Monicker

Yeah, they sound like they’re from roughly the same period, but no two recordings share such exact sonic characteristics as Axl Rose and Elvis do. Question just to be absolutely sure here: Is the consensus that Sirens comprises her very first (known) recordings? Also, what’s the consensus on its year of "release"? I don't know, i’ve been thinking about all of this more since my last post a few days ago, and now i’m just confused. I mainly got into this discussion because of the comment that ARH and Elvis are way advanced compared to Sirens, which got me thinking about the progression of her guitar playing. I am not infallible and am by no means any sort of music authority. I will keep listening and comparing this stuff with everyone’s considerations in mind. I concede that she sounds younger in her singing on Sirens than anywhere else. And PrettyBaby raises a good point about the studio environment/process, however, that could go either way, too: You’re on the clock in the studio, on someone else’s time, paying (a good amount of $) for that time. When you’re recording at home, even though you may not have the input that an outside producer could offer, you do have all the time in the world to do as many takes as you want (though i guess one could argue that it depends on the person’s self-discipline). When you’re in the studio though you have to come in with your material already pretty polished and tight. Find My Own Way is the one song on Sirens that has a markedly different style of playing, one that is very characteristic of a beginning guitar student, probably even more so than any other of her acoustic songs, even down to the fact that the guitar is out of tune. It’s also notable that it’s the only song on Sirens with strummed chords. I guess there’s the possibility that someone else played guitar on Sirens while she maybe played on Find My Own Way? Has this possibility ever been mentioned? I doubt that’s the case though, simply because the playing is not adept enough to suggest that it’s someone who was called in (even if just a friend doing a favor for her). So, i don’t know, if Sirens predates the other songs and she did indeed play on it, maybe she purposely simplified her playing after Sirens? Even though the playing on those other acoustic songs sounds so much more rudimentary to me than the playing on Sirens, i have to be open to the possibility of being a stylistic choice. Some more questions: Are we using internet upload dates as a certain indicator of when a song was written/recorded? Ya’ll probably know what i think of that What year did Lizzy first have a MySpace page? I can accept all that, good points. And you’re right that i sometimes don’t pay enough attention to the lyrics as they relate to her life. I hope it’s evident that i’m not arguing for one particular hypothesis, but rather just throwing out an array of possibilities that i don’t really see being mentioned, all with the aim of getting closer to “the truth.” I guess my point was that just as we can’t really trust her when she gives a date/year, i feel we also shouldn’t automatically disqualify any date/year she gives. That’s fallacious reasoning, no?

Wow, i had never seen this photo before. I like it a lot. That outfit is ACE. I like that. Nice one. I find there are many things in life that can be made clearer with food analogies.

Am i alive?

I agree completely with these two points. Oh no, am i a deluded stan now? (Fun Fact: I didn't know what "stan" was until ldr.fm. At first i thought it might have been a reference to the South Park character Stan, but eventually i looked it up on urban dictionary...)

Oh. That makes much more sense than returning three days later. So that probably means she'll be just as nervous for the rest of it. Did it seem to anyone else that she was almost as nervous here as she was in her televised performances from early in the year, as if she had regressed?

Funny this thread should pop up because just today i was thinking about how the line in Go Go Dancer, “I never have to work cause my daddy is rich," could so easily be about a sugar daddy/lover/boyfriend rather than her actual father. Yeah, take that Lanalysis and Lanalyzers. I had a girlfriend once that called her dad daddy. It was weird. It made me a little uncomfortable. One time she and i watched that Oprah episode about the guy who had a secret sex dungeon in his basement with sex slaves. Oh, Oprah. Also weird that just this weekend i was talking about this exact thing: As well as this, with the same person:

Here's an unpopular opinion: You're starting to sound like the official police of Lana Del Rey fans. Also, the apathy you so tediously express on the forum is bordering on affectation. #SorryMadrigal

Yay, i believe this is the first time Ride is performed completely live without any of the backing track. Sounded good if a little rough. The quartet sounds great. I wasn't really into the way the bassist was embellishing the bass line, but i did like Byron's little additions on piano. Lana sounded a bit flat. She appeared to be nervous, tired, and, yes, even a bit sad, kind of out of it, not entirely present. She'll probably do better on Friday. I hope. Oh, and that cashmere is NICE.

