Day 9

Ok it's been a full week since I fed any CDs to the lil ripper but there's good reason for that. I had to travel up to London for work, which is never a bad thing cos' it can mean only one thing - more CDs! I flew in over the weekend so I managed to spend most of Sunday visiting the usual haunts, although I did give Berwick St a miss this time round. My first stop was Rough Trade East. I must say that I love the vibe around the whole Spitalfields, Brick Lane, Old Truman Brewery area. It's always buzzing and full of surprises. I picked up a few goodies from the store before heading to my next stop which was HMV on Oxford St. This is one endless cavern of a store and you could easily spend half a day browsing thru their neverending selection of music and movies. And I was in luck cos the Spring sales were in so there were tons of super cheap stuff. I must confess that I felt giddy after thumbing thru the hundreds of CDs in the bargain section but it was worth it cos I hauled away quite a stash of goodies. My last stop was Fopp on Earlham St. By this stage, my little day pack was bursting at the seams so I went easy and just picked up a handful of CDs. At the end of my excursion, the tally was 24 albums and here they are:

From left to right (top row down): The Antlers - Hospice, Serena Maneesh - No.2: Abyss In B Minor, Primal Scream - Screamadelica (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition), Glasvegas - Euphoric/Heartbreak, Joe Satriani - The Essential, Klaxons - Surfing The Void, The Posies - Blood/Candy, The Leisure Society - Into The Murky Water, The Fratelis - Here We Stand, Cut Copy - Zonoscope, The Black Keys - Attack & Release, Girls Names - Dead To Me

From left to right (top row down): Gene - John Peel Sessions 95 - 99, Chris Brown - Graffiti, Band Of Horses - Infinite Arms, The Books - The Way Out, Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere, Graham Coxon - The Spinning Top, Maps - Turning The Mind, Dragonforce - Inhuman Rampage, Moby - Destroyed, The Von Bondies - Love Hate And Then There's You, The Futureheads - The Chaos, Gran Ronde - Secret Rooms.

So, instead of focusing on ripping my music, it looks like I've been adding to the CD library which just means that this entire uploading process is gonna take awhile longer? ...

Day 7

Right, today is James day ... yup I'll be loading the entire James catalogue, which consists of 12 albums. Here they are:

From left to right (top down): Hey Ma, The Morning After, The Night Before, The Best Of, Millionaires, Pleased To Meet You, Laid, Wah Wah, Whiplash, Stutter, James/Gold Mother, Seven.

I think I am missing one album from the collection and that is "Strip Mine" released in 1988 (although it could possibly show up later on). Following James has been quite an adventure. I first came across the band way back in 1990 when I saw the video for "Sit Down" on TV and was totally hooked by the vocals and the singalong chorus. I remember forcing myself to make a mental note of the band and the song (you have to appreciate that there was no internet or web back then! - so it was almost impossible to find out more about the band where I was). It was not until 2 years later (around 1992) when I was in a small record store in PJ that, by chance, I stumbled across a cassette tape (yes CDs were still hard to come by) of the "Seven" album by James. And I remember standing there and wondering for the longest time if this was the same "James". The store owner was none the wiser (but what was I expecting right?!) so, in the end, I took a small leap of faith and forked out my weekly pocket money to buy the cassette. I went home and stuck it in the player and once Tim Booth's vocals came on - I knew I had the right band and I was completely ecstatic! Nothing beats the feeling when you've searched and waited in hope to find a song/band that you chanced upon fleetingly - it's like rediscovering a long lost friend. And since then, I have bought everything they have put out.

I loved "Seven" to death and I must have played the cassette until the tape wore thin. I still think it is my favourite James album. "Laid" was the next album to come out (in 1993) and it was the album that brought them greater success in the States. It was also the first time the band worked with Brian Eno and the story goes that he set up two recording studios side by side. One studio focused on the songs that would end up on "Laid' while the second studio was used to record all the jam sessions and live improvisation when the band was taking a break from recording the official album. These jam sessions eventually ended up on the experimental "Wah Wah" album. To fully appreciate why it was significant to record an album of the jam sessions, you have to understand that this was one of the unique things about James; most (if not all) of their songs were created from live jam sessions. For example, "Sit Down" was created out of a twenty minute jam that only ended because the band was "laughing too much to continue". So Brian Eno felt is was important to capture the creative process and allow people to see and appreciate the way their music was created. I know a lot of people who bought "Wah Wah" without understanding the background behind the album and ended up being utterly disappointed with the music (which has been described as "unlistenable"). But I think it gave a rare insight to how the band explored music and showed the enormity of their creative ideas.

