Wednesday, May 23, 2012

In between: Working Titles, a.k.a "mynewriff.wav"


Did you know that when bands make up "working titles" for their songs, they use a LOT of other bands´ names for naming them?

Why? Mostly because one riff reminded the composer of a certain band, or it had the "feeling" a bit similar to another. It usually strikes at the point where you have to give the bounced- out file a proper name instead of "mynewriff42.wav". So, this riff had the vibe of early Morbid Angel at some point? No problem, we´ll name it "morbid.mp3" before archiving or sending.  Plus, it greatly helps you to remember what it was and how it sounded. Especially if you archive everything ever done, like me.
At some point Marko from Moonsorrow ran out of "bathorys" so he started to name the songs and ideas as (freely translated) "nicebathory", "kathory", worldsbestbathory", "bathowar" and so forth. Actually, "Bathowar" was the working title for "Jumalten Kaupunki". And "Unohduksen Lapsi" from the same album was called "Thyrfing". Suprised? Don´t be. Everyone does it. I´m just stating it aloud. :D

So I use a lot of bandnames in my riffs, sometimes because they are very obvious or sometimes I have to come up with something, so even a small hint goes. You have to have a filename, after all.
A brief digging into my archives finds Finntroll -riffs like "monkeyisland", "drepdenorske", "boingocarpathianforest", "psychoemperor" and my all- time favourite, "totalvitunklezmerbonanza".
And usually, when the upcoming song has a main riff which now has a totally original name like "absu.mp3", it usually ends up  to be the ready song´s working title as well. So this is why we have working titles for this upcoming album like "Rivfader" (similar drum beat), "Nexro" (main riff reminded me of Nekromantix) and "Rocklolbster" (main riff had some B52´s vibe on it...later it wasn´t the main riff anymore but the name still stayed).  "Tonttuparaati", on the other hand, is an old German song made later into a popular Finnish christmas- song. The main melody of my song has the same rhythm than the abovementioned, hence the naming.

Now Tundra, though...Tundra´s made art out of naming his riffs and songs- in- progress. Titles like "räähxdualvenomous", "eliytres" (yes, it was Tundra´s gibberish- filename and Wilska turned that into a character in a story, which was fucking genious if you ask me :D ), "pirttikyrpä" (!!), "vcxhfsdghwgwsdgqawegqae-syfilisyfilis, Entire Mix, Mix (4)" (!!!!!!) and "ööööööööööö" are still after years giving me spontaneous laughter every now and then when they pop out from my hard disk. Extra credit goes also to Routa, whose "spendrupps", "nattapiisi", "grimash" and "tommiläntinenmidnattens" have given some serious amusement.

Right now it looks like we´ve started or already finished the following songs:

Rivfader
Marilyn
Rocklolbster
Nexro
Tomboijohnson
Jorma
Soutu*
Tonttuparaati


* "Soutu", a.k.a "rowing" is an old Finntroll- meme dating from late 90´s where some bandmember, most likely Skrymer, mentioned that slow folky BM (preferably Norwegian, also has to go in 6/8) has this distinct "rowing" feeling which he always used to back up with mimicking sloooow and hard rowing of a boat. The term sticked since, and now "Soutu" is a synonyme for slow scandinavian folkish BM- styled stuff (like the song Nattfödd) in the Finntroll- camp.

Now I know that I mentioned possible studio in late 2012. Behold, it will most likely happen. WAY more certainly than two months ago, and getting more certain every day with every new idea and riff. "Hide your daughters" is quite a used phrase, besides, we´re all married or "reserved" so maybe you should hide your...I don´t know....videogames? Yeah, HIDE YOUR EPIX AND PREPARE FLASKS FOR THE RAID, WE´RE COMING.

Nah, that sounds awful.

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