Yeah, totally, that's a good point. And more love for the Jump bass line! Simple but effective. Serves the song perfectly, which is, in my opinion, what songwriting should always be about--not aiming for complexity just for the sake of it or being hung up musicianship, but doing what works best for the song as a whole, whatever that may be, no matter how simple it is.

Oh wow, thanks. Yeah, i didn't see any mention of that interview other than your comment. There was something sweet about this brief interview. She's such a cutie pie.

Do i need 2 spell it out 4 U, evil? God bless her, she's insane, but i adore her. So yes, i've heard firsthand of some of this stuff. But i also just love looking through craigslist because it's such an unbelievably bizarre portal into the psyche of "paraphiliacs." Craigslist browsing is pretty much sociology & psychology research. The shit that people are into, man. Fascinating. I mean, i made up some of those things up there, but you know that stuff has gotta be real anyway, and i'm sure there's stuff that's way stranger. The one about being run over by a car though is not from craigslist. That was a long time ago before CL was really that well known nationally. It was my then girlfriend's good friend's best friend, this gay boy (we'll call him MM) who would get with old (usually closeted) gay men and get paid to do weird shit to/with them. So MM started a regular thing with this one older guy, meeting up in hotel rooms, doing stuff like golden showers, scat, etc. and he was getting paid really well. Apparently this guy was pretty wealthy and lonely? And so after a while of having this consistent thing going, the guy drops the bomb on MM, offering him i don't remember how many thousands and thousands of dollars to take the guy's car and run him over while lying on the road masturbating and fucking kill him, like, he wanted the ultimate orgasm or something. That was the point at which MM stopped seeing the guy. One time i wrote an absurd Missed Connection that was, like, about being born too late or something, nothing having to actually do with anyone, and surprisingly i got a response from this photographer who was doing a portraiture project on people who place Missed Connection and Casual Encounter ads and photographing them in their own home. I thought that was a great idea for a photo project, so i responded and said i'd do it. He came over the next day and took a few photos of me just sitting in my music room and paid me 50 bucks for like 20 minutes of my time. As a photographer i wanted to be part of a project i thought was a good idea with a lot of potential, but the photos were kind of lame. Oh well. I have since though started placing my own ads on CL looking for subjects to photograph though i haven't yet found the kind of whackos i'm hoping to find. OH CRAIGSLIST

Where are you seeing an interview?

It's not? Despite my preference for the demo of Jump, i've always loved what Kahne did with the guitar on the album version. I think it's pretty clever and it sounds cool. It's two guitars panned hard left and right, playing straight 8th notes but they're alternating so that the guitar on the left is playing on every beat and the one on the right is playing every off beat and combined they make that 8th note rhythmic phrase but it has that ping pong effect. And then the synth in the center is playing the same rhythm as the combined guitar parts but it's single notes rather than chords. Pretty rad. And then there are two hi-hats, Right and Center, that sound great together and combined make a really great rhythm. And i love how the bass line and the drums lock in together but there's all that space in the bass line. Oh, and how about those hand claps? Fuck, the album version of Jump is great too haa. This is just a great song. I'm grateful we have both versions.

Oh yeah, i forgot to mention 100 bucks to clean some dude's house in her bra and underwear/lingerie, and have the sort of exchanges that ataraxia described above. Also, 100 bucks to wash his stupid car in a stupid "sexy" outfit. 100 bucks for her dirty underwear? No, 100 bucks to come over to some guy's house and use him as a coffee table or foot stool, propping her feet up on him while, like, flipping through a magazine. 100 bucks to go to a bar with a guy and sit across the room from him and flash him every so often, pretending that they're strangers even though they actually are strangers. 100 bucks to let a guy put a fox/cat tail butt plug in her and walk her around his house on her hands and knees on a leash, making her lap up milk out of a dog bowl? What else? 100 bucks to do father/daughter or brother/sister or mother/son (he could be an adult baby!) role play. 100 bucks to fulfill some guy's voyeur fantasy: she comes over and pretends that his house is where she lives, shuffling around the bedroom or kitchen while she pretends to not notice him standing outside peering in through a window. No wait. 100 bucks to shit on a guy's chest and then run him over with his own car while he lies in the street masturbating? Or i guess there's always the possibility that it could have just been 100 dollars to participate in a survey on, like, smoking, or be a subject in sleep research. God, i should probably have some sleepy tea and go to bed...

