Oh Yes...

Seems like this one-post-a-week-phase is going on for a bit... but at least you'll know that I'm still here! :D

Had some strange musical events this week... starting off on Monday: my cellphone alarm went off at 6.45 with Coldplay's Talk (have the alarm set on random with all the music I've got on it...). I turned off the phone, got up and went to the bathroom and turned on the radio in there. And what did I hear? Right... Coldplay's Talk. Spooky...

In the evening on the same day, I continued ripping my CD collection. The TV was running in the back, some news magazine was on. And just when I picked out all my Billy Joel CDs from the shelf, I've heard Piano Man coming out of the TV! The song was just then used as a background song... spooky again...

So the new Mew-album has popped up all over the net. And I'm definitely not going to download it. I will patiently wait for August 25th to arrive and then stick the CD into the stereo, grab myself a cool beer and really let myself sink into the music. Old-fashioned, you might think, but in my opionion, this is how it should be done. Just wish I had the time to do this with every new release... (but then, I'd probably be an alcoholic by now! :D ).

Here's some girl-power for you:

Metric - Front Row (MP3)
The Donnas - Get Off (MP3, via Spinner.com)
Sally Shapiro - Miracle (MP3)

...and two not-so-girly goodies:

The Black Heart Procession - Rats (MP3)
Choir Of Young Believers - Action/Reaction (MP3)

Will be spending the next few days up there in our lovely mountains. Look forward to get away from the everyday routine for a while... and who knows, maybe it'll also give me that long awaited blog-boost!

Guess Who...?

Yeah, well... what can I say? You probably figured out for yourselves that things here still go very slow. And I won't bore you with all the reasons why it is like it is. Good news, if you could call it that, is that blogger hasn't deleted any more posts in the meantime, so at least it's also quiet on that front.

Otherwise, I'm still busy with the CD-ripping-project. The track count is now close to 15'000 songs (about 120GB worth of music), and although it's a very time-consuming work, it's quite fun to re-discover some of that stuff I haven't been listening to in ages (well, not-so-funny this morning when it poured down outside and Garbage was singing about how they're only happy when it rains...). If you happened to stalk around my Last.FM-profile lately (don't know if anyone even does this actually...), you might have noticed some odd artists there. I sure wonder what impact this will have on my profile... concerning recommendations, not too much has changed so far.

The downside to all this dwelling in the past is that I hardly haven't listened to anything new recently. I'm still ordering new CDs (Dream Theater, Kings Of Leon, Placebo, Moby, Phoenix and Riverside being the latest additions), and download the stuff from my fellow bloggers, but it will take some time before I'll get myself into the blog-about-it-groove again. But there's one project I'd like to recommend to you today that really deserves some promotion:

famous Scandinavian blog Eardrums has started a new project called Handshake. If you're familiar with Eardrums, you already know their great indie-pop-compilations (if not, check them here). For the next compilation, Eardrums is taking things a step further and invites all of you out there to participate. Right, you don't have to be a musician to participate; you can help by sending photographs, illustrations, poems, writings... whatever you can think of. All you have to know is up now on the Eardrums Pop Site. So what are you waiting for? Get over there and do your share... and don't forget to spread the word on blogs, twitters, facebooks and whatever you can think of (of course non-electrical promotion is allowed, too... if anyone out there still knows how that works! :) ).

So here's a couple of summer-songs you might or might not already know...

Stars In Coma - 87
Viola - Shimmery Summery (MP3)
The Glass - I Wanna Be Dancing (Radio Edit) (MP3, via XLR8R)
The Cavalcade - Meet You In The Rain (MP3)

Lazy Sunday Mix

Secretly Canadian Edition


Songs: Ohia - Cabwaylingo

Danielson - Lord Did You Hear Harrison?

Early Day Miners - New Holland

Nikki Sudden - Great Pharaoh

Jens Lekman - Black Cab

Windsor For The Derby - Giving Up

Richard Swift - As I Go

This 'N That

Thought I'd let you know that I'm still around. Unfortunately, that can't be said for anyone. I guess I don't have to get in any deeper on news about Michael Jackson's death. Sad story really... during my ongoing CD-ripping-process, I just came across Thriller this week and was again reminded what a fine album it still is. Well, MJ certainly wasn't anyone's cup of tea, but as an 80s-child, I grew up with his music during his most popular era. And despite all the strange and not seldom outrageous stories surrounding him during the last years, I always saw him as a talented artist. He has definitely written music-history, and I guess his legacy will live on forever. RIP, Michael.

Here's what other bloggers wrote:

- Innersounds has posted a remix of Rock With You
- Dreamtime offers his own Mix of Dirty Diana
- Last Second Thoughts posted a live-video of Billie Jean

OK, on to more positive news now: you probably already know that Mew will release a new EP next Tuesday, and a full album will follow on August 25th (it's gonna be a great birthday present for me! :) ). Now Spinner has uploaded the first single taken from the EP. It's short and cool and makes waiting for the album even more harder. Get Repeaterbeater here!

This 'N That

I still haven't decided what to do about Blogger. Wordpress seems like an alternative, but is just too time-consuming at the moment. Plus you apparently need to have a host for your blog which I don't have. So it looks like I'm stuck with this here for now, although I'm not that happy about it. The only thing I can do now is login each day to my account and check if the total amount of my blog-posts has changed... but that still is not the solution; even if I can then see when something has been deleted, I still don't know what it was. A bit of a shitty situation really...