The band went through a little patch with their subsequent albums. "Whiplash", "Millionaires" and "Pleased To Meet You" sounded like the band were stagnating and (I think) it was a challenge for the band to stay relevant in the constantly changing musical landscape. After a lukewarm response to "Please To Meet You", the band decided to take a break and work on individual projects. It was not until 7 years later when the band re-united and started work on their 10th studio album entitled "Hey Ma" (in 2008) and this was a true return to form. The songs were fresh and seemed to recapture the energy and passion of their earlier work. For me, it has been a real trip following James throughout the years with plenty of highs and lows (musically speaking) but I am just glad that they are still around and making good music ...

Well, after adding in my James collection, the CD count is:

119 albums
1,418 songs

There goes another weekend!

Day 6

Ok it's been a week since I managed to feed any music to the lil ripper. Had to travel down to Jakarta earlier in the week and been too tired/lazy after getting back from work the rest of the week. Anyway, it's the weekend again so time to get things back on track ... instead of continuing with the back catalogue, I decided to upload a bunch of new CD's that arrived in the post from amazon during the week (who doesn't like getting stuff in the mail right?). Here's what showed up in the goody bag:

From left to right (top row down):

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Belong
The Raveonettes - Raven In The Grave
Young Knives - Ornaments From The Silver Arcade
The Wombats - This Modern Glitch
Ladytron - Velocifero
The Joy Formidable - The Big Roar
Jonny - Self Titled
The Charlatans - Us And Us Only (Deluxe Edition)
Those Dancing Days - In Our Space Hero Suits
Maths And Physics Club - I Shouldn't Look As Good As I Do
Maths And Physics Club - Self Titled
The Vaccines - What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?

So where do I start? ... The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart (I'd buy their album on the strength of that name alone!) is a 4-piece indie pop band from NYC. Their music is dreamy, reverb-drenched and filled with saccharine sweet melodies. Add the wispy vocals and fuzzy guitars and you have all the hallmarks of a perfect shoegazing album. "Belong" is their second full length album and it is produced/mixed by the dream team of Flood and Alan Moulder (Ride, My Bloody Valentine, Curve etc). So far, I have only managed to listen to it once through on the way to work and it sounds brilliant. If you're a fan of Ride, Jesus & Mary Chain and fuzzpop - drop your burger and go buy a copy now!

Next up is The Raveonettes. The Danish duo are definitely one of my favourite bands. They could be described as a darker reincarnation of Jesus & Mary Chain but their songs do vary from one end of the spectrum to the other; from lush poppy harmonies to all out fuzzbox distortion fests. Whatever they do, their music is consistently melodic and I was lucky enough to catch them earlier this year when they performed as a double bill with The Flaming Lips at MBS. Sharin (who plays the bass) is just too cool ... "Raven In The Grave" is the bands' 5th studio album. I haven't had the chance to listen to it yet so I shall save a spot in one of my future entries ...

There is so much more good music to write about but my tummy is rumbling so I'm gonna take a break and run out to grab some grub.

And the count so far is:

105 album
1,253 songs

Hungry ...

Day 5

After taking a few days off from ripping ... I'm back with a bumper stack since it is the weekend. Before ploughing into the CDs, here is a quick side note to myself about the recent GE and the results. I think it was very encouraging and heartening to see so many people come forward this time around to express their views (whether on FB, blogs, forums etc) and it showed that people cared and were passionate about the state of affairs. In the past, with the results more or less a foregone conclusion, most people would have just said "why bother?". It was a landmark result (well done Aljunied!) but, personally, I was hoping VW's team and NS would win too (although that was probably expecting too much in too short a period of time). Whatever the case, it bodes well for the future ...

Now on to the music, today I will be loading the entire Manic Street Preachers catalogue plus a few other things. I've been a fan of the Manics from the beginning. Their music (while not always consistent) has always been thought provoking and I loved their glam punk image when they first burst onto the scene in 1990. The mysterious disappearance of Richey Edwards in 1995 and the controversy surrounding their "Holy Bible" album made following the band all the more intriguing/interesting. Richey was officially declared "presumed dead" in Nov 2008 but the band has been continued to release material featuring lyrics written by Richey. In fact, in 2009, the band recorded an album entitled "Journal For Plague Lovers", which featured lyrics written entirely by Richey before his disappearance. Here is a shot of the Manics catalogue:

From left to right: Generation Terrorists, Gold Against The Soul, The Holy Bible, Journals Of Plague Lovers, Everything Must Go, Know Your Enemy, This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours, Lifeblood, Lipstick Traces, Forever Delayed, Send Away The Tigers, Postcards From A Young Man.

