The Rosedales

Alternate title could be "How the hell do I keep finding neat bands after they've stopped".

I seriously have a talent for finding bands that have a unique flavor years after they've halted the majority of their creative output.  In the case of The Rosedales, they haven't updated their band page in a year or so, their last album was released in 2009 and their social media presence is next to nothing.  But I've latched onto their albums on Spotify and have loved them.  I've been trying to analyse why and the best I can come up with is broken down into a couple of different categories.

1. Subject matter.
The Rosedales are a horror pop/punk style group similar to Koffin Kats, The Creepshow or Bloodsucking Zombies From Outer Space.  Ergo the lyrics are packed with spooky imagery along with the song titles.  Never Coming Home, Murder of Crows, Frozen Ghost etc.

2. A different sound from the genre.
Instead of the harsher sounds that permeates the genre, The Rosedales sounds a bit more... I hesitate to say softer.  More atmospheric?  It allows for a different mood to form and produces some very sing-a-long-able tunes.  To describe it I can only think about some of the alternative pop that came from the 80's.  Less Synth, more vocalization.

I was listening to one of their songs the other day, So Ordinary from their 2003 album Raise Your Spirits and I realized that this song is I am Legend.

"I came to the other day, man my eyes were dark and grey So I cried up to the sky, whoa Then I wandered around this town not another soul around I'm the last man on earth

Life seems so ordinary, without you mine feels so scary I feel so dead and buried, without you I feel so ordinary now So ordinary now

Three years have gone by, every night I hear the cries All those mutants left behind, whoa Could things get any worse, now I'm driving in a hearse They only come out at night

Life seems so ordinary, without you mine feels so scary I feel so dead and buried, without you I feel so ordinary now"

If you are unfamiliar with the story thanks to the Will Smith movie from a few years back, the lyrics above is pretty much the first half.  However I don't recall if in the book Robert Neville drove in a hearse.  I think that is lifted from the pretty great The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price.  Come to think of it the whole song probably is an homage to the movie, what with that last man on earth lyric.

In short, give them a listen.  I enjoy them, if more people rediscover them then maybe we will get another album.

BAGPIPES.

To anyone that knows me there is no surprise when I say that I love the bagpipe.  It is a cultural thing, a family thing.  They have been present for the happier and the sadder times in my life.  My grandpa on my mom's side played them, my uncle, a cousin (two or three in a pipe band at any given time, just not all on the 'pipes) a dozen friends of the family.  Long story short, they've always been there.

It pleases me when I hear them pop up in popular media like movies or tv but it usually is just a few seconds of pipes before whatever bass riff or dance music they had resumes.  One of the worst offenders I've found is Cloud Age Symphony (the opening tune to Last Exile)


Warning, lack of pipes.

To me it is akin to someone opening a chest containing a pile of beautiful raspberries and only pulling one out to give to you and just before they do hand it over, they squish it a little.  This is nothing against Last Exile, mind.  I rather enjoyed the show and art direction.  Just that opening bothers me.  It is not consistent with the tone of the show and it makes me wonder why they even bothered with the five seconds of bagpipe in the first place.

Then there is the opening that stays perfectly in line with a show.

Warning, laughing cartoon people.
Creepy and weird, huh?  That's Paranoia Agent to a T.  Not for everyone, certainly but nevertheless an interesting show that had some serious thought put to it.  From the theme and opening crawl to the end credits and everything in between.

Bit of a tangent but the point is kind of there.  Don't start of with something and go off to left field without having or making a reason.  It is certainly something that I need to be cognizant of in my writing and art as I tend to start with one path and end up going through the brambles to another.

Thoughts I need to keep in place for future projects:
1. I need to keep a story diary. A pulped paper hard copy for everything.
2. Everything has a reason in a good story, but not required in art.
3.Keep the theme steady.  Don't be bogus bagpipes.
4. Bogus Bagpipes sounds like a 1950's superhero catchphrase. Like if Banshee was made by DC two decades earlier.