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Scratch my back

Wed 3-Mar-2010 in english | Please leave a comment!

Peter Gabriel’s new cover album Scratch My Back made me sit in silence at the parking lot in my slowly chilling car while giving time for the last track to end. It’s a very emotional album and it’s that good. Songs i knew better from before, Boy in the bubble and Heroes, suddenly sounded so relevant, so right and so very gabrielish, and even brought a tear to the corner of my eye while listening to them. Even some songs that i just knew that i’ve heard before sent standing waves through all of my body and sparks of recognition when i realized that i’d heard this before… in quite another suite. It’s a powerful ride.

That said, Scratch My Back is not for everybody. It is different, but if you like Peter Gabriel’s music, it’s a good kind of different. There are no traditional rock music instruments. There’s a classical orchestra and Peter Gabriel’s voice. I’d like to say, “that’s it”, but that would just belittle what “that” is. You can get a taste of what the songs are like by watching the videos on the site.

Or you can also do as i did and buy the record from Womad shop. The price for the 2CD special edition is £13.51 with p&p included (the 2CD as Apple lossless downloadable for £7.99 (format). The CD arrived in a few days. You also get one complementary mp3 download of the album while you wait and a code for a 24 bit download of the album with the record itself. Yeah, CDs are only 16 bits, this is an upgrade. I just wonder if i have any 24 bit DAC that can actually take advantage of the greater dynamic resolution. Scratch my back is a very dynamic album – you’ll need to adjust the volume if you’re listening in the car and have passengers – and i guess the 24 bit edition must be even more so.

On a final note, Scratch My Back is part of an interesting project where artists Gabriel covers also make reciprocal covers of Gabriel’s songs. The focus currently is on Paul Simon performing Biko.

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First contact with Spotify

Thu 22-Jan-2009 in english | Please leave a comment!

After some searching for a Spotify invite, i was pointed by pni (thanks!) to the Spirit of Giving blog where Miikka Leinonen had a stash of invites to part from (yeah, that’s probably had not has).

Today, i finally downloaded the client a couple of minutes before leaving work today and got it installed. A very painless process i must say. The whole out-of-the-installer experience somehow reminded me of Skype. Maybe there is some Swedishness sprinkled in the software that shines through :) .  Once the software was installed, it looked like a cross between amaroK and iTunes.

I was positively surprised to find a whole lot of music from Marillion, Porcupine Tree and Rush there (and the new U2 single) — didn’t have time to look for more. I was also positively surprised to see a Last.FM scrobbling built in, and even more surprised to see that my Last.FM page informed that i was “Listening now using Spotify”. OK, so that’s a Last.FM feature because now it’s telling that i’m listening to the new U2 single through the Last.FM player (for free, for legal and for zero monetary compensation, i might add).

I haven’t tasted the social/recommendation features of Spotify just yet, but i guess that’ll happen once i get more music played. I wish the Spotify player could read my recommendations straight from Last.FM, but that would probably be against Spotify’s strategy. Still, i’m all open for interoperability, so why not?

So there you have my first report. Nice initial experience. Impressive music catalogue. Last.FM scrobbling. Oh, and that i’m very enthusiastic about the software! This is looking mighty good.

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Chain of guitars

Thu 30-Oct-2008 in english | Please leave a comment!

Aretha Franklin’s Chain of Fools was played on the radio the other day and i started wondering … who is it that plays rhythm guitar on that track? Wikipedia tells us that Joe South played the intro guitar, but the rhythm bit so sounds like it could come from a CCR track…

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Alla gör fisken, yeah yeah yeah

Tue 7-Oct-2008 in svenska | Skriv en kommentar!

Reel Big Fish kommer till Helsingfors! Pogo!

Biljetterna kommer ut imorgon onsdag 8 oktober.

Recommended watching:

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Follow-up on the new Marillion album

Wed 10-Sep-2008 in english | Please leave a comment!

Uh-huh. I just bought the new Marillion album Happiness is the road, as a bunch of MP3 files. In other words, i paid for the album i’ve already pre-ordered. Paid 2.04 €, which means 1€ for the album and the rest to the service providers involved. I paid for the convenience of having one page with all the links as well as being part of an experiment… as well as being able to listen to the album today, albeit in lo-fi mp3 :)

Am i enough of a freak?

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Marillion’s new album leaked — by themselves

Wed 10-Sep-2008 in english | Please leave a comment!

People who have pre-ordered Marillion’s next album Happiness is the road (ETA 20th of September. Nice EPK behind the link!) just got a rather perplexing email. In a pecurial twist from the ever puzzling Marillion marketing machinery, the band has devided to leak their entire album in a battle against having the album pirated.

Whoa. And this is two weeks before release date.

And it’s cheaper than Radiohead’s pay-what-you-want scheme, because you simply cannot pay for the leaked HITR album.

To get the tracks (in mp3), you need to disclose a valid email address and watch a message from the band telling you that hey, we do this for a living so please be so kind and do support us so we can continue doing so. Or something in that sense. I haven’t downloaded anything from there just yet, but i will.

Oh, where is the site? Well it’s kinda secret at the moment. The band will probably issue a statement about the stunt. But for now just google it, and you should find your way.

