Last Hero of the Western World

Cambridge

Boris Rogowski — Sat, 08 May 2010 20:29:49 +0000

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Poster

If you have no plans for the 24th of June as yet you should pay a visit to the beautiful town of Cambridge and see The Society Islands live at the CB2 in the evening. We’ll be playing as a trio (Mr. Lichtfuss on the bass, Mr. Kriegeskorte on his Sci-Fi drumset and yours truly on vocals & guitars; instruments are subject to change without prior notice) and this will be the first show in a, as we hope, long line of concerts. Bottom line: you should come, say hi and have a couple of beers – the latter advice I will doubtlessly follow myself; Cambridge has a bitter called Yorkshire Terrier which I had in January but exchanged for a Carlsberg after a few sips. I promise to give it another chance. I always second-guess.

Filing Cabinet

Boris Rogowski — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:47:28 +0000

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Sign

“Filing Cabinet” is the tenth and last song on Last Hero of the Western World, closing the album on a rather un-heroic note. The lyrics are based on a dream about some city-dwelling business friends dressed in fashionable sportswear visiting me (a world-weary locavore) and my wife (a rather statuesque life-affirmer without a cause) in our timbered house in the country. I have no such wife, house or nutritional habits, let alone classy business friends… but here’s the lyrics:

Youʼre bending down to pluck a rose
youʼre waving with your pantyhose
but Iʼm at a loss
Iʼm down with the crayfish

Their scissors snap, the water curls
around my feet, Iʼm waving back
“come down if you like
Iʼm not coming up now”

And donʼt make me tell you lies
about how great it is to be alive
when lifeʼs nothing but some casual payoff

You say that there is fun to be had
hidden in your filing cabinet
but I ainʼt got no reason to believe it
no I ainʼt got no reason to believe you after all

Weʼre spending every summer here
by the lake and on the pier
and nights underneath
the big yellow stone ball

And donʼt you dare romanticize
the steady pace of our rural life
itʼs just getting by
why scare the cows now?

You say that there is fun to be had
hidden in a filing cabinet
but I ainʼt got no reason to believe it
no I ainʼt got no reason to believe you after all

And oh… your semaphoric release
the cherry pollen settling on your lash
youʼll stand and wink for nothing
on the night of the crash
And all our Sta. Rosa colleagues
theyʼre bitching about the mildew in the cracks
theyʼll guzzle down my Lager before
heading back

Swans come
Swans go

At the end of the song you can hear the door to the recording booth shut for the last time. After that, the actor steps aside. You don’t get to witness that part.

The vessel arrived and has been released on y’all

Boris Rogowski — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 23:05:37 +0000

Yay! Today marks the official release of Last Hero of the Western World (though Amazon kinda bailed on me here by postponing it for one month – quick! it’s soon to be fixed). Also, the CDs arrived from the factory just in time. I celebrated all this by eating chicken soup, driving around in the rain and listening to that new Spoon album which I have madly fallen in love with (ask Mr. Lichtfuss, he’ll tell you the same). Plus I laid down a couple of lyrics for the follow-up to Hero… recording sessions shall commence once temperatures rise a little; no rest for the wicked.

Fuck Bunny

Boris Rogowski — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:06:13 +0000

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Neon

“Fuck Bunny” is song number 5 on Last Hero of the Western World and for those who are interested I have 5 fun fun fun! facts (sorry, been reading James Frey recently) about it:

1. The lyrics do not contain any form of profanity (but your interpretation of them might).

2. With the exception of the noise guitars all instruments were tuned to 435 Hz (the 1885 Viennese standard pitch). The guitars were tuned to 440 Hz which we didn’t realize before mixing. At the end we decided to embrace the dissonance and not change the pitch digitally.

3. The bass guitar and the banjo were plucked with a rubber seal ring because I was too lazy to look for an appropriate pick.

4. I had forgotten to write lyrics for one of the parts and since I didn’t want to pause and pick up a pen I quickly made them up, starting with a line from an earlier part, “stay on these roads”, which I had stolen from A-ha in the first place.

5. I fell asleep shortly after finishing the song and had one of the most unpleasant nightmares of my life.

Got picked up at UIO, LIS, LAX, NRT, I forgot; wrought iron fences through cab window through the condensation and the hems peering upward until hotel arrives now putting hair straight steam from storm drain hazy check-in second round in discounted ambassador suite on 4th floor head hurts get cleaned up looking at skyscrapers moving out without briefing air and traffic noises hurt big house of god sleeps in square liana garden calm inside despite evening service pew hurts my back holding your weight holding you forever unease is bearable not quite seizable drinks somewhere resembling cannon street fingers eyes scalp itch waiting for another cab back at the hotel the room changed you notice spread eagled on the center bed you changed I notice your body lifts off the mattress hovers face down right below the ceiling

wtf?

Last Hero of the Western World

Boris Rogowski — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 23:52:04 +0000

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Lego Death

This is the shortest possible version of the first song on Last Hero of the Western World. The ideal version plays for about two days (48 hrs) and features two Turbojet engines and a choir of 1011. If you happen to be very rich and want to help with the realization of this project feel free to shoot me an email. This is not a joke.

