‘I’m Normal!’

copyright Sellergren Design 2013!

Well, as time is finally opening up in my ‘schedule’ – god, that’s just such a weird phrase for me to use! – I’ve gotten around to compile my second mix for my Mixcloud – I’m Normal! 21 Deliciously Delirious Ditties of Dementia! (yeah, I’ve got this thing for punny Cryptkeeper-esque titles.) Audio surrealism is the theme of this one, and we’re talking songs that are beyond ‘novelty’. Among others we’ve got The Emperor‘s title track (released as an answer song to the cult classic They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha ha), Don Howard‘s oddity ballad Oh, Happy Day, and the I-guarantee-you most anemic cover version of The Trashmen‘s classic Surfin’ Bird ever heard! Plus, one track that’s guaranteed to piss off even the biggest fan of bad puns – even I have trouble standing it!

Anyway, I’m in the middle of audio clean-up right now (I actually sequenced this in 2012) and I’d say it’ll be roughly a month before it’s released online. Until then you’re free to give my previous Halloween-themed mix The Haunted House of Horror’s Horrific Halloween Twist-a-Rama! a spin here (also available via YouTube), and how about a taste of the title track?

Post #400: Summing up 2012

Wow! Yeah, with food being ready to cook and guests arriving at any minute, I’m gonna be brief. This year has been pretty amazing and looking back I am honestly astonished and proud of my efforts these past 12 months. Jeez, no wonder I’ve been tired, ha ha ha.

January started off with two teaser videos for The Norliss Tapes and a jingle (my first!) for French radio show Megawatts (check it out on YouTube). February saw The Cymatics Euro tour and the release of the 3-track EP Sugar Punch (later on discontinued, but I’m not gonna get into that). March saw the debut of The Norliss Tapes with A Little Bit Tipsy, featuring a kick-ass organ courtesy Staffan Segel, and the video soon followed. I also made the sleeve for German fanzine Ox Magazine‘s CD compilation Ox Fanzine Compilation #101.

The second quarter saw the release of Norliss’ second video A Trip To the Moon and The Cymatics Hang Out appeared on the Ox compilation CD mentioned above. After a week’s vacation in April, Bad Robot EP was released with the A Trip To the Moon EP being released prior to that. After May I’m actually surprised to see that June produced nothing (!!!), but to be honest I have no idea why.

July kicked off with The Norliss Tapes getting in touch with the producers of The Adventures of Superseven and Sandra West leading to a fruitful relationship that goes on to this day. And personally this opened up the world of creating soundtracks for me – something that I am really interested in pursuing in the future. I finished the sleeve for the Herz und Liebe EP – thanks to the gorgeous Eva Halloween – and The Norliss Tapes wrote the first track specifically for the S7 series – Space Pussyfoot. July also marked the debut of Bad Robot as it was the first track to be featured in the S7 show, namely Operation: Live to Die Another Day. August saw the release of the experimental QUAD – The Norliss Tapes Spatial Stereo Mixes 3-track EP, plus Bad Robot once again being featured in the S7  double episode Op: Kiss Kiss, Kill Kill. After yet another week’s vacation in September I joined The Bigfoot Diaries‘ editor-in-chief Troy Church on air as we discussed corporate music and radio on The Fallon Forum, The Norliss Tapes released the Herz und Liebe EP, and both Bad Robot as well as Space Pussyfoot appeared in the end credits of the S7 series. I also chipped in some $$$ on Kickstarter to help finance  Scott Crawford and Jim Saah‘s upcoming documentary Salad Days: The Birth of Punk Rock in the Nation’s Capital to be released in 2013.