Update: Sorry about the mess. Reading the site (which i’m still not linking to :) ) it is indeed possible to pay for the material you download, but for now the site ain’t telling me how. Or it could just be Google Chrome that’s buggy. Or the site. Or something :)

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DJ Earworm top 25 mash-up

Fri 11-Jan-2008 in english | Please leave a comment!

Mash ups are by no means limited to the web. Way back in 2004, i discovered The Kleptones‘ A Night at the Hip-Hopera, where the Kleptopes mixed mashed stuff with songs by Queen. Still good stuff. Way, way back in Vinyl Time, i bought a Def Jam sampler record (yes, on 12 inch LP) with, amongst others, “The Word/Sardines Segue”, which apparently was a mash of two tracks. And way, way, way back i still remember being stunned, in my teens, at a music show where DJ Kaippa (presumably) mixed Jingle Bells with a hip hop beat right in front of my eyes. Heck, even i’ve mashed AC/DC with hip hop on my cassette tape player in my days (i wonder where that tape is now, and what i could have been doing with today’s technology?)

Anyways, so this feller DJ Earworm has made a thing by mashing stuff up. A pretty decent sum-up of what you can hear on commercial radio these days is his mash of the 2007 US Top 25 tracks according to Billboard. You can take it as a Statement if you wish, or just good old diggable pop. At least you won’t have to listen to them separately when you have this. Shame that the law doesn’t really support art like this. Get it while it lasts :) I’m going to spin through his other track right after i’ve hit the Publish button below.

[via]

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9.46% mainstream

Tue 19-Jun-2007 in irrelevant, suomeksi | Anna palautetta!

Whoa. Nyt on hyvä olo. Vincent Ahrend’s (Ährend?) Mainstream-o-meter kertoo että musiikkimakuni Last.FM:n kuuntelijakaartiin verrattuna on 9.46% mainstream. Eniten painoa antaa soitin- ja lauluyhtye Marillion noin seitsemän prosentin mainstream-arvolla. Tulosta nostaa yllättäen orkesteri nimeltä Opeth, jonka painoarvo miltei puolet Marillionista mutta mainstreamiyys melkein 20%. Huh huh! Vähemmän yllättävää on että Rush ja Clash nostaa tulosta, mutta kuinka monta kuuntelee sekä Rushia että Clashia (JJazzin lisäksi)? Arvo taas kunniakkaasti laskee artisteilla Spock’s Beard, Mano Negra sekä The Flower Kings (ja muutama muu akti kuten 5.15 — missä luuraat, Järvinen? — ja Djam Karet).

Koska mainstreamin minimointi on jatsimaista elitismiä (enkä tässä ainakaan tarkoituksella viittaa JJazziin), pitää siis jättää Opeth vähemmälle, minimoida Genesis (myös vanhempi tuotanto), ja komiasti vaan kuunnella Kuha.a ja muita marginaalitaiteilijoita. Nih.

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Marillion’s Thank You single at #10

Fri 15-Jun-2007 in english | Please leave a comment!

Folks, the Marillion single Thank you whoever you are (video above, unless Wordpress decided to kill my HTML again) is at chart position number ten in UK and the highest new entry on the charts this week.

To keep the momentum (instead of the usual “up like a balloon, down like a tank” routine), if you haven’t bought the single(s), go and do that now.

The Thank You single exists in three versions, so if you’re feeling really freaky (or generous), you can buy more than one and you still get two different b-sides. All versions have the same single edit of Thank You Whoever You Are.

The Blue single is backed with the non-album track Say the word, a trippy little thing that should have been released by some flower-pop band in the summer of love, but instead got released by the hippies of Marillion. We can probably blame h for this one :)

The Magenta version has the most toys, featuring Most Toys from the Somewhere else album, the non-album-yet-fan-favourite Circular Ride (studio cut, i thinks) and a live rendition of The Wound.

The Green single is a DVD with and has, besides the already mentioned title track, Most Toys, a live and cover version of Toxic (yes, Britney Spears). These are audio-only. Then we have Thank you and Most Toys again, but as love videos. Having Toxic as a video would have been too much :) .

h all dressed up

There is also a Red version which is an iTunes-only downloadable single with a live Most toys as b-side.

The singles are fairly cheap. Townsend records sell them at the following rates:

  • Blue single: £1.99
  • Magenta single: £2.99
  • Green DVD/single: £2.99 (cheap!)
  • All together: £6.99

Amazon also carries the singles but there they are £3.99 each, with the Magenta+Green or Blue+Magenta bundle for £7.99.

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Kuha.n kevätkiertue 2007

Mon 19-Mar-2007 in suomeksi | Anna palautetta!

Kuha.lla kiertää.

to 5.4. Belly, Helsinki
pe 6.4. S-Osis, Turku
la 7.4. Läsnärock, NUKU-keskus, Oulu
ke 18.4. Nightlife Rock, Helsinki.

“Ohjelmassa vanhoja hittejä, ennakkomaistiaisia tulevan albumin materiaalista ja kohtuuttoman lujaäänistä mekkalaa. Lisätietoja myöhemmin, jos silloinkaan.”

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