WTF EX

It is always interesting when a band re-records a song. Whether it is for some type of anniversary release, stepping up to a major record label, or some other situation where it is necessary or warranted, fans of the original recording will inevitably have some type of feeling about the new version of the song.

Prompted by discussions I have had with friends over Anberlin‘s new version of “The Feel Good Drag“, I decided to take a look at it and four other notable re-recordings from my library. What made the original version good or bad? How about the new one? Was it worth re-recording in the first place?

I do not really have much of an idea what imeem is, but it appears that there are just a whole bunch of songs up for free streaming, and they tend to have links to purchase the song if you are interested. I guess you have to sign-up/login if you want to listen more than once…? Whatever. With that in mind, I suppose I will just link over to there (where available) so you all can listen along with the music (rather than me putting up ten MP3s in a single blog post).

For the purposes of this list and discussion, I will not be including demo versions of songs as the “original” version. If I were going to do that, I would have at least five versions of Saosin‘s “I Wanna Hear Another Fast Song” / “Sleepers” that I would have to compare…! Also, versions from an EP that appeared right on the next full length essentially as-is from version to version (such as The Get Up Kids’ “Red Letter Day” and Finch‘s “Letters To Youi”) also will not count for this list and discussion.

(1) Anberlin – “The Feel Good Drag”
Original Version: Never Take Friendship Personal (2005)
New Version: New Surrender (2008)

This was absolutely one of the best songs off of Never Take Friendship Personal, which itself was a near-perfect album beginning to end. Anberlin has stated that they wanted to bring this song back because it never got the “chance” it deserved previously (and ended up making it their first single and music video off of New Surrender). I personally believe it was already a wonderfully-produced song, and had a pretty sick amount of emotion coming from Christian’s vocals. So what happened in the new version? It is far too “safe”. The screaming is removed from the breakdown (which itself was so far-removed from anything else Anberlin had done), and the production is far too overdone. In general, it just feels like the soul of the song was missing. It was still the same song, but that piece that made it special was no longer there. Unfortunately, that is how I feel about the album New Surrender in general; it is defintiely Anberlin, and there are definitely some good songs, but there is no spark.

(2) New Found Glory – “Hit or Miss”
Original Version: Nothing Gold Can Stay (1999)
New Version: New Found Glory (2000)

As the song that put New Found Glory on the pop-punk map, “Hit or Miss” was a pretty huge deal. The original version of the song off of Nothing Gold Can Stay was already a “single” in that a music video was already made (starring Corey Feldman, no less). The acoustic guitar opening really defined it, and while the production is not up to the level that their later material would be, it is still very clear sounding and well done. I was very apprehensive when I heard they were going to be re-recording the song for their “major label” debut (as well as their single and a re-done music video), and I remember not liking it all that much upon first hearing it. As time went on, it became apparent that the new version was indeed a solid improvement on the original, and quite possibly what they originally wanted it to sound like (and was indeed what it sounded like during live performances). Jordan’s vocals were much cleaner and at appropriate levels when compared to the music. The “I’ve had so many chances…” dual-vocals near the end are finally audible. All in all, it is a solid re-recording of the original version, and is typically my go-to version for playing (despite my love for Nothing Gold Can Stay).

(3) Reel Big Fish – “Beer”
Original Version: Everything Sucks (1995) / Turn The Radio Off (1996)
New Version: We’re Not Happy ‘Til You’re Not Happy (2005)

I will consider the version off of Turn The Radio Off the “original” version, considering that most of the songs off of Everything Sucks ended up being re-recorded for more “proper” album releases later on down the road. With that in mind, it was a total shock to see a ten-year-anniversary version of “Beer” re-recorded as a b-side for We’re Not Happy ‘Til You’re Not Happy. What was the real purpose of this, though? It sounds much more “full” and is performed slightly slower, but other than that, it does not contribute a whole lot. I simply do not have a whole lot to say comparing these two versions. The new version is just a b-side, so it is not like it was re-done as a “new single” for the band presenting them to a new audience. It is… well, it is just there for the sake of being there, almost.