The final quarter saw an amazing amount of productivity that actually surprised the heck outta me when I finally had it written down on paper. The Norliss Tapes released the It’s Halloween EP (complete with a video) in October, I finished two videos for the Bad Robot EP, found the time to do the Haunted House of Horror’s Horrific Halloween Twist-a-Rama! podcast (available on MixCloud), wrote a second song exclusively for the S7 series (Superseven in Space Theme), plus saw more songs being featured in the S7 series. Troy Church got in touch and commissioned Halloween-themed artwork for The Bigfoot Diaries and once the Halloween EP was released I sat down to remix and remaster my old hardcore outfit Gå Vidare till Norrmalmstorg‘s sessions and the Blästrad EP was released – complete with two videos. After an interview with punkoutlaw.com regarding GVtN’s EP in November and the video for The Norliss Tapes Groovy I immediately began work on my first solo effort entitled Call Me Greenhorn. The debut S/T EP was released (with two videos of course!) and work on the debut full length began with Australian musician Jamie Coghill aka The Jimmy C providing the drums. The Norliss Tapes had more songs featured in the S7 series but November also saw Call Me Greenhorn’s Here Comes Gorbot debuting in the show. I finished the Armageddon Dub but made it available on my SoundCloud as I deemed it too dark to be included on the full length. December saw me beginning work remixing three tracks for an upcoming EP – finished during my two weeks of holiday vacation – and GVtN was approached by a German label expressing their interest in including some tracks on an upcoming compilation slated for release in 2013 – to which we said yes.

Damn. That’s quite a list huh? I’m satisfied albeit a bit tired. Anyway, Happy New Year everybody!

The Haunted House of Horror’s Horrific Halloween Twist-a-Rama! (update)

Well, I decided to upload the The Haunted House of Horror’s Horrific Halloween Twist-a-Rama! on YouTube as well as Mixcloud – what good is fun unless it’s shared? I made it into a playlist dubbed Halloween Mix, but in order to stay within their 15 minute time limit I had to divide it into five separate parts and get a little bit creative with the added sound effects. It turned out good though and now that I’m 100% finished with it I feel pretty damn satisfied. This turned out to be a nice lil’ collection of novelty songs, surf music, some rockabilly and other instrumental music. Check it out and please share.

Part 1:
01 MERV GRIFFIN House of Horrors
02 THE KEYTONES I Was a Teenage Monster
03 JACKIE MORNINGSTAR Rockin’ in the Graveyard
04 JIMMY OLIVER The Sneak
05 THE MOONTREKKERS Night of the Vampire
06 B. BROCK & THE SULTANS Fright
Listen.

Part 2
01 THE SPOOKS The Spook Walks
02 GENE ‘SHRIMPENSTEIN’ MOSS I Want to Bite Your Hand
03 THE FRANTICS Werewolf
04 ROUND ROBIN I’m the Wolf Man
05 THE CRYSTALS Vampire
06 DICKIE GOODMAN Monster Talk
07 THE WAILERS High Wall
Listen.

Part 3
01 GARY WARREN Werewolf
02 HUTCH DAVIE Gwendolyn and the Werewolf
03 JIM BURGETT Jekyll & Hyde
04 ZIGGY GEE Igor’s Chant Pt. 1
05 JIMMY DEE The Monster Hop
06 KENNY & THE FIENDS House on Haunted Hill
07 BERT CONVY The Monster Hop
Listen.

Part 4
01 THE GRAVESTONE FOUR Rigor Mortis
02 DAVE GARDNER Mad Witch
03 THE DEADLY ONES It’s Monster Surfin’ Time
04 THE MADMEN Haunted
05 PAT & THE WILDCATS The Giggler
06 TONY & THE MONSTROSITIES Igor’s Party
07 BOBBY PLEASE The Monster
Listen.

Part 5
01 THE TARANTULAS Tarantula
02 JACK MARSHALL The Ghoul
03 BOBBY ‘BORIS’ PICKETT Monster’s Mash Party
Listen.

The Haunted House of Horror’s Horrific Halloween Twist-a-Rama!

