2003 – Pawn Shop

I’ve recently gone back and listened to this CD for the first time in what might be 5 years or more (It’s October of 2011 at the time of this writing). As I listened I was really surprised by some of the songs and the diversity of the album. When I first made this CD I remember being satisfied with the mix, but thought that maybe I hadn’t put as much effort into it as I could have because I spent so much time on the artwork for it. In hind site, and after listening to it again, I think that initial impression was wrong. I repeat some artists too often (probably because I wasn’t getting exposed to enough new material), but I think the choices were all good and it has withstood the test of time. And it wants to be played loud.

The artwork on this album is my most ambitious album cover yet, and took a lot of time to do. When looking at it again I am still proud of the work I put into it, but I have learned so many more techniques with the different software I used to create it that it sometimes looks a little amateurish to me now. But overall I still like it a lot.

I ended up landing on the title of Pawn Shop partly because I liked the idea of the artwork concept. My first thought was to have a picture of a glass counter/case like you see in collectable shops and have it filled with objects that would each represent the different songs on the album. I soon discovered that I could not find a good picture of one of these cases on the internet, and I didn’t think too many shops would have been pleased with me taking pictures of their cases. It probably would have been beyond my skills in Photoshop to get it to my liking anyway.

So what I used as a foundation for the inside cover was an image out of one of my son’s I Spy books (Genius! Not me, the books). I then manipulated the pieces in the original image and added many of my own to make each little cubby represent a song name. I was definitely more successful in some than others, and when I look at it now I have better ideas for some clues than what I had at the time, but what are you going to do, right?

I also decided to make this a little bit of a puzzle. I give you the first one by making the top left cubby represent the first song on the album, but after that they’re scattered about in a pretty random order. I do give you a clue in each cubby.

Time for a minor digression – I remember when CD’s first came out. Not that I’m all that old, but it was the first quick, mainstream technology change that I was able to be apart of. (I remember the VCR coming into it’s own, but it didn’t appear in my parent’s house for years…I think we got our first color TV in 1982 or something). The first one I bought was the Grateful Dead’s A Touch of Gray, which is strange because I’ve never been a huge fan of the Dead, but it really is a good album if you haven’t listened to it lately. But I’m digressing further. My point here is that when I buy a CD that does not list the time of the song on the liner notes it makes me crazy. It’s so darn simple to do, why not just include it with the song names and lyrics? Because of my belief in this I always include the song times with the titles.

Which is where the clue comes in. I included the song times, but not with the song names. Instead each cubby has a price tag, and that price is actually the song length, so if you can’t figure out which cubby represents which song through the objects in the image (which, admittedly, are pretty poor clues in some cases) you could at least match it up by the time and then try and figure out what I was trying to do.

Unfortunately the song times don’t seem to line up exactly anymore. The CD player that I used to get my song times on actually showed frames per second (70 in the case of a CD) which I would ignore in getting my times, but apparently iTunes, and most other CD players, round up. So a lot of the “prices” are off by a penny here. We’ll just chalk that up to inflation I guess.

There is also a couple of other hidden items and tidbits on the artwork. More details on the Pawn Shop graphics can be found here.

Go to this page if you want to add the album artwork to iTunes.

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M1 A1
Gorillaz
Gorillaz

I heard this song while shopping in a funky little boutique in Red Bank, NJ. It really struck me as being a cool way to start an album. It pretty much sets the tone for most of this record – strong guitar and heavy beat.

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Good Thing
Reel Big Fish
Cheer Up

This song just keeps the groove going. It starts off a lot darker than it really is with the voice over. You expect a really hard metal song, but it turns out to be a pretty positive song with some great bright horns.

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(Drawing) Rings Around The World
Super Furry Animals
RIngs Around The World

These guys are crazy. They’re from Norway and write songs that have no place on radio but are really cool to listen to. Not sure what draws me to this song, but I like it. Maybe it’s just the nutty drawn out ending with the swirling sounds. Awesome with headphones.

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We Used To Be Friends
Dandy Warhols
Welcome To The Monkey House

I like this groove a lot. Great bass beat and then hand claps. Love the hand claps.

