Mega-Trad: a pirate loves pakuri

[imomus]

The more I diversify into writing, the less I feel the need to burden songs with the sorts of things I used to force them -- against their will and with severe structural stress -- to do; songs don't have to tell stories, be original, show the world how creative and clever I am, and so on. What I mostly want songs to do, now, is move me; get me, emotionally, from A to B. I want songs to be "emotional cars" in that sense. If they can move me, who cares whether they're totally fresh? Who cares whether they lifted some of their best gadgets and lines? Who cares whether they're a rip-off of the man next door's car? He needs to be moved too.

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I still make songs for my own pleasure, but at this point they're mostly cover versions. Here, for instance, is a cover I did yesterday of Cliff Richard's "The Next Time". I spoke last year about my fascination with this song (the original is here -- unfortunately the lovely Acropolis clip from the film Summer Holiday has gone), and how it relates to the sentimental Asian drinking ballad style I developed on Ocky Milk, and particularly Nervous Heartbeat.

At this point I'm not quite sure if there even needs to be a new Momus album, but -- just in case -- I've given the possible project the code-name "Mega-Trad", because it might be a mega-traditional collection of ballads, possibly all cover versions. I'm interested in torch-style trad balladry because of my age (I get more sentimental as I get older) but also because of the way I've diversified, putting my more original and outlandish ideas elsewhere and leaving songs to get on with what they do best, which is moving people.

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The Cliff Richard cover -- and I find Cliff much more interesting than Elvis Presley, of whom he's generally accused of being a tame British copy -- wasn't made for "Mega-Trad", but for a live show I'll perform at the end of April at MUDAM, the Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean in Luxembourg. The artist Candice Breitz has organized Call and Response, a four-day seminar in which artists like Cory Arcangel and Iain Forsythe and Jane Pollard will discuss sampling, piracy, remixing, appropriation and recycling, or pakuri, as it's known in Japan. On the evening of Monday 28th April I'll wrap up the program by singing a set of cover versions from a balcony. "The Next Time" will be one of them.

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The artists talking and showing their work at MUDAM are more likely to talk about "sources" (as in "Daft Punk sample sources" and "Stereolab arrangement sources") than "steals". Candice is, like me, of the view that copyright has gone too far and become restrictive, and that originality is, in and of itself, vastly over-valued in art, or rather, is invested in the hows of the work, not the whats. Her own work looks at the re-contextualising creativity of fans of pop and Hollywood and her most famous piece is probably "King", a multi-channel video in which she put Michael Jackson fans into a professional studio, where they reinterpreted and relived his songs. Michael Jackson has followed suit: his website now features a video remixing tool which allows fans to play him in the Thriller video. Above you can see what happened when Hisae photographed my face and sent it in.

Comments

cover me

[(Anonymous)]

You know there is good money to be made on cruise ship singing covers........

Re: cover me

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Actually, MUDAM is a bit like a cruise ship:



If they could organize cultural events on cruise ships as interesting as Call and Response, I'd be out there on the high seas for sure. It's a pirate's place, after all!

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

oh my god oh my god i'm dying at that video hisae made omg can she be a member of momus_lolz please, she probably has the best material ever VJO:GAJAO:DSFJG:OASFDJG{RAOEGFIQ{P)GIEr more keyboard smashing over here

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

Have you ever tried singing over a midi file? (http://profile.imeem.com/K5_T3L_) As in, those songs you hear in the backgrounds of bad Geocities websites? It's seriously one of my favorite things to do, well, when no one's home anyway. You can tell in my recordings when someone's come home and they keep coming in and out of the room because I suddenly become more or less confident throughout. Reason number 5348239 why I need a laptop, but whatever. Oh, and my normal singing voice doesn't sound at all like those songs, I'm merely just pretending to be the people who I'm covering.

Though my speaking voice is that manly, unfortunately.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Ha, nice cover of "Oops, I Did It Again"!

Have you heard Max Raabe's Brechtian version (http://youtube.com/watch?v=0mjonrqYtyY) of that?

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[microworlds.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's amazing!

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Maiden

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Irony Maiden -- but he meant it after all!

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

Yes! A swedish computer show named Sajber even did a report on his covering of Iron Maiden.

Here's the clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFU2aL07Ejs

If my memory serves me right that report was made either 98 or 99.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

Rough translation of the report for those interested:

Reporter: Today it is easy to get famous if you only get yourself a cool homepage. Anton Gustafsson from Kinna is passionate about Iron Maiden, and on the net he have distributed his own singing talents to the hits of his idols. Now there exists an Anton Maiden fever worldwide.

Anton: Ah, yeah, it is this microphone that I use when I make my works. And it is not really high tech, it was priced at 99 spänn (Spänn=slang for svenska kronor).