The album cover for "Journal For Plague Lovers" is a painting done by by the same artist who contributed the artwork for "The Holy Bible" - Jenny Saville.

If I had to choose a favourite Manics album, it would be a tough call (since apart from "Know Your Enemy" and "Lifeblood" I think every album has been pretty strong) but I would say it would have to be "Gold Against The Soul" and that's probably because I rank "Scream To A Sigh" as one of the best songs ever written. The melody, the guitar riff, the vocal execution, the lyrics. Simply brilliant. You can watch the video here.

Moving away from the Manics, I've also loaded the following albums:

Mali Music (featuring Damon Albarn)- Self Titled
Lush - Ciao!
Lush - Lovelife
Honeycrack - Prozaic
Mainstream - Self Titled
John Power - Happening For Life
Hard-Fi - Stars Of CCTV
The Hormones - Where Old Ghosts Meet
Lorien - Under The Waves
The Libertines - Up The Bracket
The Libertines - Self Titled

Couple of quick notes: Honeycrack was a great power pop band and it was a pity they did not stick around long enough to put out a second album. The single "Go Away" is definitely in my list of top 10 power pop/punk songs. I remember catching the video on MTV first (way back in 1996) and I rushed to grab a pen/paper when the title flashed at the bottom of the screen. And it was only a few years later that I managed to get hold of the album. I think it was at that wonderful gem of a place again - Dada Records!

Lorien is another band that held so much promise but sadly faded into obscurity after one album. "Under The Waves" was released in 2002 and the band was championed by NME as the pretenders to the Coldplay throne. Their music was melancholic, brooding and epic in portions. The fragile vocals of Italian singer Fabio Ciarcelluti gave the songs a slightly dreamy/haunting feel. My favourite track is "Human Beings".

After today, the count is:

91 albums
1,089 songs

Wohoo!

Day 4

Wednesday night is squash night with Mike and the boys. Ok - I know, who plays squash these days right? I agree it is a dying sport in terms of popularity. Remember the days when every condo came with a squash court? Anyway, I still think it is a great way to get a good solid workout and let off some steam ... with my legs feeling a bit like jelly, I am not going to be too ambitious tonight, so I have pulled out a stack of 10 CDs which I will try to feed to the lil ripper.

The lucky 10 for the night are:

Eskobar - A Thousand Last Chances
Explosions In The Sky - How Strange, Innocence
The Futureheads - This Is Not The World
Another Late Night - Kid Loco
Justin Timberlake - Future Sex/Love Sounds
Coheed And Cambria - No World For Tomorrow
The Cribs - The New Fellas
Switchfoot - Nothing Is Sound
James - The Night Before
Scout - It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time

Hmm ... looking at the above - that's quite a mixed bag. You've got indie, arty, pop, post-rock, progressive and groovy. Eskobar are a Swedish indie/pop band. I think they are more pop than indie but there you go. I have quite a large collection of Swedish bands and I am a huge fan of anything on the Labrador label. If I could, I would order their entire back catalogue. Must be something in the water in Sweden, but the music some of the bands produce is just ... wow! I think part of the appeal is not actually understanding what they are singing about (like in the case of Kent and Ingenting). Eskobar sing in English (at least on this album they do). The album is a lil patchy but there are a few gems in there. My favourite track is "Love Strikes". You can watch the video here.

As for interesting artwork, The Futureheads decided to use a rather dark/creepy theme for their second album ("This Is Not The World") with the band taking photos of themselves with aluminium foil covering their faces.

Another album with pretty nice artwork is the Another Late Night series. This one features Kid Loco.

Finally, I have to mention the band Scout not because of the artwork but because I think they are one of the coolest indie bands around. They are from NYC and their singer/guitarist Ashen Keilyn has a voice to die for. They are about as indie as indie gets and I figure most folks would never have come across/heard of them before. In fact, I knew nothing about them until my magic helper picked up their CD from a bargain bin in HMV a few years back and we bought it simply because the CD looked indie. And boy am I glad we did because the album kicks some serious ass ... that was the second album by the way ("This Soft Life"). But after hearing that album, I went on a mission to track down everything they had put out - which led me to purchase "It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time" from some dude on Ebay and it was worth it. Apparently, it says on their website that they are putting the finishing touches to their new album entitled "All Those Relays" which should be out in June - Happy Days!