What is the implication with these emoticons? It was clearly stated in this thread that the b&w back cover is fan-made.

The demo and Radio Edit of SS are not the same. Blue Ribbon is Gramma and the file that goes around as the Gramma demo is just the AKA recording.

Yeah, thank you. Interesting that this fan-made one used the Lana Del Ray title. And this one was around even before .fm, prior to 2012, i believe. Question: Does anyone know when the FBI Anti-Piracy notice started appearing on CDs? Was that around in 2008? I've been wondering that, if maybe the physical copies never had any artwork, and the cover we know of today was made afterwards for the digital release.

I've wondered before if the bar code can be scanned or if the numbers can be made out and inputted somewhere. But would that make any difference if the physical copy was never sold anywhere? I just remembered someone on .fm pointing out that the green and dotted pink lines are guide lines in Photoshop (?) or some other photo editing program, and that maybe this came from whoever was working on the cover before it was finished. Maybe it was never finished and printed, and the physical copies that Kahne has are only CDs without covers? I'm curious now, does anyone have that b&w fan-made back cover that had the cropped photo of Lizzy on stage with her band and she's got the beehive? I want to compare to a back cover we know for sure is fan-made. Someone on the old forum or SIN made that one, right?

The authenticity of that back cover has never been confirmed one way or the other. If i recall correctly, we originally got it from Calendargirl. I, too, have never seen the photo in any other context. And i’ve definitely seen albums where the front and back covers don’t really “match.” It’s funny, when i first saw it, the first thing i thought (besides that i really liked it) was that, for some reason, the front and back do go together. It made "sense" to me when i first saw it. It's obviously a subjective matter. I’m not a graphic designer by any stretch, but wouldn't you say that the gradients of pale yellow and pale blue complement each other? Also, to me, the picture seems to fit the music of the album really well, although on the other hand, the front cover doesn't fit the music at all, right? I have the feeling that if someone was trying to fake the back cover, it’s likely that they would try to “match” the front cover more, so as to make it more believable. And i also think that the widely accepted misconception of the album title being called Lana Del Ray A.K.A. Lizzy Grant would have been used for a fan-made cover, especially considering that this cover photo surfaced before it was brought to light (by European, i think?) that the 5 Points site was simply using Lana Del Ray as the title. Who knows. Until given irrefutable evidence, i think we're all guilty, to varying degrees, of believing what we want to believe. It’s nuts that not even one physical copy has surfaced though, right? Perhaps they were only intended to be distributed at shows, but they never actually got to the point where they were made available at shows, and so Kahne and others are the only ones in possession of copies, which are probably just sitting somewhere stowed away?

Maybe she got paid 100 bucks to let men with a foot fetish rub her feet? Or to pee on men? Or to be photographed nude? Or to masturbate or have sex with her boyfriend(s) in front of men in motel rooms? Or for wealthy businessmen in nice hotels? Or to abuse and humiliate masochists? Or to stand at an intersection wearing a sign for a local business? Or hand out flyers? :creepy:

That's not the same sample. Yeah, it would probably cost a fortune to sample Pink Floyd. I remember reading once how many millions of dollars it was estimated Paul's Boutique would have cost the Beastie Boys just in clearing samples alone (there was something like over 80 samples on the album if i remember correctly), had that album been recorded after the copyright/sampling laws we have today were implemented. Luckily for them, when they recorded the album, samples didn't have to be cleared and paid for in the same way they do today. The laws then were a lot less strict than they eventually became.

Taken with some small to large portion of salt, yes, but also: 1. I don't recall the issue on .fm over her claim to have written Axl and Elvis at 16/17. Who was skeptical and why? Does the fact that the claim was met with skepticism on the old forum necessarily mean anything on its own? 2. What's the context of PSB being the first song she wrote? Who did she say that to? I think sometimes we have to consider the audience, that is, who she is talking/responding to. She probably treats questions differently depending on who is asking. I don't mean to imply that she lies to certain people and not to others, but that maybe the picture she paints for certain people is a little less complete because they are not as knowledgeable on the subject and so it wouldn't affect them as much to give them incomplete answers or answers that require less thought and backstory. Also, what if she wrote the PSB lyrics first and then recorded the demo years later, and that's what she means? 3. Yayo could have been written years before any demo was recorded. Or how do we know that one of the two Yayo demos we have don't date to seven years ago? Or how do we know there aren't other Yayo demos that we don't have, and have never even heard of, that date back to seven years ago? Or what if--because few people know the timeline of their own life with precise accuracy--that she misremembered and that it was really six years, not seven? Does the one year discrepancy totally disqualify her word? Let's keep in mind that it is very common for artists to have songs around for years, sometimes even DECADES, before doing something definitive with them, and in that time the song could morph in so many ways and be demoed many times or not demoed at all, etc. 4. The touring outside the US for a period of three years...are you referring to the Ride monologue or something else? If it's the monologue from the video, that is not to be taken as fact.