But on to what this blog really should be about: music of the moment. I was quite busy lately as I've started a project that I had in mind for a long time: ripping all my CDs to the computer. I've done this with the new ones for about 3 or four years now, but the older collection still sits comfortable in the shelfs (where it will return to after ripping, btw.!). So far, I've ripped 2'105 songs from 160 CDs, which gave me a total of 19.7 GB worth of music. And if you check my music-collection, you'll see that I still have a long way to go! But once it's done, it's done, and I'll be able to enjoy all the amenities of digital music (streaming to my Squeezebox and MP3-player, quick access to music for mixtapes, sharing on the internet (JUST KIDDING, BLOGGER!!!!), etc.). I know I'll keep buying and listening to CDs, but I'm also ready to embrace the new technologies.

So due to the ripping process, I haven't been able to listen to much new music. So I just give you an overview of the latest free (THIS TIME NOT KIDDING, BLOGGER!!!) MP3s I've found:

Morrissey - Maladjusted (Expanded Edition) (MP3, via InSound)
Tiny Vipers - Dreamer (MP3, via SubPop)
Jet - K.I.A. (Killed In Action) (MP3, via EMI; mail necessary, but any will do)
Magnolia Electric Co. - Josephine (MP3, via Secretly Canadian)

Blogger Strikes Again...

It's nothing new that Blogger deletes posts without asking the owner, but until now, you at least knew that they did when you got their standard-DRM-blahblah-mail. But yesterday, when I wanted to reply to a comment from an older post, I found out that the post was no longer there! Just gone! No warning, no statement, no nothing! I had posted a Youtube-video and two free available songs in that post, nothing more. You can imagine that I'm really pissed about that... but according to this article from Rolling Stone Magazine, it's how Blogger's Web-Sheriff acts these days.

Since I always back up my posts, it was easy for me to re-upp any deleted posts (and remove all MP3-Links on it... even free ones...) until now, but I don't know how I could do that when I don't know anymore what has been deleted. So I'm just left with the odd feeling that older blog-posts may disappear completely without me even noticing, and that really is pissing me off since I put quite a lot of time into this blog. Writing and compiling blog-posts for hours with the knowledge that it might not even last a day once it's posted just isn't something I like to do... and looking at other blogs that only post full copyrighted albums without even a snippet of text and regardless of that not getting deleted doesn't help either!

So what now? Switching to another host? Maybe the best solution... but probably the most time-consuming one. Not to speak of having to start all over again with layouts, links and getting the word around again. Stop blogging? I've had my times when I thought about that... but it was always because of time-issues or lack of interesting content, and never because I got tired of it. Really, I'm in two minds right now; I'm just wondering where all this will lead. A lot of artists - mostly the "small" ones - have long ago recognized the power and importance of getting their music out there with the help of bloggers, but it looks like Blogger, Google and the big Music-Multis just don't want that to happen anymore. I could go on and on about this, but I really don't see a solution as long as things like this keep happening. I guess the best thing to do right now is get myself a cup of coffee and calm down again... and hope that a good way to continue blogging will come along somehow. Leave your comments, please... anything might help!

News From The Shelf

Whenever a mail from Shelflife Records lands in my mailbox, I know it contains something good. Yesterday was no exception.

First of all, Thieves Like Us have a new 4-track-EP out, and as always, the title track is available as a free download. And what a great song it is; lots of 80s in there. Find more information on the new EP and how to get it here.

Thieves Like Us - Really Like To See You Again (MP3)

Even better than that is the news that Shelflife has signed Florida-based band Horse Shoes and will be releasing their debut EP soon. If you're familiar with Shelflife artists, you probably also know Swedish band Days, and you could say that Horse Shoes is their American equivalent. Beautiful and catchy indiepop-songs is what we'll get, and I'm already looking forward to the 8-track-EP (it will be released as part of that famous Shelflife-1000-series!); estimated release will be in late summer. Here's a taster from the EP (probably the title track), and you can hear more of these glorious sounds on the band's myspace.

http://www.myspace.com/horseshoesmusic

Horse Shoes - The Imperial School (MP3)

Last but not least, there's a new Shelflife Sampler out for those who still are unfamiliar with the great artist roster. 18 tracks are on it, some old and some new ones, and I urge you to get it. You will definitely find something that you'll like, I promise! And really: who doesn't like free stuff? Even more so when it's of such high quality? What are you waiting for? Click the link... NOW!

Shelflife Sampler 2009 (ZIP-File, 80 MB)

Here's the tracklist:

1. Horse Shoes - The Imperial School (from LIFE1008: “The Imperial School”)

2. Days - Downhill (from LIFE1003: “Downhill”)

3. Socialist Leisure Party - Head In The Hay (demo version)

4. Burning Hearts - I Lost My Colour Vision (from LIFE057: “Aboa Sleeping”)

5. Champagne Riot - Scandinavian Warfare (from LIFE1006: “Paris And I”)

6. The Ruling Class - Flowers (from LIFE1005: “Tour de Force”)

7. Dub Noir - The Careerist (demo version)

8. Laura Watling - You Never Came (from LIFE059: “Songs From Dreams”)

9. Days - Simple Thing (from LIFE1003: “Downhill”)

10. Kuryakin - Take My Hand (from LIFE1004 “Still Here”)

11. Burning Hearts - Various Lives (from LIFE057: “Aboa Sleeping”)

12. Thieves Like Us - To Joy (from LIFE061: “Really Like To See You Again”)

13. Evening Lights - Don’t Turn the Light Out (from LIFE062: “The Disappointment”)

14. Free Loan Investments - Kick His Balls Out (from LIFE044 “Ever Been To Mexico”)

15. Warm Morning - Silver Rain (from LIFE1001: “Silver Rain”)

16. Language Of Flowers - Leaving (from LIFE051: “Songs About You”)

17. A Smile And a Ribbon - Book Cover (from LIFE1002: “The Boy I Wish I Never Met”)

18. Thieves Like Us - Sugar And Song (from LIFE058: “Play Music”)