The idea behind the album, the man behind the fly so to speak, was for me to change horses, try riding side-saddle or maybe just shaking my fear of horses.... actually this music has nothing to do with horses but it has a lot to do with Lars Horntveth. Lars is making his debut as a producer besides dissecting and arranging the music. In the process we wanted to cross paths with a waist high pile of vinyl records that included Colin Blunstone, Bergen White, Dr John, Curtis Mayfield, Alice Coltrane, and Allan Toussaint all found floating around my living room floor the color of red wine on one of our first brain-storming cell assassination sessions.
My songs have always been driven by my guitar playing and that was the obvious place to start to give the songs a different flavor. So I lay down my guitar for the most part and tried to write songs on the piano, an instrument I didn’t know how to play so I learned some things along the way and pounded out the ideas to Lars. The songs started taking shape and we found a work rhythm that flowed effortlessly. At least a year passed before we had enough material, my writing drawing inspiration from the songs already recorded. Lars would chop the songs in half, insert an instrumental passage and we would both search for new melodic hooks that could be incorporated in his unique arrangements. We put together a band, picking people we knew would take the tracks to a different level, Kenneth Kapstad, Nikolai Eilertsen, David Wallumrød, Mathias Eick, Erik Johannessen, Morten Qvenild, Lars Håvard Haugen and an eminent string section consisting of Frode Larsen,Øyvind Fossheim,Stig-Ove Ose,Audun Andre Sandvik and Marius Flateby. Recording was done all over the place making the most of a mobile setup but we left the mixing to the brilliant Jørgen Træen.
We are really excited about this album, it exceeds my expectations and Lars has been pushing for us to continue our collaboration and make another one...
To be continued.
Martin Hagfors
Monday, January 19, 2009
Do it yourself.
Do it yourself.
When I started Men And Flies, even before that song was written I made up my mind to release the album on another label and not spend hundreds of hours putting the whole package together navigating the treacherous waters of manufacturing, keeping my mind churning and losing nights of sleep trying to keep the production on keel.
No such luck, maybe I’m stubborn. The demos were played to a few people most notably the honorable Terje Pedersen of Warner, but after a song and a dance and a lot of reading the fine print, a talk with the bank, a talk with my brother, thanks John, and long discussions with myself, Thom Hell and other colleagues, I made up my mind to breathe life back into Me Records at Home Groan Productions’ World Headquarters and DIY.
The benefits and curse of DIY is ideally, the product can be just like you want it be, total control. I decided to go for a Digifile cardboard cover for the cd and I wanted it to be a perfect square. I also wanted the cover to be folded like a vinyl gatefold and not have a slice off the inside cover for folding purposes as was done on a couple of the Home Groan releases. This was not an easy product to find. The Vinyl cover was also hard to come by. I looked for someone who could print them like they were printed in the US back in the 70’s but no such luck.
The long and the short of it is and a great argument not to DIY is that the first batch of CD covers were wrong and were sent back, they were 12.5 cm x 13 cm, not 13 cm x 13 cm as ordered causing the cd and booklet hard to pull out and ruining the initial effect of releasing a perfect square, yeah and the shrink wrap made the cd look like a bag of bananas. The vinyl was another story, the great dynamic mastering done by Bob Katz in Florida did not sound good on the first test pressings and telephones and emails were bounced back and forth before I got the right sound on the vinyl master. Needless to say after sending a packaging dummy with detailed instructions on how to pack the two inserts in the vinyl gatefold cover they packed them wrong, shrink wrapped them and sent them up to Norway. If you happen to be the proud owner of these insanely expensive beautiful 180 gr. vinyl double albums then open the gatefold cover, flowers facing up and place the inserts in the following fashion. To your left the picture of me and my bike, to your right the urban photo. This will cause the text on the respective front and back cover of the inserts to be what greets you when the gatefold cover is shut. Get it? This was the intention of Talleiv Taro Manum when he designed the cover.
Am I happy with the product? Very much so!! Would I do it again? Never!! But then again, maybe.
Martin Hagfors
When I started Men And Flies, even before that song was written I made up my mind to release the album on another label and not spend hundreds of hours putting the whole package together navigating the treacherous waters of manufacturing, keeping my mind churning and losing nights of sleep trying to keep the production on keel.
