http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA2FaFJ8CuQ

Haven't had time for a listen yet, but wanted to get the link up. Whaddya think?

I know people got quite heated about the propriety of posting unreleased songs, but I wanted to say that I appreciate the opportunity to experience them way over on the other side of the world.

Very interesting. Don't know if I love Neil's falsetto at the beginning. But it's lovely to hear Mark Hart's slide guitar -- a haunting mix of C&W and Bill Sevesi -- getting a work out here and in "Isolation." I presume that's Don McGlashan playing the euphonium, even though you can't see him?

thanks Gracetoo and Telly gone bung.

Personally I can't see the problem with posting the unreleased songs on the net. The Crowdies are such a laidback bunch that I'm sure they don't care either way.

I'm liking the sound BTW - great build up and momentum. Can I hear a trumpet in there? Can't wait to hear this finished.
Oh is Neil singing, "blame it on the drugs" towards the end?

"Blame it on the dust"? "Blame it on the ducks"?

on second listen, this song really rocks! there's even someone headbanging in the video at the front!
Wow it is so exciting hearing new Crowdies material and it's good.

quote:

Originally posted by Watney Sideburns:
"Blame it on the ducks"?

ha! It sounds like he may also be singing, "Blame it on the Gods"
I really love this song, the more I listen to it. It has a great energy. Go Neil!

Blame it on the Gods?
Turn It Around

A song about war?

Piccolo and trumpets .. very nice .. all very Penny Lane

quote:

Originally posted by Hunter:
Piccolo and trumpets .. very nice .. all very Penny Lane

thats it! it reminded me of a beatle's song and I couldnt think which.

quote:

Originally posted by cinnamon:

quote:

Originally posted by Watney Sideburns:
"Blame it on the ducks"?

ha! It sounds like he may also be singing, "Blame it on the Gods"
I really love this song, the more I listen to it. It has a great energy. Go Neil!

Think it's "blame it on the dogs." I'm sure somewhere said this on another thread but can't remember where.

It was originally "Blame it on the dogs", but it sounds like Neil might have changed it to "drugs" for the first two lines in this rendition.

That's what I hear too Jaffaman.

quote:

Originally posted by Jaffaman:
It was originally "Blame it on the dogs", but it sounds like Neil might have changed it to "drugs" for the first two lines in this rendition.

Hey Jaffaman,

Neil made a quip about blaming it on the drugs either before or after this song at one of the gigs. Can't remember which one though

Cheers

Andy

I'm not sure what to make of this song. I think it's one of those I won't actually fully appreciate or understand until I hear a studio version. But it is reassuring to hear some more upbeat material from the band.

Psychedelic!

...very different - way too dark for any Penny Lane comparisons, I would have thought, though there is a definite 1967-68 vibe about it. There's also a bit of the Radiohead generation coming through too but as I don't really listen to them and I only have a rough live recording to go on it's hard to judge whether Neil has out-done them or not. I'm guessing he's at least broken even.

I hope they keep this one; my guess is that if they still had vinyl it would make a good closing number for side '1'.

first impression is that I like it! I'd love to hear how this polishes up in the studio though. Can definitely hear the Beatles influence there - not that it's a bad thing. Liked Neil's little groove towards the end - I presume it was with an off-camera Nick.

WOW.

This is a song that's had a lot of emotion around it in the aftermath of the track-list announcement.

I'm torn on this one. I have to say, I don't have any big huge discourse, but I'm torn. Because I'm not at all too impressed with the various You-Tube versions. Kind of wooly and meandering.

Yeah, except I was there. In San Fran, I remember they played this one and it CRUSHED. It was one I'd seen the vid for prior, not impressed as I say. But live was another story. Not just a story, an epic - compressed, though. Not sprawling, not wooly at all. It rumbled forward pretty-much-unstoppably, and then hit hard - with a tightly-focused explosiveness.

It just illustrates for me how much swing there can be between different takes of a song, and how futile it is to "not be impressed" by a given take of a song by this band - because they'll turn it around on you.

Count me down as one who hopes to hear some finished final version of this.

The thing is (I start a lot of posts with those three words - can anyone suggest a variation?) if I expected the songs on youtube to be pretty much it then I would probably scrap the lot of them except for 'Amsterdam'.

I liked TIA because it sounded like the band were branching out and I could imagine them doing a lot with it in the studio. Yes, in terms of chord structure it didn't really sound like anything the likes of Radiohead and it's followers had not already done but it had that Finn touch at the fade that hints at real drama as opposed to the usual dirge happening. All the rest bar 'Amsterdam' sounded pretty throwaway by Finn standard, to be honest but I had faith that something would be made of the next album from little hints both in the songs themselves and through verbal snippets. However, I really thought a perfected TIA would be the album's centrepiece. It seems odd that the words psychedelic and exotic have been used and that the song from the new group that optimises those terms is put on hold. It's like a statement of intent has been self-sabotaged. 'Surf's Up' would have gone down better with if it had have come out in 1967 with Brian Wilson's vocals instead of 1970 (or whatever it was) with whoever else sung it.

I want Smile not Smiley Smile, if you get my drift.

quote:

Originally posted by Noel Crombie's Hair:
The thing is (I start a lot of posts with those three words - can anyone suggest a variation?)

I used to go with "Well, actually..." a lot, but after awhile people began to make fun.

I'm really optimistic about the new stuff, but then, I'm kind of a sucker for everything they do.

Still, I try to be objective. I look back on tons of the older (classic?) stuff and it seems very much vulnerable to the same charges leveled against the new. I have to say, novelty cuts no ice with me. A song is eternal - whether good or bad, where it lands in the timestream is trivia, not essence (really, it's nothing to do with the song). If someone came out with a song that was similar to but better than (for instance) some particularly immortal Beatles song, the fact that the other came first doesn't enter into it. How easy or hard a song is to make doesn't matter to the final product - or to my ears.

I've never understood the preference for novelty in popular music. I'm enthralled by more central concerns. Such as the song itself.

I've gone rather far off-track. I apologize. What I mean to say is, I really want to hear this song. But it isn't so much because of anything it represented - a different direction, or anything. It's more just for the song itself, to want to see it realized.

Yes and no. I don't so much think of it as novelty but history 'realised', to use your term. I don't live within a fatalistic universe. There is such a thing as an anachronism. Timing is important. It's part of a 'moment'. I'd like to hear a version of the song as it was not too far removed from the moment it was conceived. I don't really care if it becomes a 'B-side' as long as I get to hear it but it may lessen the album proper.