Reporter: And then you've it connected to the computer?

Anton: Directly to the soundcard...

Reporter: And then? How is it done?

Anton: Ah, then it is just to do it. Play Midi or Mod from the cd, and just throw it out.

Anton: Their songs are so casted, in a way, ver-very good riffs in this way... Ah, they're hard to get into. When you listen to a Maiden cd for the first time you might think it sucks, but when you get into it it's the best.

Reporter: 1800 downloads per week, 20 000 visits each month, Anton's homepage have become a success. Anton Gustafsson, the 19 year old boy who by the way had avarage grading of 4,7 in högstadiet and preferably eats Keso (cottage cheese), recorded at first his own interpretations of Iron Maiden songs only because it was fun.

Anton: Ah, the fun comes afterwards when you listen to them and you know that "this is me singing".

Reporter: And one day Anton's friend Ulf suggested that Anton should upload the songs to the internet, and despite that Anton is himself say that he is a shy guy the inhibitions disappear when he grabs the microphone.

Anton: For the first, when I did these songs I never intended that anyone was supposed to hear them, and then there is no reason to be shy, and, well, then it's just me and the computer. Just throw throw it out.

Reporter: Don't you ever get the thought: "oh, no, now I am making a fool of myself"?

Anton: Nah, it is up to each and everyone to listen to this. There is incredibly many things on the internet and everyone who put things there make a fool of themselves sort of and whatever you do there are always people who thinks that it is good and those who think it is bad.

Reporter: What do you want when people come to your homepage and listen to your song?

Anton: I don't actually want anything. They are what they are and then everyone can make their own opinion.

Anton: It feels better to be a nerd than a guy who walks around with rivets and try to be cool.

Anton: Testing testing, one, two, three.

Reporter: At the webpage there are loads of photographs of Anton's family and daddy Ingemar is proud of the success of Anton.

Ingemar: I borrowed a casette one night and listened to all the songs while I was looking at the photo's from South America and I sat there with the headphones and listened through it all, actually.

Reporter: And what do you think of the songs?

Ingemar: Just Anton I happen to not have any actual singing voice and haven't been occupied with standing on the stage and all that so I am not the right person to review him.

Reporter: Which one is the one you're the most pleased with?

Anton: That's a difficult question, but hallowed by thy name turned out very nice, I think.

Anton: There are many who say that I should come and play live but I haven't agreed on it yet.

Reporter: And Anton have of course made his own album.

Anton: Yeah, some have already bought, actually.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Here are a couple of supplements to the Next Time cover.

A slightly different mp3 mix with vocals (for iPods etc):

Momus: The Next Time (http://imomus.com/nexttimewoozy.mp3)

and an instrumental for you to sing over and post the results here:

Momus: The Next Time (instrumental) (http://imomus.com/nexttimeinst.mp3)

[imomus.livejournal.com]

They say I'll love again someday
A truer love will come my way
The next time
But after you there'll be never be a next time for me
They say that I'll find happiness
In someone else's warm caress the next time
I'll soon forget your kiss
And heartaches such as this
Will will just be ancient history

They say that I'm a fool to weep
That I won't go on losing sleep
The next time
And someone else will mend the heart you've broken in two
But how can I fall in love the next time
When I'm still so very much in love with you?

They say that I'm a fool to weep
That I won't go on losing sleep
The next time
That someone else will mend the heart you've broken in two
But how can I fall in love the next time
When I'm still so very much in love with you?
When I'm still so very much in love with you

someone else

[pay-option07.livejournal.com]

Have you ever considered a version Francais with Kahimi? It would be smashing!

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

I'll have a try at that, though my microphone is a piece of shit! I'll also have to get everyone out of the house, maybe I'll tell them Christ has risen again at the local 7-11 or something so I would have enough time to record.

I don't know if I should imitate your voice, Cliff Richard's, or just use my regular singing voice. Decisions, decisions!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Another decision: if you click the link now there's a more elaborate version of the instrumental replacing the simpler one that you may have downloaded before.

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

Ah, alright! I think I might just do all three versions, it doesn't really matter much anyway. Goodnight dearest FancyPants, I shall see you on the morrow!

[thomascott.livejournal.com]

The woozy version brings us back to your first cruise-ship-related comment of the day.
I can imagine a luxury liner slipping to the abyssal depths whilst the ghost of a ship's entertainer soundtracks the descent thus.
Perhaps this association/image is causing me to prefer the latter.

Deuce | Love

[(Anonymous)]

Hearing cliff always remind me of Sue Barker.

