to, and Rita, an urban red fox. Here’s the original Danish version of the song.

And here’s the English dubbed version.

I like them both, but overall the original Danish version is probably the superior one. One factor is the translation, which isn’t always accurate. But for example, the parts where Hugo distracts Rita from her work the original Danish lyrics are “Wulle wulle wap wap, kysse kysse klapp klapp, kile kile”. This directly translates to “Wulle wulle wap wap, kiss kiss clap clap, tickle tickle”. The wulle wap is just nonsense, and the verse is a clever use of – or reference to – Hugo’s theme song from the first film. Anyway, in the English translation it’s “Come and kiss me Rita, nobody is sweeter, tickle tickle”. This doesn’t match that well with the animation when it comes to the clapping parts. Translating for movie media is hard though, as you have to match the pre-existing mouth movements while trying to still convey whatever’s conveyed in the original. And when translating songs, you ideally have to make sure it all rhymes as well.

The song is awfully catchy (although it moderately rips off a couple of other songs, most notably the theme song to the popular Swedish TV-series Pippi Langstrømpe, based on the books by Astrid Lindgren, or the classic children’s song “Se Min Kjole“). I’m tempted to ask a couple of my Danish friends if they can’t hunt down the soundtrack for me, if one actually exists, and maybe the actual film, too! Might require some research from my friends though, especially if trying to find either the possibly existing soundtrack or the definitely existing DVD for under full retail price, which I’m sure they wouldn’t be too keen on conducting.

Ah, and the animation! It’s surprisingly good. A lot of stuff going on on the screen at once, the characters doing discrete li’l movements and facial expressions, adding to the replay value of the scene. Do you notice, for example, how Rita’s ears gently “bounce” up and down when she quickly sits down with Hugo? There’s plenty to be noticed upon each new viewing.

And the lyrics! Pure cartoon poetry, elegantly conveying Hugo and Rita’s sentiments towards one another and their differing attitudes: hard work will lead to a pleasant and love filled home vs. none committing fun and play all day.

Managed to figure out the chords to the song as well, or something close enough, and thus I recorded this cover version of the song in (mostly) Norwegian. It’s a tricky song to perform vocally due to the Hugo’s parts which goes higher and higher (although not in the English translated version, the cheaters!), but I tried to have fun with it; might be easier if you have two people doing the vocals, one for Rita and one for Hugo. It’s also easy to stumble when the song goes up a key (or what the correct term is), at least for us piano noobs.

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