New Music - August 2012

There are loads of new record releases either out this month or coming in the next weeks. Let's start with...

Freddie Mercury - Barcelona (Special Edition)

“I’m moving into opera now. Forget rock and roll”

Freddie Mercury (1987)

25 years after the original release, Queen singer Freddie Mercury’s Barcelona album recorded in collaboration with Spanish operatic soprano Montserrat Caballé, is to have a special re-release.

The record will get a fully orchestrated rework.

It'll be available on CD, CD Special Edition (CD1: A full orchestrated rework of the Barcelona album, CD2: Rarities from the Barcelona sessions, CD3: Barcelona instrumental version and a DVD with videos and interviews) and on vinyl (release: September 3 2012). Listen to the samples here:

Aimee Mann - Charmer

Aimee's all new record Charmer is available for preorder (release: September 18, 2012) on CD and Vinyl (you can also get things like a Charmer turntable slip mat and a free art print).

Listen to samples from Charmer here or watch the official video here:

Ben Folds Five - The Sound Of The Life Of The Mind 

The Sound Of The Life Of The Mind is out on September 18 2012 on Vinyl & CD. You still can preorder it from Pledgemusic.
It's Ben Folds Five's first record since the 1999 The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner.

Track list:

1. "Erase Me"    

2. "Michael Praytor, Five Years Later"

3. "Sky High"  

4. "The Sound Of The Life Of The Mind" 

5. "On Being Frank"

6. "Draw A Crowd"

7. "Do It Anyway"

8. "Hold That Thought" 

9. "Away When You Were Here"

10. "Thank You For Breaking My Heart"  

The Darkness - Hot Cakes

Hot Cakes is out now on Vinyl, CD and Special Edition (including four bonus tracks).

 
Aerosmith - Music From Another Dimension

The release of Music From Another Dimension is slightly pushed back to November 5 2012. The first single is Legendary Child - and it's an instant Aerosmith classic!

Track list:

1. LUV XXX 

2. Oh Yeah 

3. Beautiful 

4. Tell Me 

5. Out Go the Lights 

6. Legendary Child 

7. What Could Have Been Love 

8. Street Jesus 

9. Can't Stop Loving You (feat Carrie Underwood) 

10. Love Her A Lot 

11. We All Fall Down 

12. Shakey Ground 

13. Closer 

14. Something 

15. Another Last Goodbye

Bleu - It's Not Over ('Til it's Over And Done)

One of the two singer songwriters that were the initial reasons for this blog* - Bleu McAuley - will have a new record out. It is set for February 2013, and the first song from it - It's Not Over ('Til it's Over And Done) - is streaming on soundcloud. It's musically located somewhere between Four and Redhead. The song is more electronic, powerful and gripping. If this is an indication for the direction of the new record, I'm jazzed!
Icing on the cake: It was written by Bleu and David Mead!

* The other artist is not hard to guess by means of my last posts...

Mike Viola - Future Horror Hockey Game

On August 15th 2012 there was a Mike Viola web show at stageit.com (Notes from Underground #3). The result of this show was the song Future Horror Hockey Games.

It's a song about a tip fight of two guys - Alex & Andy - at this web show (and yes, one of them is me...). The song is available here:

Lyrics - Future Horror Hockey Games

Andy is a super fan from Germany
Alex just finished college with a bachelors degree
This song is the story of how they lost themselves
It starts on August 15th 2012

They were bidding in an online forum for the song I am singing now
The bidding started innocent but ended in thousands and
Thousand of tokens neither could afford
But it's so hard not to rush in
Once you open that door

There was  a secret weapon that Alex had in mind
Launched at the last second at a very specific time
All the fans around him would cower at his feet
Except for one called Leschnik he was impossible to beat

Andy used his super powers at the end of the fight
Coffey just finished college so he'd been up for 3 nights
He fell asleep at his computer right before the official end
Andy did not stop punching he never got up again

So here we are forever the subject of this song
Love is so mysterious it'll never do you wrong
If your a fan a dad a mother everybody wins
As sure as there are guardian angels on the head of a pin

Paul kelly and the messengers costello crowded house
squeeze before that rolling stone review that smoked them out
the clash the cars the who gordon lightfoot joni mitch
Grahm Parker and the Figgs would definitely make the list

the list of people let in to a very secret club
Where men smoke hand rolled cigarettes right down to the nub
Where women are called ladies and go powder their nose
In a table by the kitchen their sits a girl named Rose

Let's sing about the strange case of Baby Katie Blade
her mother Rose was generous she gave and gave and gave
but Andy and Alex just treated her like dirt
said "go back to your garden before somebody gets hurt"

Mike Viola: Blue Thumb album on vinyl & StageIt online shows

The Blue Thumb album on vinyl

The long lost Blue Thumb album of The Candy Butchers will be released by Mike Viola this Christmas.

It'll likely include the album on vinyl, a CDR and also bonus tracks. Stay tuned!

Some words of its development and the sad end of the project:

After the recording was finished the album was mixed and re-mixed several times and a potential single pulled and mixed by Bob Clearmountain. Lots of money was spent. Sadly, Blue Thumb went belly up (“it wasn’t our fault!”) and the Candy Butchers debut album was never released.

Our manager shopped the finished record around but we had amassed such a debt from all the re-mixing (a decision made by the powers that had been) nobody wanted to sign us cause they’d be taking on all this debt. It was crazy. I was sitting on this record that was basically my life’s work up to that point. Knowing in the back of my mind it would never be released. 

See also mikeviola.com and his Facebook posting.

StageIt shows - Notes from the Underground

If you never had the chance to see Mike Viola live, here's the closest thing to a live gig: StageIt. Five shows ("Notes from the Underground") were scheduled, two of them are already over. You can pay what you can for it. Each of them lasts about 50 minutes. It's worth every penny you can spend!

http://www.stageit.com/mikeviola