Ok, I think that wraps it up for tonight. At the end of this entry, the count is:

67 albums
767 songs

Time to hit the sack ... zzz

Day 3

It's back to (real) work after the May Day weekend so I'm kinda bummed ... decided that I will give myself an easy target of 14 discs tonight before I hit the sack.

Making up the lucky 14 are:

I Was A Cub Scout - I Want You To Know That There Is Always Hope
Arab Strap - The Red Thread
Arab Strap - The Week Never Starts Around Here
Mando Diao - Never Seen The Light Of Day
Jewel - 0304
The Sounds - Living In America
Rooney - Self Titled
The Young Knives - Voices Of Animals And Men
The Bluetones - BBC Radio Sessions
Nightmares On Wax - Thought So
Ra Ra Riot - The Rhumb Line
Supergrass - Diamond Hoo Ha
Iron & Wine - Around The Well
The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of The Understatement

Just in case anyone is actually reading this blog (who are you sad people?!), I should clarify that although the entry is titled "Day 3", it's not like I have been sitting here ripping continuously for three days in a row rather it is just the third day I've been at this. I imagine I will not be able to keep this up on a daily basis, so to keep things simple, I figured I would just name the entries in sequence.

Anyway, on to more interesting things. Coming back to the topic of CD packaging, there is no question that digipak is the way to go. I mean, the artwork on the digipak version is always nicer than the standard edition and hey - if you're going pay money, might as well get something that looks nice right? Which brings me to the I Was A Cub Scout album. Apart from being a really decent debut (which sadly was also to be their last - the band broke up shortly afterwards), I like the artwork, especially the art on the disc itself. Plus I think the title ("I Want You To Know That There Is Always Hope") is very cool. Here are some shots:

Another digipak album from this stack is the one from The Last Shadow Puppets. The band is actually a side project/collaboration by Alex Turner (lead singer of the Artic Monkeys) and Miles Kane (lead singer of the slightly lesser known band called The Rascals). The music is quite groovy and cheesy at the same time - like something you might hear on a Tarantino movie soundtrack. And I like how the photo on the cover kinda captures the mood ...

The last album I'm gonna mention briefly is The Rhumb Line by Ra Ra Riot. The band is signed to Barsuk Records, which is home to bands like Death Cab for Cutie, Mates of State and Nada Surf. Being on an indie label, for some reason, they tend to put out stuff with cooler artwork/artwork/everything. This is no exception plus it is a pretty good album too. Their music has been described as being a bit of a cross between Vampire Weekend and Arcade Fire but I say - go listen for yourself! Here are some shots of the CD ...

Ok, it is almost past my bedtime so that's all of this entry. The count is now:

56 albums
635 songs

Slow and steady ...

By the way, I need to mention a special thanks to my magic helper who has been feeding the discs diligently into the lil ripper while I've been typing away!

Day 2

We had a long weekend so I decided to make the most of it by trying to feed more CDs to the lil ripper. I managed to load the following discs:

Maximo Park - Quicken The Heart
The Cribs - Self Titled
Secondhand Serenade - A Twist In My Story
Mr Scruff - Keep It Unreal
Alkaline Trio - Agony & Irony
Interpol - Our Love To Admire
Hal - Self Titled
Def Leppard - Slang
Def Leppard - Vault
Two Door Cinema Club - Tourist History
James Iha - Be Strong Now
Jarvis Cocker - The Jarvis Cocker Record
Kasabian - Empire
Kasabian - Self Titled

A couple of quick notes about some of the above. I must confess that I am a sucker for nice packaging so I do go out of my way to get the deluxe/limited edition version of an album if one is released. Maximo Park did a nice job with the packaging on their third album (which came bundled with a dvd of their gig at Newcastle Arena) although I thought the music was less memorable (as compared to their first two albums). Here is a shot of the album:

Another album with some pretty neat packaging/artwork is the "Agony & Irony" album by Alkaline Trio. Now, I have to confess that I was not a big fan/follower of their music. I knew they were a hardcore punk outfit but when I came across this album in the Gramophone store at the Cathay going for 9 bucks it was a no brainer. To be honest, the music is not bad. I am aware that this is one of their "poppier" albums and having done some reading up about the band on the internet, it is pretty clear that this album led to divided opinions about whether the band was evolving in the right direction or simply selling out and going commercial. For me, I not fussed as long as the music is good/melodic and this is a nice one to crank up when you're behind the wheel!