Now there is someone who has become more friendly on the eye as the years have passed

http://www.famousfriends.co.uk/getImage/WA444457RichardBarker.jpg

wewillbecome.com

Re: Deuce | Love

[niddrie-edge.livejournal.com]

Sue Barker?
Surely she has had a facelift? Watching her nodding like a Churchill dog as Seb Coe ranted on about the apolitical Olympics Blues, I thought her face would split apart from the permanent expression she had.

Just been reading Rogan's shocking book on Van Morrison, where there is an anusing(sic) quote from Cliff Richard regarding his duet with Van Morrison. Van's only UK #1. Something along the lines of Van has a peculiar sense of self loathing.

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting. Your position in this post seems a complete reversal of what I would take to be the Momus stance as seen through your retro-necro rants, your exhortation to "make it new" etc. Now you're telling us who cares if it's fresh? You're now telling us that, after all, it's not the how that counts but the what? You're moving backwards from poststructuralism to structuralism to what, symbolism?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm working right now on a new collaboration with Joe Howe of Gay Against You which couldn't sound more different, so "position" sounds a rather limited word. How about "rollercoaster"?

[(Anonymous)]

Gay against you are great. Didn't see that coming.

wewillbecome.com

eco-friendly sharkitecture

[loveishappiness.livejournal.com]

http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/04/09/stacks-of-promise-for-londons-southbank/

[count-vronsky.livejournal.com]

God I am in heaven!

I love you Momus. With all my heart.

[murmurants.livejournal.com]

This (http://www.midnightkaraoke.com/buy.html) is not an album of cover versions produced by Midnight Mike (http://www.midnightmike.com/) featuring guest vocalists. It’s a karaoke party with Mike’s friends singing and having fun. It’s a party in Mike’s head (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL5SXTJ3e_A). The quality of the singing varies widely, most of the songs are performed by people who aren’t “singers”. They are all performed with conviction and honesty (http://neverneverland.imeem.com/music/vA7qMHFR/midnight_mike_tip_toe_through_the_tulips/). Some in one take, and often drunk. The party has been going for years. The recordings have been gradually accumulating since 2001. If you’d like to join-in you can download instrumental versions (http://www.bassdress.com/clients/Mike/Instrumentals.zip).

This is not 'Pin Ups'.

[thomascott.livejournal.com]

Well this is interesting. As an anon has already noted this post does superficially (and knowingly mischieviously, I suspect) run very contrary to some of your recent articles exhorting that pop should strive to be avant, to smash the boundaries.
You do however insert the disclaimer:
"....originality is, in and of itself, vastly over-valued in art, or rather, is invested in the hows of the work, not the whats."
Being mindful of the 'whats', your cover of 'The Next Time' pretty much totally deconstructs and reassembles the song and in itself is as 'original' a take on the cover version conceit that I've heard in some time.

The trouble with so many of our favourite pop musicians is they seem to go stale in time, they dance in the street with Mick Jagger, produce records for the Bono Corp, etcetera.
Fortunately there are a few like Momus who seem incapable of mediocrity and can after twenty years of my buying the records produce one of my favourite albums ever in Ocky Milk.
Will look forward to the follow-up.

Re: This is not 'Pin Ups'.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Thomas! I don't know if my take on "The Next Time" deconstructs and reassembles the original structurally -- it pretty much does everything the original does in terms of chords and arrangement. But it might deconstruct it emotionally -- Cliff sounds fascinatingly vulnerable-yet-insincere, as if he's trying to smoulder, and realising how attractive and available it makes him appear. (To really smoulder, perhaps you need more animal darkness than Sir Cliff has at his command.)

My reading is a little more in the Robert Wyatt style, plain and unvarnished. And with fewer sub-Elvis yelps. It may be more touching as a result, though of course it just locates the insincerity somewhere slightly different. And the arrangement (the spooky synths in the background) adds a buried layer of absurdity and derangement, a sense of foreboding. Will there even be a next time?

mister momus

[(Anonymous)]

mister momus
please do not stop making original songs. your last 3 records have taken the song form to really interesting places much like david sylvian;s blemish & scott walker's the drift. there are not enough people packing too much intellectual content & bending song structures. i love records that sound like 2 records playing at once. even if no one else wants to listen to them, make them for me.

thomas
the worried waltz

Re: mister momus

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Hello Thomas, I find it helps sometimes to listen to one's disinclination, exhaustion, doubt. A new beginning comes from a dead end. Rather than repeating things with diminishing returns, doubt allows one to strike out in a new direction.

But, having listened to and expressed that sort of doubt about the need for another Momus record, I must say there's been a development this week which might be the beginning of the next record. It's a collaboration, but I won't say any more until I know we're going ahead.

[shadowshark.livejournal.com]

"A good composer does not imitate; he steals." - Igor Stravinsky