(4) Saosin – “Bury Your Head”
Original Version: Saosin EP (2005)
New Version: Saosin full-length (2006)

The original version of “Bury Your Head” was presented as the first highly-public debut of replacement vocalist Cove Reber (though he had done a couple recordings prior to this, including the studio version of “I Can Tell There Was An Accident Here Earlier“). This version of “Bury Your Head” received an actual music video, done in the style of a live performance. The new version seemed like a forced-inclusion by Capitol for the band’s full-length (and while I do not have a source to quote, I believe that is the actual truth; the band did not want to re-record and include it, while the label highly suggested they do such). The new version features more drum-fills, though they do not necessarily feel like they belong here as much as they do on other new song arrangements on the album. Reber’s dual-vocals in places feel like they are there just to add to the breadth of sounds in the song, rather than enhancing what is already there in his performance. Maybe it is because the song’s inclusion was forced, but there is a distinct lack of emotion in the performance of this song compared to the rest of the album.

(5) The Starting Line – “Leaving”
Original Version: The Starting Line (2001) / With Hopes of Starting Over EP (2002)
New Version: Say It Like You Mean It (2002)

While The Starting Line technically first recorded the song during their We The People recording sessions, the entire album was more or less scrapped when Drive-Thru came along. It was then re-recorded nearly identically for their Drive-Thru debut EP, With Hopes of Starting Over. It was then recorded for a third time for their proper first full-length, Say It Like You Mean It, where it was used as their second single and music video (after “The Best Of Me“). The original version of the song has a rough feel to it, but is incredibly genuine. Kenny’s voice is still young and squeaky in the past, which would start to change for the full-length, and continue onward through all of their subsequent releases. The radio-muffled extra “Without saying goodbye…” would evolve over the versions of the song, which is probably for the better. The original version uses these cheap production tricks to try to put some extra “oomphf” in there, but I personally believe that it hurts the otherwise genuine qualities of the recording. The new version of the song does more than just change the production values, and actually changes a bit of lyrics, shortening the “As weekdays and weekdays unwind / I’ll be found staring back in time” to simply “Let’s travel back in time!” The new version also opens more akin to the band’s live performances of the song, with Kenny singing the beginning of the song’s chorus before the full band breaks in. While it could be argued that Mark Trombino over-produced Say It Like You Mean It, I feel that this song, at least, particularly benefitted from this outside viewpoint (I also agree with Howard Benson’s production of “The World” off of Based On A True Story, rather than the band’s preference of the Tim O’Heir version). The removal of the “cheap” effects really helps the song, and everything is brought into balance with each other. The new version also ramps up the chorus speed to a more noticeable level. Like New Found Glory’s re-recorded version of “Hit or Miss“, I find myself revisiting the re-recorded version of “Leaving” more than the original(s), though also like the New Found Glory song, I have a huge place in my heart for the original(s) that I do occasionally revisit.

Here’s an IM session I was having with Julian a couple weeks ago on my iPhone. It was so hilarious, I had to take a snap-shot of it. Wonder how that happened…?

I realize I have not posted anything up here in a while (though I did recently make a post over on vgconvos). I suppose it could just be the time of year (we are all so busy!), or perhaps the sinus infection and meds that give me loopy, incoherent thoughts that do not translate well to a blog post.

Regardless…

Is there anything in particular you readers would like to hear some thoughts on? I will still try to post amusing pictures and such taken in the wild, but I also want to be able to type up some premeditated garbage every so often, too. If you are following this blog, you are either genuinely interested in things I may have to say, or are one of those creepy people that hates me yet follows me around the intertubes reading everything I write hoping to one day pin me on something ever-so-minute when I run for President of the World and destroy all of my plans.

Things I use? Things I do? Places I have been? Specific-fandom stories? I’m full of it! In lots of ways!

