Fugazi

The audio of the AFAS concert will soon (Feb 11) be made available on streaming platforms. It will mark the first use of Floor's new logo which will presumably replace this one . By the way, I recently discovered that Floor's old logo is called a Valknut and that it's an ancient Germanic symbol. I think we once wondered in the chat what the logo meant to her, now given her Dutch-Finnish-Swedish roots I'm sure she found some meaning to this symbol.

According to my extensive research of a total of one internet source, it does look like toothpaste is a commonly used method for repairing scratched CDs, but car polish is more effective. https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/how-to-fix-scratched-dvd.htm While we're at it, did you ever wonder how long your original CDs will last? https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/08/18/340716269/how-long-do-cds-last-it-depends-but-definitely-not-forever

Product specs have been updated, and there are now both PAL and NTSC versions of the Islanders Arms DVD, so make sure you order the one compatible with your player!

Had it not been for Johanna it could have become a 'Pubs and Taverns' tour instead! 😁 But speaking about cathedrals, here's something I found the other day... Tuomas playing church organ. I know, I'm off-topic now! 😁

Toothpaste might actually work, it's a fine abrasive. But I wouldn't try it on my valuable copy of the first edition of Angels Falls First -- if I had one! 😜

Stargazer's full of talent for sure, check out his YouTube channel! By the way, welcome to the forums, feel free to look around and join in the conversations. 👍

Oh boy, I checked and I believe it is the very picture they're making fun of in the documentary, though it's probably blue shorts and not underwear? 😮 Anyway, the hair colour is striking!

Starting a topic about Johanna, because why not? She's part of the family! I was curious about her solo material, before Eye Of Melian and Auri and Scrooge and Altamullan Road. If Wiki is to be trusted she released 7 solo albums between 2005 and 2015, so she had plenty of material for shows such as this one recorded for Finnish TV in 2012. My favourite at first listen, and her most successful solo song as far as I can tell, is the last of the show, Rakkauslaulu ("Love Song", 2010).

Starting off with this nice interview with Troy, covering among many things the first Auri release, the Decades tour and the toxicity of Internet. The usual stuff! Desert Flowers: An Interview with Troy Donockley By J Salmeron - 01/04/2018 https://www.metalblast.net/interviews/desert-flowers-an-interview-with-troy-donockley/ Some excerpts: Going to the root of it, both Tuomas and I were huge admirers of Johanna‘s voice, and we kind of saw it as a quest to have that voice in our world, in our music; to be able to write music for that voice. Auri was a good way to get Johanna‘s voice out of Finland, because she’s an established artist in Finland, but nowhere else. She really fired this project. I played in her album back in 2010, where I did a guest appearance and Tuomas wrote a song for her. We were all in this “mutual admiration society” so, of course, we decided that, as soon as we could, we would do this. It wasn’t even called Auri at the time, it was only an idea, and we were driven to do it with the time that we found available. [...] We do intend to perform this [Auri] music live, but we need another album under our belt to do so. Luckily for us Nuclear Blast has a 2-album deal with us, We will do another album and tour it with Auri, but we’re looking at 2022 for it… which is crazy, of course. The thing is, Nightwish is a heavy beast, and it demands a lot of attention and commitment, so we’ve to wait for the next 4 years. The Auri tap has been closed for a while now, and will remain closed, but we will open it up again for 2022. We’ve even have a plan! We want to do a tour of castles and cathedrals in 2022! We haven’t had a backlash about it, but we’ve definitely had a number of people asking why we didn’t want to do this or that, create a Facebook page for Auri, do more updates, etc. It’s saturated, and we wanted to go back, even if a little bit, to create some sort of enigma. Make it so that the music speaks volumes rather than us. [During Nightwish shows] there’s no much space for left-of-field improvisation or anything like that; plus, we’re all locked into time on stage, as in we’ve got a clicktrack going, so we’re all tied to the orchestral backing tracks. We have to all be synchronized and know what everyone is doing. I personally really like to improvise, it’s really in my roots, and I do get a chance to improvise a bit but, on the whole, everything there is carefully planned. If I was a different kind of man, I’d be really annoyed and angry at some of the things that I’ve read about Floor, but they give it to us all as well. There are people out there who hate Tuomas and think he is shit, and other who hate me because I’ve influenced Tuomas. That he’d still be a Christian if it wasn’t for me or some shit like that. [Decades is] a snapshot from the past. We all felt that it was important that every part of the band was represented, not necessarily from a chronological standpoint, but in regards to the ideas behind them. Look at a song like Elvenpath, for example. It’s a really naive song; the Carpenter, sure enough, is obviously a Christian song, but it reflected the way he was back then. The splendid thing about old Tuomas is that he really is at peace with himself. He doesn’t have any problems with that kind of stuff. I think that we all think that it’s a bit quaint, it’s part of the history of the band. Of course, you know me… singing “The Carpenter” feels quaint to me, and it feels quaint because I have no problem singing like” All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful, The Lord God made them all.” I have no problem singing hymns. I was a Christening yesterday! A friend of mine was getting his baby Christened… a preposterous thing for me, but there I was. I was there for my friend. Now, you’ll find that on this Decades tour there are a lot more backing vocals. We’ve gone seriously into harmony vocals, which is really a delight. It really transformed songs like “Come Cover Me,” which we sing in a 3-part harmony. Also, I’m playing harmony guitars to Emppu, which is a nice development, since I can now fill out the underground while he soloes on the top with rhythm and things like that. And, in any case, I was doomed, there was no way out of singing “The Carpenter.” It was like “you’ve got to sing this song”, I was like “….but I can’t!,” and they kept asking until I did. And, honestly, it really works.