People approached me asking if the lyrics on this one were a riddle – not a Nik Kershaw type of riddle which is not a riddle at all, albeit believed by many to be one (the problem is that I still believe that the Nik Kershaw riddle is, in fact, a riddle). Others asked me if the song contained allusions to the Cold War, their reasoning for this assumption being the image of an armed girl swimming across the Bering Sea (some reasoning I have to say). Another group of people wanted to know if this song was about the end of economic hegemony and if they should sell their [xxxxx] stocks (in trade for what, you idiots? money?). A 7-year-old was pretty sure it was about the follow-up to World of Warcraft. A citizen outraged tried to hit me in the face crying about “your sinister heritage, son, which deprived me of the last moment of placidity my ever so challenged mind was allowing me”.

My answer is yes.

Random Ramblings

Moishe Lichtfuss — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 14:24:16 +0000

I remember that back in the day my first experience with file-sharing was trying to download Boogie Down Production’s Criminal Minded from Napster with my shitty old 28K modem because that particular album was not available anyFRIGGINwhere. Not where I lived. It took hours and days, made my phone-bill skyrocket and in the end i had a tiny collection of mp3-files of vastly different bitrates and quality. Don’t even get me started talking about that abysmal version of Songs to Remember a friend of mine foraged around that same time. Of course, both those albums were re-released later on. Did I buy them? Sure I did!

Nowadays the situation has changed slightly. Thanks to the Googles alone I often wonder if people without any intention to, actually download entire albums by sheer accident. It’s that easy. And I don’t even know why I’m writing this, because all the way it seems like pretty old News. So…did I download anything lately? Maybe. Did I buy a shiny vinyl copy of anything I liked more than OK? You bet!

What has that all got to do with Last Hero of the Western World? Well. Done any Google-Search on that one lately? I’m just happy that this site here halfway manages to climb to the Top Spot of those search results.

Don’t Ya Rile ‘Em

Boris Rogowski — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 02:01:19 +0000

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Chair & Window

“Don’t Ya Rile ‘Em” is the 8th song and the only cover version on Last Hero of the Western World. Since I had not taken Frank Black’s first, self-titled solo album (that’s where the original lives) to the basement I had to record it from memory. I guess that’s not the worst way to do covers.

Forgive me if I keep harping on about the utter coincidentiality (that even a word?) of the whole enterprise, but had I not woken up one day around noon in a very dark room after too little sleep – remembering the lines “I’m seeing how boring it gets / back where the sun never sets / and a day is really two days / I was feeling so tired inside / my eyes were switched open so wide / it was making me kind of uptight” – this cover version would not exist. I have always loved the song (and the rest of the album, which I prefer over most of the Pixies’ oeuvre – now go kill me) but I had never thought of playing it until this very day. And of course Charles was right: At times there’s no greater console than them playing your favorite song… back in time where you belong.

Without any doubt our hero of the day is Mr. Andreas Kriegeskorte who came by in the evening, ate lots of chocolate and nailed the drum track in, like, one take. Please take a look at Moishe’s post below. On the picture you’ll notice an object bearing striking resemblance to a speaker box – that is Mr. Kriegeskorte’s new home-made bassdrum. Nuff said.

Rehearsing the ‘Free Ride’

Moishe Lichtfuss — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 22:45:54 +0000

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Mr. Kriegeskorte and Mr. Rogowski.

Last night, three quarters of the in-famous (seriously: not-famous) Stationary Hund met in their rehearsal space to start working on the tunes from Last Hero of the Western World. They did good. Just so you know.

It’s a New Year…

Moishe Lichtfuss — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:34:32 +0000

…and Mr. Rogowski will probably regret pretty soon that he has given me the right to post in here.

Let me just quickly introduce myself: I was there when Rogowski first discovered that he liked guitars; I was there with him on the smaller stages of this very old world, &c. …and I’m the guy who hasn’t finished an album of his own in the last 4 1/2 years (so people might say I’m losing my edge)…BUT:

Since we go way back I also happen to have a pretty thorough knowledge of Rogowski’s catalogue of recorded music and just today, with 2010 still being all new and shiny, I caught myself humming a little tune that he recorded (as I found out through some post-hum research) 13 years ago, in 1997.

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Pasta in the last century.

It’s appropiately titled A New Year and since it might help to up Mr. Rogowski’s low-fi cred, here it is (sounding absolutely bitchin’ on laptop speakers):

Free Ride

Boris Rogowski — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 12:02:54 +0000

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Car

“Free Ride” is the 2nd song on Last Hero of the Western World and the first song that was recorded for the album. It was an accident of sorts: On the first day of my confinement I was hellbent on optimizing my microphone setups, finding the sweet spots of the room and defining the ultimate presets for all kinds of gear.

Turns out I should have delegated these tasks to somebody who isn’t me. My ambition only lasted for about 15 minutes and ended immediately after I had listened to the first thing I had recorded, some random chords strummed on a banjo. Before long, I was subconsciously humming the melody for the chorus and wondering how long it would take me to get some decent sounds out of the big dark upright bass, an instrument I had never played before. Was there any time to waste on negligibilities like audio engineering? Was my interest in technicalities strong enough to keep me from dabbling on the drums (an instrument I will never be able to play)? Of course not.

When you listen to “Free Ride” please keep in mind that it is nothing but a failed microphone check. There are no electric instruments simply because I hadn’t plugged them in yet. Once I start recording there’s not much plugging going on. Everything I need better be in immediate reach. If it isn’t, it’s not going to make it. To be honest, I did not even move the microphones from their “banjo position”, so what you hear is mostly room sound. Thank god it was a good room.

The recording session for “Free Ride” started at 2 pm and ended at 10:30 pm. I went up to the ground floor, took a lawn chair, sat down in the factory courtyard and drank Pastis in the warm night. It was a pretty good start in my book.