#3
Arcade Fire
Funeral
[2004]

Returning cast members:

• Steven C - got me in to Fugazi and ukuleles.
• Peter S - played drums with me for my first gig.
• David H - lent me an acoustic guitar that time.

One day in late 2004, Dave, Steven and I headed out to Peter’s gaff for an afternoon. Though not entirely rare occurrences, trips out to Peter’s were always a bit special. While we all lived in Bray, his house was in Newcastle. Not a world away – only about 15km, but enough to classify a venture out there as kind of a “trip”. Peter would undoubtedly disagree, as he commuted from Newcastle to Bray every day when we were in school together.  Maybe it’s that we were heading in the opposite direction of Dublin that made it feel more trip-like…

Also, unlike our anonymous residences in mundane housing estates (I think Dave H’s and my houses, though in different estates, are actually identical buildings), Peter lived in a big, old house on a farm. And there were always freshly-baked scones and cakes and other delights in the kitchen. And at some point he got a full-size snooker table. And, obviously, Peter’s great company regardless. In short: good times were had!

Usually, the primary motivation for trips out to Peter’s was music. Having a drum kit and a lack of immediate neighbours, it was an ideal venue for practising. As the years went on, jam sessions remained our cited reason for heading out to Newcastle, but really it was just an excuse to hang out. Not that we really needed one. But we still brought our guitars and amps. And we still had a go at a few songs each time. Usually the same songs every time…

Music was at the forefront of these get-togethers in another way, too. We would often use the opportunity to play each other new CDs we’d picked up, new bands we’d discovered, or old bands we’d uncovered.

This particular day was the day Steven unleashed Arcade Fire on us.

Except… it wasn’t actually when we were in Peter’s house. I distinctly remember us having said goodbye to Peter and being on our way back to Bray, in Dave’s car. Steven was raving about this Canada-based band he’d heard/read about and had ordered their debut album from their website, because it hadn’t even been released on this side of the Atlantic yet (…that’s right, Steven heard Arcade Fire before you!).

He put the CD in the player and put on track 2, ’Neighborhood #2 (Laïka)’:

Click here to view the embedded video.

As with many of the new things Steven plays me, I was instantly, automatically dismissive. I decried the song’s use of the accordion – the most obnoxious instrument in the universe.  This reaction was mostly a joke, of course – although I do genuinely hate accordions.

My memories of how Arcade Fire and I made peace are more blurry. I did buy a physical copy of Funeral, when it eventually arrived on our shores in February or March the following year, but this was long after I’d started listening repeatedly to my MP3 copy of the album. I’m 80-90% sure that I hadn’t downloaded that copy, but had ripped Steven’s CD. I don’t remember when I got that off of him (or when he insisted I give it a proper listen). It could have been on that very day we’d gone to Peter’s. But it’s more likely that Dave, who had responded enthusiastically to it – as he does most things, claimed borrowing rights first.

Either way, my winter of 2004/2005 was warmed by a certain Fire.

Would my very first appraisal have been different, had Steven first played the first song on the album? I somehow doubt it, as ’Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)’ was a slow burner for me. Heck, it’s possible that he did actually play it – and I just didn’t pay attention.  Not a slow burner in that it took my ages to go from disliking to liking it. I did liked it almost straight away. It just wasn’t a knock-out blow. It grew on me more and more over time, though, to the point where I absolutely loved it. In fact, in the years that have followed, my love for it has continued to grow even more. It could now even be a strong contender for my pick of the entire album:

Click here to view the embedded video.

But, yes, it wasn’t an instantaneous love. Much unlike the album’s fourth track – the third of the ‘Neighborhood’ suite that dominates the first half of the album. I don’t know if it was on the very first listen, but ’Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)’, was definitely the song that made me sit up and listen. It’s beast of a song – loud, urgent, passionate:

Click here to view the embedded video.

This instant love would soon be matched and surpassed by the album’s other main high-energy track, the penultimate number, ’Rebellion (Lies)’. Even listening to it now for the zillionth time, it’s irresistibly rousing. The kick drum pounds amidst the noises lingering from the previous track. The bass drops in and lays a simple, steady foundation. And after a couple of bars there’s a snap of the snare drum and the piano comes in. That moment never fails to send shivers down my spine.   And it’s only the beginning.  The song goes on to take over world:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Funeral has quite a few of those special moments: when Win cries “the pains of love” in ‘Crown of Love’, the climax of ‘In the Backseat’, the point at exactly 3:44 in ‘Tunnels’, where the slow, consistent build bursts out into the open… I could go on.

One song that many people connected with, but I had to be all snobby and contrary about, was ‘Wake Up’:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Of course, it’s a very good song. I’m not going to even try and deny that. And I’m not going to refrain from singing along with everyone when it’s played at party – or at an Arcade Fire gig, as it was as the last song of the night when I eventually saw them on their tour for The Suburbs. BUT, it has to the most overrated song on the album. Possibly their most overrated song on any album. The wordless chorus may be anthemic, but it’s just a bit too easy. And the whole “let’s-change-it-up-for-the-end” trick was already done twice (and to greater effect each time) on ‘Une Année Sans Lumière’ and on ‘Crown of Love’, the song which immediately precedes it.