You crazy, boy. Other way around, by a long shot. Sirens is the peak of her guitar playing, in terms of technical abilities. Yeah, by one year. Don't think there's a need to be so pedantic when it comes to the age thing. If she said she recorded something when she was 16 or 17, then okay, give or take a year, no big deal. It's not as if she is absurdly trying to pass for many years younger. My educated guess, based on guitar playing and her voice, is that Axl Rose Husband and Elvis are among the earliest recordings. They were undoubtedly recorded during the same period and were recorded on the internal mic of her laptop whereas Money Hunny and Fordham Road weren't. Who knows what that means. Did she start off recording with the internal mic of her laptop and eventually upgrade her equipment as "logic" might dictate? Or did she have decent equipment at first and, say, she had to sell it, or she got rid of it for whatever reason and then started recording again but took a step down in equipment? Maybe she had to sell her microphone for drug money? Maybe she moved and got rid off all her possessions. Did she borrow equipment from friends at one point or another? Did one of her friends record her with their own equipment, as is a common thing to do? Who knows. I don't think there's anything we can really extract from this because anything could have happened in any chronological order. Sirens is a studio recording though, that much we know. She is likely to have amassed some home recordings prior to going into a studio for the first time, though that, of course, is not a set in stone rule. I believe, stylistically, Fordham Road is closer to the period of Sirens. So my educated guess based on observation and the little that we do know is, chronologically: Axl Rose Husband Elvis Money Hunny Fordham Road Sirens I'm just using the songs that have been mentioned in this thread, i don't have the energy right now to recall other possible contenders. EDIT: Then again, take the example of John Frusciante. If you didn't know any facts about him and only had his solo recordings to go by to try to piece together information, there was a time when his guitar playing actually worsened and became noticeably simpler because he was strung out on heroin while recording AND the equipment he was using at that point was a step down because he had either gotten rid of all his shit or lost it or it was stolen or he had sold it for drug money, etc. Again, "logic" would dictate that the less advanced playing and more primitive recording equipment would be an indicator of these recordings preceding the stuff that exhibits the more advanced playing and better sound quality, when that actually isn't the case.

Bless you. This bears repeating.

Listening to this sort of thing makes you question some of the fundamental aspects of music like time, duration, rest, rhythm, pitch, timbre, etc. What the hell is time? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Do you feel as if your brain is being stretched out like putty? This feels like Phillip Glass in that unrelenting repetitive sense. It also makes me feel a bit of the sort of mind-fuckery that happens when you listen the music of the whacko Italian composer, Giacinto Scelsi, who developed a style of composition where pieces were based entirely around one single note. Somehow, even though there is no fundamental relationship between the two, there is a similar feeling going on in these things people upload to YouTube where they significantly slow down a song, except the sound texture here is more reminiscent of modern "ambient" music. I love this shit. I remember that Rebecca Black Friday song slowed down, like, 800% sounding remarkably like Angelo Badalamenti, and how weird that is that something could inadvertently turn out that way like that. Messing with the tempo but not with the pitch always messes with my mind. I guess Rebecca Black on her own messes with my mind. What sort of life is she going to have? Is she dead? Speaking of changing the tempo without changing the pitch, for a good example of the inverse of that, i.e. changing the pitch but not the speed--in the analog domain no less!--the song She's Goin' Bald by The Beach Boys, who in 1967 used cutting edge (and very expensive) technology to achieve the effect of gradually speeding up the pitch without altering the tempo, which you can hear starting at 0:50. It is yet another example of the Beach Boys being at the forefront of new ideas in pop music without really being recognized for it Sounds like the sort of thing that nowadays people do with a single click in 2 seconds on their laptop in the bedroom. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix1-Coa7qQQ Please excuse my tangent.