The last album I wanna mention is "Keep It Unreal" by Mr Scuff. This is an insanely fun, groovy and sexy album. I can't help but bounce/nod to the beats whenever I listen to this on my headphones. This is the 10th anniversary remastered edition which comes with an additional disc of previously unissued tracks. Plus the artwork is super cool. The lil cartoon fellas are cute as hell ...

Anyway, it's getting late so I'm gonna wrap things up for today. At the end of this entry, the count is:

41 albums
460 songs

Onwards and upwards! ...

Day 1

With the system up and running, I now face the painful and rather unenviable task of putting all my music into the NAS. This is probably the most labour intensive/time consuming part of the process - ripping. I really don't know how long I will take to rip all 4,000 plus CDs but I thought, to make the process interesting, I would blog about the whole experience so here goes ...

To start the musical journey, I decided to put in "Generation Terrorists" by the Manic Street Preachers as the inaugural disc. Partly because (a) this is still one of my all time favorite albums and (b) the opening riff to "Motorcycle Emptiness" still gives me the goose bumps every time I hear it.

The second disc to go in was "Modern Life is Rubbish" by Blur. Another seminal album in my opinion. I remember picking this up from Dada Records (remember them!?) in Funan Centre back in 1993. Funnily enough, it actually took me a really long time to get into this album. The first couple of times I tried listening to it, I thought the music/chord structures were just weird and I wasn't able to make it through the whole disc. But then one day, it just kinda clicked and then I couldn't stop playing the album! Simply bizarre ...

Now, obviously if I write about each and every CD that goes in, I might be sitting here for a little while, possibly a few months! So, I am gonna skip the details unless it is an album that holds some interesting and/or notable memory/meaning/songs/artwork etc. I also decided that at the end of each day (whenever I am able to feed a couple of CDs to the lil ripper), I will update the CD count to show the number of discs and tracks successfully uploaded to date.

So, at the end of day one, the count is:

25 albums
280 songs

The Solution

Not being a very tech savvy gadgety kinda fella, I had to rely on my brother to help out with the assembling of the various components that I needed to (a) upload and store my music and (b) enable the music to be broadcasted wirelessly over my local network. For most people who already have their music on their PC, it would have been a fairly straightforward task of migrating their library to a NAS (network attached storage - ok I had to google that) but since the bulk of my music was still on the CDs, my brother suggested that I get a self-ripping NAS to speed up the process.

My brother is an absolute whizz with computers so if that's what the man recommends, that's exactly what I was getting. And I have to say he did an amazing job building the NAS from scratch. He then hooked me up with some software which he downloaded from Vortexbox. Since I don't know enough tech vocabulary to properly describe what exactly it is that the program does, here is the official blurb from their website:

"VortexBox is a free, open source (GPL v3), quick-install ISO that turns your unused computer into an easy-to-use music server/jukebox. Once VortexBox has been loaded on an unused PC, it will automatically rip CDs to FLAC and MP3 files, ID3 tag the files , and download the cover art. Vortexbox will then serve the files to network media players such as Logitech Squeezebox, Sonos, or Linn. The music files can also be streamed to a Windows or Mac OSX system."

And the last thing to complete the system was a squeezebox, which I had to connect to the stereo in my living room. I must say I was totally blown away with what this lil fella could do when we first set it up. It is absolutely brilliant and it is one of those devices which makes you wonder how you have survived this long without it! Anyway, here are some pictures of the "perfect solution" my brother put together for me ... thanks Dude!

And ...

Ta-dah! ... presenting the lil ripper.

In the beginning ...The "PROJECT"

So this has been a long time coming ...

After putting the Project off for months, I finally conceded that the situation was getting impossible. I could no longer keep track of what CDs I had or didn't have and (more annoyingly) it could take anywhere from 5 minutes to 45 minutes to locate a particular album so much so that I had started listening to the same few CDs simply because they were more easily accessible ... At that point, I realised it was time to succumb to the techy world and put all my music on a digital library.

For those of you who are wondering what the big deal is - I mean everyone puts their music on itunes or some similar platform these days - so what am I moaning about? Well, my situation is lil more complicated/challenging because (a) I am possibly one of the minority few (read: suckers) who actually enjoys buying CDs and yes I probably buy about 10 CDs a month (b) and having started being a music junkie since I was in college ... I have approximately 4,000 CDs in my collection. And that in itself is part of the problem - storage. To fully appreciate the task at hand, here is a photo of the "challenge" ...