No such luck, maybe I’m stubborn. The demos were played to a few people most notably the honorable Terje Pedersen of Warner, but after a song and a dance and a lot of reading the fine print, a talk with the bank, a talk with my brother, thanks John, and long discussions with myself, Thom Hell and other colleagues, I made up my mind to breathe life back into Me Records at Home Groan Productions’ World Headquarters and DIY.
The benefits and curse of DIY is ideally, the product can be just like you want it be, total control. I decided to go for a Digifile cardboard cover for the cd and I wanted it to be a perfect square. I also wanted the cover to be folded like a vinyl gatefold and not have a slice off the inside cover for folding purposes as was done on a couple of the Home Groan releases. This was not an easy product to find. The Vinyl cover was also hard to come by. I looked for someone who could print them like they were printed in the US back in the 70’s but no such luck.
The long and the short of it is and a great argument not to DIY is that the first batch of CD covers were wrong and were sent back, they were 12.5 cm x 13 cm, not 13 cm x 13 cm as ordered causing the cd and booklet hard to pull out and ruining the initial effect of releasing a perfect square, yeah and the shrink wrap made the cd look like a bag of bananas. The vinyl was another story, the great dynamic mastering done by Bob Katz in Florida did not sound good on the first test pressings and telephones and emails were bounced back and forth before I got the right sound on the vinyl master. Needless to say after sending a packaging dummy with detailed instructions on how to pack the two inserts in the vinyl gatefold cover they packed them wrong, shrink wrapped them and sent them up to Norway. If you happen to be the proud owner of these insanely expensive beautiful 180 gr. vinyl double albums then open the gatefold cover, flowers facing up and place the inserts in the following fashion. To your left the picture of me and my bike, to your right the urban photo. This will cause the text on the respective front and back cover of the inserts to be what greets you when the gatefold cover is shut. Get it? This was the intention of Talleiv Taro Manum when he designed the cover.
Am I happy with the product? Very much so!! Would I do it again? Never!! But then again, maybe.
Martin Hagfors
Thank you
Lots of people have helped out along the way and since I pounded out the booklet lyrics on a 1950’s Rheinmetal typewriter I decided to keep the typing to a minimum, yes I hit the neighboring key a couple of times but it adds to the DIY flavor of the booklet.
Talleiv Taro Manum for art work and letting us use his house for pre-production and yes that’s us sitting on his porch on the cover and yes local birds can be heard on the start of “I Need To Know”, Jeff Wasserman for the web page and general promotion, Helge Bredeli Kank for press relations, Bjørn Kulseth for help with the cd cover, JS Artist for booking, Johnny Skalleberg for lending us his ears and recording the basic tracks at Lars Volsdal and Hellbillies own Velvet Recording studio, Musikkoperatørene for enthusiasm and distribution, phonofile for the same only digitally speaking, Harald Sletterød for a future video, Cabin Recorders for great sounding strings, Bjørn Melbye for always being on call with his designing skills, Nina Lundberg for teaching me a couple of tricks on the wind pipes, Warner Norway, Voices Of Wonder and Playground for showing enthusiasm and making an offer, and most of all, the great musicians mentioned in the liner notes who pulled it all together.
Martin Hagfors
Talleiv Taro Manum for art work and letting us use his house for pre-production and yes that’s us sitting on his porch on the cover and yes local birds can be heard on the start of “I Need To Know”, Jeff Wasserman for the web page and general promotion, Helge Bredeli Kank for press relations, Bjørn Kulseth for help with the cd cover, JS Artist for booking, Johnny Skalleberg for lending us his ears and recording the basic tracks at Lars Volsdal and Hellbillies own Velvet Recording studio, Musikkoperatørene for enthusiasm and distribution, phonofile for the same only digitally speaking, Harald Sletterød for a future video, Cabin Recorders for great sounding strings, Bjørn Melbye for always being on call with his designing skills, Nina Lundberg for teaching me a couple of tricks on the wind pipes, Warner Norway, Voices Of Wonder and Playground for showing enthusiasm and making an offer, and most of all, the great musicians mentioned in the liner notes who pulled it all together.
Martin Hagfors
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