It’s still good. I don’t skip it or anything. If anything it makes me all the more excited when ‘Haïti’ kicks in! (And that excitement probably has more to do with the building anticipation for ‘Rebellion’…).

But I’m just nitpicking. The album as a whole is still a colossal piece of recorded music. I definitely came to realize this.

Part of the reason I did, interestingly enough, was through seeing clips of the band’s live shows, on TV and online. It was impossible not to get wrapped up in the energy of their performances. Live renditions of ‘Neighborhood #2′ were especially engaging, even if it did still have the accordion. Richard Reed Parry and Will Butler would go completely apeshit on stage (and sometimes off), hitting everything they could find, even each other, with drumsticks.

Their performances also often featured one of my most favourite things to see in a live show – members who don’t have singing parts and don’t have microphones in front of them, singing along with gusto anyway.  I love it!

The absolute best, though, was when they paired those two high-energy highlights, ‘Power Out’ and ‘Rebellion’, with a noisy maelstrom of a segue in between. They’ve done it so many times since, it’s never a surprise. But the effect is phenomenal.  I said the latter’s intro sounded fantastic coming out of the swirling coda of ‘Haïti’, but it’s another universe of excellence when it bounds out of the cacophony that explodes out of the end of ‘Power Out’. They ended their main set with this combo when I saw them in Dublin and it was incredible:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Crowded House – ‘Instinct’
Released on:
Recurring Dream: The Very Best Of Crowded House [Compilation - 1996]

Also available on:
‘Instinct’ [Single - 1996]
The Very Very Best of Crowded House [Compilation - 2010]

“Greatest Hits”/”Best Of” compilations are often looked upon with scorn and/or ridicule as blatantly commercial moves – attempts to cash in on belated success, the announcement of a break-up, or just to fill gaps in release schedules. Artists, of course, will claim that their best-of “album” is some kind of consolidation of their career so far, a chance to take stock before moving on with their career. (Or they’ll go out of their way to point out that the record company is releasing the compilation without their involvement – which is fair enough, I suppose/)

A particular source of derision is the (almost-mandatory) inclusion of one or two new and/or previously unreleased tracks. Artists might claim that these new tracks point towards the future of the band, or something like that.  The cynical argument is that their sole purpose is to lure in existing fans who already own the hits on existing releases and get them to shell out for the new release.

The cynics may have their points, but I find it hard to dismiss the existence of best-of compilations. For one, they’re great for casual listeners of a band. And they can serve as an appropriate introduction, leading to further exploration of an artist’s back catalogue. (Who knows where my musical taste would be today, had I not picked up Pixies’ 1997 Death to the Pixies compilation.) And in many cases, they’re simply the most solid releases for some acts. We’ve all waded through plenty of album filler in our times.

And those songs in the “obligatory new one” category are, like EP tracks, b-sides and songs from soundtracks, often superb – worthy additions to the artist’s canon.

My relationship with Crowded House has probably always been in the “casual listener” class. Recurring Dream is still the only audio release of theirs I own (I did also buy their Farewell to the Word video) – I’ve never gone on to listen to any of the studio albums from which its songs emanate.  Which is a bit strange, since my relationship with the compilation itself is far from casual. I’ve listened to it literally hundreds of times. I know all of the songs back-to-front. I freaking love it.  And still, I haven’t got any of their proper albums. Odd. Perhaps I’ll get them now…

When I did get it – I don’t think it was too long after its release in mid-1996 – I was not at all familiar with the bulk of it. ‘Weather With You’ had been a fairly big track over here (it seemed to be played incessantly – although that could have just been its repetitive chorus…), so I knew that. I also remembered ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’ very well, though mostly for its use in the mini-series adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand, where Molly Ringwald plays it for Parker Lewis.

‘It’s Only Natural’, ‘Fall At Your Feet’ and ‘Locked Out’ had also been familiar to me when I heard them on the CD, but that still left 14 other, “new”, tracks. With that lack of prior knowledge – and, especially, because the track-listing was not chronological – I was unaware of which ones (if any) were actual new ones.  Looking at them now, even the liner notes are quite subtle about which songs come from where. This allowed me to digest all this unknown material free from any bias. I couldn’t be cynical about tacked-on new tracks, because I simply didn’t know which ones they were.

Of this trove of unfamiliar material, three songs stood out to me. Two had been singles from their fourth album, Together Alone - the scintillating ‘Private Universe’ and the majestic ‘Distant Sun’. And the third was, interestingly enough, one of the new ones – ‘Instinct’:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now, the video is terrible. The band themselves acknowledge this and made sure it wasn’t included on the Dreaming DVD compilation. But the song is great. It’s a case of tension and release. The verses are quite subdued and restrained, building up slightly in the final lines. The chorus then erupts, not in volume or aggression – the way a Pixies song would, but instead with a surge up. Neil Finn’s voice jumps up in pitch and additional instruments enter the fray. There is a more traditional eruption around the 1:49 mark, with a single bendy note solo thing. The song then flips, going into a quiet chorus, before heading into a driving, cinematic outro.