They did do very well! From the official web site: https://www.nightwish.com/news/crewish-2-on-the-finnish-album-charts

It's possible for both songs to have been written at least in part by Troy, using the same jig and therefore ending up sounding very similar for the most part. I couldn't find anything on the internet specifically about Elvenjig though. 🤔

She is truly gifted, and the gradual shift over the years to more complex songs suits her so well. Eye Of Melian also seems like a project that could have legs, I'm very curious to see whether it and Auri ever become live acts.

Yeah I was wondering, probably could be considered for valuable CDs but not worth the time/expense/hassle for the common stuff. 🤔

True that! I think Crewish mentioned maybe doing a second album, with the extended break from touring they need all the help they can get. Hopefully Nightwish will be able to resume touring with the whole crew on board, despite the hardships.

@Ocean Soul Do your colleagues do any polishing-resurfacing of scratched second-hand CDs? It's something I know used to be done in some shops, but I don't know how much it actually helps.

Well maybe he had something in mind for the song and the end result didn't meet his expectations. Maybe today he would have a more nuanced opinion, or maybe not. The lyrics remind me somewhat of High Hopes (Pink Floyd), I wonder if this is what he was going for.

You're right, I never heard of Aina! 😇 Though back then I wasn't much into metal music -- even now, I'm more of an imposter, I like some metal bands, and lots of stuff that isn't metal. But I'll give this a listen for sure, and I can't help but notice that @Paul Botterell already has this album down in his Marko and Emppu lists! 🤘

Away is a perfectly fine song, if perhaps a bit unremarkable among all the heavy-hitters of that era -- Oceanborn, Wishmaster and then Century Child. I'm actually surprised that Tarja didn't pick this one for her solo shows, she did a good job otherwise of performing obscure songs that Nightwish would not do live. I can't get behind the decision to re-record Astral Romance with Tony Kakko though. It's filler material on the EP, and doesn't add much to the song -- actually I like the original better, with Tuomas doing it's best and Tarja singing more earnestly. I also liked the keys-guitar interplay that they replaced by heavier guitarz in the remake. Oh well, minor complaints in any case. And 10th Man Down is the memorable song on this release IMO. I just love the chorus. Pretty stoked they brought it back on the Decades tour, I like Marko's voice more than Tapio Wilska on tape! 😁

Some huge international artists earn a decent pay from Spotify, but most don't. Streaming monetization is complex and opaque, and the artists are getting the short end of the stick. https://www.makeuseof.com/how-much-money-does-spotify-pay-artists/ I don't know if I'm old-fashioned or just a geek, but I never really bought into music streaming platforms (iTunes, Spotify, etc) and while I'm not a huge vinyl fan (too many times moving house is not conducive to a vinyl collection) I do like my physical CDs that I can listen to in my car -- yeah, I still have a car with a CD player, for now! I can't fathom why cassettes would still be a thing though, does anyone still sell tape players?! 😬 I'd love to get a second biography covering the Anette years, the end of the Imaginaerum tour with Floor, and the post-"We Were Here" years -- Decades tour, Human Nature, the pandemic, Marko's departure... The official biography is pretty unique because of its inflammatory content, but I'm sure one could write an interesting book about the later years without opening old wounds or rekindling old feuds. "We Were Here" was informative without exposing any dirty secrets. That said, Tuomas said recently that if there was anything he could have done differently in Nightwish, he would have held their privacy closer to the vest. He wished Nightwish had managed to keep a more mysterious public image, but in his view those wild behind-the-scenes documentaries ruined it for the band. Since the EMFB tour and except for Floor there's been very little fan interaction and insight into their private or even professional lives, so I have to wonder if they'll ever allow access to enough material for an author to pen a new biography. 🤔

Oh a surprise quiz?! 🤩 Never underestimate my capacity to fail again! 😁

The last reprint must be about to run out. Hopefully they will do another reprint eventually, because second-hand copies were super expensive before the reprint. Good to know! I try to avoid ordering from Europe when possible because of exchange and shipping fees, but some items just can't be sourced locally so I'll definitely have a look at your store for future music needs! 😁 Now where's Tome 2 of the biography? 🤔 I think Nightwish have grown more protective of their personal life over the years, so I'm not holding my breath for more insight into their Anette years anytime soon.

3,3/10 is pretty bad, that's no way to end this quizzing marathon lol! 😂 I still think that when membership picks up eventually (I'm not giving up yet! 😄) there will be interest, we can even do a rerun by mixing the current question bank.

Wow, this was nice! Lucky guy, and he got more than what he expected! Thanks for the suggestion! 😄