So this weekend marks the re-debut of Lo-Fidelity, the music review/appreciation podcast that Jeff and our buddy Brad started up over a year ago and put on hiatus after about ten episodes. Jeff has been talking about getting back into the groove of podcasting on his own for a while, and Lo-Fidelity was going to be the way he would do it. After a search for a permanent co-host for himself going forward, he ultimately approached me and asked if I would be willing to help out and do such. I agreed on the one condition that Brad continued to be involved with the show in some way, shape, or form. Anyway, “Episode 11” came out this weekend, and I am incredibly psyched to be a part of it. Now that yet another internet audio product with my voice is out there, I thought it would be a good time to re-evaluate everything that I am working on, what the original goals were for those projects, and where I would like to see them go.

Daizenshuu EX (www.daizex.com)

While a wee circa-sixteen year old child in 1998, I started up a fansite for a silly little Japanese cartoon. One of my goals when starting up the site (written right on the web page) was a completely egotistical, slightly delusional, and childish aim to become something like a “household name”. I guess I was looking to be an internet celebrity before they existed. As the years went on and I realized that this was going to be a hobby for me and I would be entering the “real world” and such, I became much more genuine with my intents and goals for the site. I wanted to do things that either: 1) no-one had ever done before, or 2) bigger and better than anyone had done before. Fast-forward many years to 2005, and the idea of a “podcast” is suddenly becoming serious business on the internet. Due to the site simply being so old and nothing more than a hobby, many of the things I wanted to do with it were simply impossible, but starting up this new portion of it would allow me to keep up with the times, so to speak, and bring something completely new to the table that few anime sites were doing, let-alone one-show-specific fansites. It has since been the main pet-project of mine (in general and for the website), but it has also allowed me to generate some pretty amazing content that I otherwise would probably never have done, so I am very thankful for that. As more and more time passes, I find myself incredibly conflicted on what I want to do and how I want to cover it for the website; the podcast allows me to explore any and all avenues and still generate compelling content at the same time.

Video Game Conversations Podcast (www.vgconvos.com)

In very early 2008 I decided to do two things: 1) put some of my new podcasting equipment to another use to get a good bang for my buck, and 2) be very greedy and get my friends to come talk about video games with me (this is the kind of stuff we sit around and talk about, anyway, so I thought it made sense to turn it into a show!). I also had a lot of random video game musings that I did not have an appropriate outlet for, so I figured a new website that I could both randomly blog on and also do a new podcast on would be a great idea. Jeff was itching to do some recording at the time (with Lo-Fidelity being on hold), and I somehow convinced Andrew to come record with us, as well. We have now been going for half a year, and I think we have a really good basis for something very nice down the road. I am happy with keeping the podcast monthly, and I do not see that changing at all. I love that I have a place to write random bits of gaming nonsense, and I love even more when one of the other guys also write content. As you have just read (and are possibly confused by), I am slightly conflicted in my goals for the site; I want to keep it this side-project with minimal effort, but I think there is a great basis for a larger entity that I would truly love to explore. Huh.

WTF EX (www.vegettoex.com)

Once we launched vgconvos, I thought it would be nice to have a single place online that I could link out to all of these projects I had. I created vegettoex.com as this place, and further decided to toss up a blog on it so I could have yet another outlet that would be my catch-all; if it didn’t relate to DB or video games, this would be the place to write it. I then decided (does my train of thought even make any sense?) that since I had this catch-all place, if I ever wanted to do a podcast about something else completely random, well, this would be the place for it. I so far have only done three episodes, and while I have enjoyed them, this is something I need and want to be very careful about. I certainly do not want this to be (and we slightly addressed this in the first episode), “Oh, Mike just likes listening to the sound of his own voice!” It certainly isn’t. Well… is it? It is also something that I have mentioned time and time again, but there is so much garbage out there in the world that it almost pains me. Most podcasts are terrible. Most panels that I have seen at conventions are terrible. While I never pretend to be the best at anything I do and expect to automatically have legions of followers, I do believe that the material I put out is well above the level of being “meh”, and this lets me put out non-DB and non-gaming better-than-“meh” material. I will absolutely strive not to do shows just for the sake of doing shows, and will make them worthwhile and enjoyable. I have tried to do many blog posts that follow that school of thought, and I hope to continue it with the podcast in the future. Just don’t expect much of a regular schedule! In the end, I expect to use the site more for its blog than anything else, and the podcast will be an extension of that for topics that can’t be covered in a simple blog post or otherwise need more “hosts” to discuss it.

