Groovy

Well, I pretty much spent the weekend sending out emails etc. in order to promote The Norliss Tapes Herz und Liebe EP and uploaded two songs on my SoundCloud as well. Slowly but surely Groovy is becoming one of my fave tracks on account of not only having a nice, reggae vibe but also being a sort of tribute to Bruce Campbell and Evil Dead II. For a whole generation of horror fans he’s become the icon of cool pretty much thanks to his amazing portrayal as the anti hero Ash in the cult trilogy.

Listening to the track I now envision a music video with the Norliss members dressed up as a run-down, over-the-hill wedding band – we’re talking 70s fashion and maybe horrible faux comb overs – with Bruce himself starring as the cheesy, crooning lead vocalist (or maybe Elvis from Bubba Ho-Tep) that pretty much owns the stage while alternating between saying the only “lyrics” of the song into the mike and trying to hit up on the female members of the audience. And maybe throw in a couple of nice dance moves as well. A man can dream right?

You’ll find the SoundCloud here and the release on Bandcamp here. And please share.

White Lung

Well, I already wrote about this band on TapeMix (check it out here), but the Vancouver outfit White Lung is just great mixing up gloomy post-punk with some at times hardcore energy so I thought I’d mention them here too. The video Take The Mirror is taken from their second full-length album Sorry and you can get it via their Bandcamp here. Check ‘em out!

New artwork/New EP!

Well, I just uploaded the third release from The Norliss Tapes entitled Bad Robot EP on Bandcamp. The songs themselves have been finished for the last week or so, it was just a question of me finishing the artwork for the sleeve. Funny enough I made it on my new computer and of course I didn’t have the font installed that I usually use, and I assure you it was hilarious. Especially since my mind drew a complete blank when it came to trying to remember its name.

Anyway, everything’s solved and it both looks and sounds good. I think me and Staffan are really starting to go places creatively with this project. Check it out here and Last FM is coming soonish. A little taste below:

A Lil’ Update

Well, I was sick as a dog last week. Started off late on Sunday evening with me feeling kinda sluggish but I sure as hell wasn’t expecting to wake up early Monday morning looking (and feeling) like something out of Lucio Fulci‘s Zombie Flesh Eaters. I’m better now but still can’t help feeling I missed out on a week’s work. Call me a workaholic.

A bit of news. My debut column TapeMix – Best of Bandcamp and a beefy interview I did with Jamie Coghill (aka The Jimmy C) has been sent off to the editor at CRKO after I spent the weekend editing it.  I’m excited about this and am really looking forward to help spreading the word of cool, unknown music. The site is still up and running so check it out here.

And finally, my fave musical project ever – The Norliss Tapes – has a site up and running on Bandcamp! Our first two releases A Little Bit Tipsy and A Trip to the Moon! are available now with a third entitled Bad Robot EP coming soon-ish (got a little bit of tweaking left to do!) Listen to the sample track Zero Gravity Moonstomp below and check out the rest of our stuff here. ‘Til next time.

More Norliss

Well, I’ve been keeping myself really busy lately going through about 7 GB of samples for The Norliss Tapes at home, and as insane as it may sound I’m super excited about where the project is coming along now! Got some new members to be added – nothing I can make official yet – and with such an amazing amount of fodder for future songs I just can’t wait until we have the new material ready for release!

Added to that I’ve been working on websites for the project and there’s a Facebook up and running now with Bandcamp and Last FM coming soonish. And as a bonus incentive for me and the other members it seems like NME.com as of now is hosting some of our videos. Pretty cool for something I made on my free time and lunchbreaks huh? Check it out here.

New Video!

Well, I’m pretty much off on a week’s vacation in a couple of minutes but managed to finish up a new video for The Norliss Tapes Trip To the Moon before I leave. A bit more lounge, I used an old public domain commercial for  frigidaires of all things and I used some new tricks for this one and am pretty satisfied with the results.

Check it out, the artwork is below, listen to the track on my Bandcamp here and have a great weekend! I’m back in May.

New Video!

Well, with the two-track teaser A Little Bit Tipsy from the coming Norliss Tapes EP released on Bandcamp yesterday (if you haven’t checked it out, the link is http://thenorlisstapes.bandcamp.com/album/a-little-bit-tipsy), I decided to give it a little push by editing a new video and upload it on YouTube. Everybody loves children and animals in movies, and drunken monkeys are usually a sure-fire hit. If nothing else, it made me laugh-out-loud when I saw the finished results!

Actually the second I made (the first one using the infamous “drunken guy trying to purchase a crate of beer in the local corner store” that went viral a couple of years ago) I wasn’t too satisfied with the end results and searched “drunken animals” on Archive.org – the best damn site for all things in the public domain – and came up with this footage from a French documentary about life on the savannah. Edit during your lunch break and there ya go!

A Lil’ Taste

Well, my collaborator Staffan Andersson (who sang and played guitars in Swedish pop outfit Monroe) still has some work to finish up on some of the tracks, but  A Little Bit Tipsy off The Norliss Tapes‘ debut EP is 100% finished, so I decided to make it available on Bandcamp as a little taste of things to come.

Check ‘em out and keep your eyes peeled for the release of the complete EP!

More Records! More Artwork!

Well, they’re just rough mixes, but the session for The Cymatics first album – most likely to be entitled Sugar Punch because it sums up our brand of music – turned out so great we decided to make three songs available on our Bandcamp as a teaser. So check out the Sugar Punch (rough mixes) EP here. Two rockers and one classic tearjerker ballad.

The sleeve itself was pretty fun to do. Candy is such a classic imagery when it comes to 60s bubblegum music and such a given considering the title I pretty much just focused on the fonts and overall layout of the text. I used the same colors as the candy itself, giving it a nice “pop-sensibility”.

Jimmy C

Australian musician Jamie Coghill isn’t just a talented multi-instrumentalist but a pretty cool guy to boot. I stumbled across his Bandcamp earlier this year, spent days listening to his Glamour & Fame album before writing a piece about it on my TapeMix site. Now, with that becoming a column in CRKO Magazine later on this year (where I pretty much pick the creme de la creme of my findings posted on the blog) I decided to interview him and was pleasantly surprised to find him a friendly, down-to-earth kinda guy who’s at least as passionate about music as I am.

Anyway, if 60′s flavored pop is your forte, I seriously doubt it gets any better than this.  Releasing music under the Jimmy C moniker he’s got a handful of records available, but you should definitely give the 2009 album a try! The video for Bad Wolf – fittingly written, directed, shot, and edited by Jamie himself – is just a tiny taste of what this guy is capable of, so do yourself a favor and check it out here.