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Friendly Ghost
Eels
Souljacker

Like the song, like the lyrics. “If you’re scared to die, you’d better not be scared to live” How cool is that? This song is also the source of the CD title.

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Broken Up Adingdong
Beta Band
Beta Band

Another goofy group that reminds me a bit of the Super Furry Animals in their style. Not sure what draws me to this song other than it fascinates me in how it starts in one style and ends up sounding like a street carnival in some poor but proud town in Trinidad with homemade instruments.

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Johnny & Courtney
Entrain
All One

Moving into a little bit of an island sound with this song, which works coming from the island carnival above.

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Treachery
Kirsty MacColl
Tropical Brainstorm

It’s the lyrics of this song that draw me to it. It’s an amusing twist on the fan/artist stalking thing. Overall a really good album – a shame she died in a boating accident shortly before this album was released. I would have liked to have heard more from her.

One of the more interesting things about making my mixes is not always knowing where that mix will lead to. In this case I have gone from the opening M1-A1 to this tropical sound.
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War Dance
XTC
Nonsuch

OK, it was time to break out of the island sound. It was hard not to put an XTC song on a CD for a couple of years there, and this one is no exception. They just write so many really good songs. They are almost always lyrically smart, and this is no exception. You’ve got to love the instrumentation, so much more than drums bass and guitar.

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Somebody Loved Me
Reel Big Fish
Cheer Up

Another song with big horns. I just really like that sound.
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The Sound of Muzak
Porcupine Tree
In Absentia

I have a couple of albums from this band. It’s an interesting sound and style that they have. It seems to always be on the edge of something great, almost like a Pink Floyd song. Not quite there, but enough for me to keep listening. Great studio production.
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Leave The Biker
Fountains of Wayne
Fountains of Wayne

Yes they were doing songs before Stacey’s Mom, and good ones. I like the hook of the refrain, but also it’s just funny. Who hasn’t been in this situation before?

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Run! Christian, Run!
Super Furry Animals
RIngs Around The World

It’s the long, slow build in this song that I really enjoy. Those simple leisurely notes in the beginning carry all the way through the song building to that great crescendo. So cool.

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Newborn
Elbow
Asleep In The Back

Another song with a great build, but this one crashes into you less subtly than the slow build of the previous song. Great big sound with the organ and keyboards layered up, but it’s the drum production that really shines here, specifically the cymbals. The hi-hat breathes so well here, you can here all of the subtleties in this recording.

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Fairy Dust
Joe Jackson
Volume 4

This was a great and underrated release from Joe Jackson. Very good album with some neat tracks. I think it’s the bass line that hooked me on this song, but I love Jackson’s piano playing too.
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Burning Down My Sanity
Moth
Provisions Fiction & Gear

This is such a great song off of an equally great album. I wish these guys could have repeated the quality of this album on their other releases, but it’s not the case. Another building song with so much restrained emotion in the beginning. You can really feel the tension as it works up to the release.
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That’s Not Really Funny
Eels
Souljacker

Man, I really like cranking this song up. The use of distortion through the guitars and vocals is just great. It feels like an angry song in those bursts, though I’m not sure it is.
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Scattered Black & Whites
Elbow
Asleep In The Back

I love, love, love this song. It’s so luxurious in its sound. It starts with that simple quiet snare and tickety-tack hi-hat, almost evokes the sound of a train running down the tracks. But it’s not a fast song. It takes its time getting to its destination. Real simple guitar a little light synthesizer and calm vocals. And then the magic of this gorgeous, meandering piano comes in. I cannot believe how beautiful this piano is. Not just the sound, but the notes that are played and how they are played. The melody travels up and down the keyboard in no particular hurry with the pauses as fulfilling as the notes. How do people write like this? Really, the total antithesis of the previous two songs, but such a wonderful, satisfying end to an album.
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Hidden Track
Eels
Souljacker

OK, maybe not the end of the album, because I always need to through one more hidden piece on my CD’s. This is a great, kooky sounding song that really appeals to me. And it’s got the right kind of name for a hidden track. Also had to struggle with not making some of these lyrics the album title – Jacuzzis and Bunnies, Jesus’ New Snowshoes, Werewolf in the Flowerbed. How funny are those?