Lo-Fidelity (www.lofidelity.info)

This has almost become a second-priority podcast all of a sudden! I told Jeff I was unable to commit to a weekly schedule, so for now we are shooting for bi-weekly and we will see how it goes. I absolutely adore the format and content of the show, and I want to help my friends with their podcast endeavors in any way that I can. I thought the “first episode” we did for the re-launch was extremely solid, and I am so happy to be a part of it. Furthermore, I love that all I have to do is just do my homework (listen to music), show up to record, and my job is done. I don’t have to edit, I don’t have to mix… it’s wonderful! I’m sure this is how Jeff feels about all the project he’s done with me!

I have basically created a mini-audio-empire for myself with three (what I consider) very solid shows, and a random extra tossed into the mix. What do I want to do with all of this, though? This is all just side-project hobby stuff for me. Sure, I have a “real life” job where I do similar things (including yet another podcast), but what does this contribute to the world? Am I accomplishing anything? What is the meaning of life? Who is going to win the Super Bowl? Why did I just ask a football question when I can’t care any less about the sport?

I guess I can start up a new category for the blog, now that I have two entries with similar subject matter. I had previously posted about a Photoshop crashing issue I was experiencing and how I corrected it. I figure other people will be having the same issues, and since I find the vast majority of “help” on the internet completely incomprehensible (keep reading), I may as well add to the noise with my own suggestions.

So today Firefox on my work laptop (3.0.4 running on Windows XP Pro SP2) let me know that two plugins/add-ons had updates. Sure, let’s do it! I let Adblock Plus update itself to 1.0, and DownloadHelper update itself to 3.5.1.

After doing so, my bookmarks toolbar suddenly had nothing in it.

I checked in the “Bookmarks” >> “Bookmarks Toolbar” menu option, and thankfully the four items I had set there were actually still there. They just weren’t showing up on the actual toolbar for me to click. Huh.

I did a little Googling to figure out what may have been the problem (assuming it was the add-ons updates), and came across this blog entry. Much to my dismay, it was completely incomprehensible. Sure, there were capital letters and punctuation, but the words didn’t actually make any sense. None of the comments were any more helpful, either. I tried to follow along with what they were saying, but there was a severe lack of context in every single comment.

Luckily, I happened to resize the Firefox window (I don’t know why), and found something interesting:

What on Earth are the bookmarks doing way the heck over there on the right…?! I tried a few things (like manually dragging the icons over to the left… not that it would do anything…), but I was not making any progress. They would stay on-screen now that I had changed the window size, but they stayed flush up against the right side. That doesn’t really help me much, since I have trained myself to head up to the left to click them.

I ended up right-clicking to customize the toolbar area, just to see what would happen:

Without even doing anything on the following screen, my bookmarks toolbar suddenly reverted itself back to normal:

Well, that was certainly interesting.

If there is anything that drives me nuts more than basic grammatical errors in so-called “professional” publications (whether they be “in real life” or online), I have not yet discovered what this additional insanity-maker could be.

A little part of me dies on the inside (in addition to the part that wants to get up and punch a brick wall) every time I see the wrong it’s/its and they’re/there/their. Just as horrific to me is when people add an apostrophe into a word when they are simply trying to make it plural.

You are not reading multiple book’s, you are reading multiple books. Nothing is belonging to the books. They belong to you.

Speaking of books, my buddy Andrew picked me up Eats, Shoots & Leaves a while back. I thoroughly enjoyed it, since I realized that I was not alone in the world with these feelings of rage (not that Andrew shares these feelings… his grammar ranges between wonderful and incomprehensible). The problem is that I simply do not know what to do with myself and this rage. It is impossible to change the world, and it is impossible for me to never encounter these errors that drive me to (non-literal; I’m just making a blog post) insanity.

I cannot even imagine what copy-editors and other similar professionals go through in their daily lives.

That’s a non-referral Amazon link up above, by the way. I do not want any money. I just want people to learn and share in my internet rage.