Lyrically, I don’t really know what he’s going on about. Something about your instinct not being wrong, no doubt. “Laughing at the stony face of gloom” is a pretty bad line to have at a climactic point, I have to say. On the other hand, “I lit the match” is a fantastic first line for a song.

There were two other new tracks on Recurring Dream, the Beatles-y ‘Not the Girl You Think You Are’ and ‘Everything is Good For You’, neither of which scale the heights of ‘Instinct’ and are probably two of the weakest tracks on the compilation, which doesn’t do much for the reputation of this category of songs.

Nevertheless, ‘Instinct’ proves that those possibly-opportunistic additions to ”Greatest Hits”/”Best Of” compilations cannot be summarily ignored or cast aside.

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In terms of sound quality/production value, this is undoubtedly the worst album I’ve done.  I just hope it turned out better in terms of song quality/entertainment value!

Full album direct download via this link (.zip)

Streaming player/individual mp3 downloads/lyrics here

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I’d been finding the whole process hugely frustrating. I suspect it may be because of the write-the-songs-first approach I took on this project. Having recorded them in a simple acoustic fashion straight away and then leaving them, I allowed them to get kind of locked into how they sound.

Usually, arranging and writing are the same process for me, so the writing is completed and the songs arrive in their finished form simultaneously. There are only one or two prior instances of me demoing songs and then arranging them – and in those cases, the gap between the two stages was minimal. Like, the song might be demoed on one day and then recorded the next.

Cases of me developing new versions of existing songs has almost always gone in one direction – from more complex arrangements to stripped down ones (usually to be played live). I’m now finding it too hard to add stuff to songs that, having been left alone (even for a week or two), now sound “finished” (despite being incredibly bare). All the bass lines, beats and synth parts I’ve been throwing on top of them over the last few days seem incredibly gratuitous and arbitrary.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was late this afternoon, after doing some uninspired work on a couple of songs, I tried to boost confidence by listening back to one of the tracks I worked on on Thursday, only to realize that 1) the added elements made it now uncannily similar to a track I did about six years ago. and 2) It did not sound very good. At all.

So, the plan is now to halt arrangement work, cast the material from the last few days aside – and record what will essentially be (slightly) polished versions of the demos: one or two acoustic guitar tracks, with one or two vocal tracks on top. It’s how the songs just sound to me now.

It’s possible that I’ll try to rework them (or some of them) at a later date. But for now, a simple, acoustic album is what it’s going to be.

Apart from the wrench-in-the-works that was trying an alien method of working, two other factors have definitely played their part this RPM – and differentiated it from my previous experiences:

• Time:
  While I was in full-time employment for all of the RPMs I’ve done, in 2007-2009 my journey time to and from work was about 15 minutes. At the moment, I’ve got an hour commute each way. That’s two hours of day gone. (Admittedly, I could have been bringing my laptop with me and programming beats/mixing stuff on the train. I guess I’m not as dedicated as I thought…)
• Space:
  In 2007 and 2008, I was living alone. In February 2009, I was sharing an apartment with someone, but we worked completely different hours, so I had the flat to myself for the bulk of my non-working, non-sleeping hours. February 2012 and I’m sharing living space with similarly-scheduled individuals. And though I’ve been able to temporarily take over a whole room for music stuff, there is still a huge amount of non-music space in the gaff that I can escape to. The beauty of 2007 and 2008 especially was that there was no part of my apartment that didn’t have some musical equipment in it.

On top of this it has, as I said, been a fairly hectic month. This unfortunately included some medical stuff that, while not life-threatening or anything, did render me incapable of making music for the bulk of two weekends. And weekends during RPM are precious.

So those are all my excuses.

Of course, there are loads of should-haves and could-haves and if-I -hads, but this is how it has turned out.

Three days remaining to (re-)record ten acoustic songs. Nebraska was mostly recorded in one day. But then I assume that was a full day – I don’t think Springsteen had a day job on that day, with an hour commute each way.

It may be tight.

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Currently working on songs. Laying down some electronic stuff. Going… well.

This morning I put the ten demos on my MP3 player – in a slightly rejigged order – and has a listen on my way to work.

I mentally made a note to do some further rejigging. And now the tracklist is looking like this:

I also noted down some snippets of lyrics that could be used as album titles. Current contenders:

• forgive me, future you
• cut me up
• when the lights come on
• can you hear what i was trying to say
• remnants of the other life
• just another lie
• back from the other side
• a not so shocking turn of events

At the moment I like Cut Me Up the best. It’s short and snappy. Though it mightn’t really be representative of the album as a whole.

Perhaps intentional misrepresentation could be a route to take. I could also take one of the working titles of the songs and call the album Everybody Get Busy Tonight!

Hmm. Options…

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