Well, I put the finishing touches to the The Haunted House of Horror’s Horrific Halloween Twist-a-Rama! last night and it’s up and running now at MixCloud. You’re supposed to be able to share the player on your WordPress blog, but I couldn’t find any share options on the page right now, but I’ll post one later on as soon as I figure out how. Until then you can check it out here. The tracklist is as follows:

01 MERV GRIFFIN House of Horrors
02 THE KEYTONES I Was a Teenage Monster
03 JACKIE MORNINGSTAR Rockin’ in the Graveyard
04 JIMMY OLIVER The Sneak
05 THE MOONTREKKERS Night of the Vampire
06 B. BROCK & THE SULTANS Fright
07 THE SPOOKS The Spook Walks
08 GENE ‘SHRIMPENSTEIN’ MOSS I Want to Bite Your Hand
09 THE FRANTICS Werewolf
10 ROUND ROBIN I’m the Wolf Man
11 THE CRYSTALS Vampire
12 DICKIE GOODMAN Monster Talk
13 THE WAILERS High Wall
14 GARY WARREN Werewolf
15 HUTCH DAVIE Gwendolyn and the Werewolf
16 JIM BURGETT Jekyll & Hyde
17 ZIGGY GEE Igor’s Chant Pt. 1
18 JIMMY DEE The Monster Hop
19 KENNY & THE FIENDS House on Haunted Hill
20 BERT CONVY The Monster Hop
21 THE GRAVESTONE FOUR Rigor Mortis
22 DAVE GARDNER Mad Witch
23 THE DEADLY ONES It’s Monster Surfin’ Time
24 THE MADMEN Haunted
25 PAT & THE WILDCATS The Giggler
26 TONY & THE MONSTROSITIES Igor’s Lament
27 BOBBY PLEASE The Monster
28 THE TARANTULAS Tarantula
29 JACK MARSHALL’S MUSIC The Ghoul
30 BOBBY ‘BORIS’ PICKETT Monster Mash Party

Enjoy and please share!

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: These songs has been uploaded in accordance with The Fair Use Doctrine, (17 USC S.107) that clearly states the use and/or sharing of copyrighted material

…for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including making multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research…

as examples of (1) vintage American novelty records, (2) season-themed music, and therefore not considered an infringement of copyright. Listeners are encouraged to seek out physical copies of each artist’s material.

MAGIX Audio Cleaning Lab (update)

Well, considering the subject of my previous post I’d say the irony sure isn’t lost on me. But lemme back it up a little bit first. I should probably start this off by saying that I am in no way sponsored by the manufacturers of MAGIX Audio Cleaning Lab, nor am I affiliated with them. I know there are blogs out there that pretty much are run by people that earn their living by writing thinly disguised fluff pieces for brands and whatnot, but I am not one of those. I’m just a guy writing about whatever pops into my head.

Anyway, that said I downloaded the trial version of the program and this little baby is nothing short of amazing. I imported a couple of songs from the upcoming The Haunted House of Horror’s Horrific Halloween Twist-a-Rama mix into it without really expecting anything and ended up being pretty blown away. Now, I’d already spent the last week and a half removing pops and noises on these tracks the Old School way and decided on the spot to rip it all up and redo the whole damn thing from scratch just based on the results. And I had spent hours on the first version. But this program really delivers when it comes to noise removal and it is easy and user-friendly to boot. Honestly I’m finding it hard to believe a program that holds such a high level is made available at such a low price. Great for saving (and re-mastering!) vinyl transfers, low-quality MP3s or old cassette tapes – check it out!

Now, you just have to take my word for that until next week. You see, after finishing up all 30 tracks I was so enthustiastic by the results I decided to share it with you in audio form. So I picked an old, damaged MP3 off an old punk rock 7″ that snapped and crackled to high heaven, cleaned it up using said program and uploaded two MP3s (pre- and post) on SoundCloud so anyone remotely interested could listen and judge the results by themselves. But apparently their “automatic content protection system” detected that the two tracks might include copyrighted material (well DUH!), so now that account has been “temporarily paused.” Very strange considering I used Example (without clean-up) and Example (after clean-up) as titles.

Oh well, I’ve created a new account on MixCloud, and you can listen to the Halloween mix instead as all tracks are taken from vinyl. I’ll post it this coming week.