Cerysmatic.Factory

Stephin Merritt Obscurities collection out August

2011-05-28T08:57:00.000+01:00

From the House of Tomorrow newsletter:

Obscurities, a collection of new and hard-to-find recordings made by Stephin Merritt, will be released as a CD, LP, and digital download on Merge Records on 23 August 2011. The CD's 14 tracks include five Merge-era recordings from The Magnetic Fields (and a couple of tracks by The 6ths).

Forever and a Day, a previously unreleased selection from The Song From Venus, Merritt's collaboration with author Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snickett, is available today as a free download from the Merge Records website:

Tracklisting

1. Forever and a Day (previously unreleased)
2. Rats in the Garbage of the Western World (The Magnetic Fields)
3. I Don't Believe You (The Magnetic Fields)
4. Plant White Roses (Buffalo Rome)
5. Rot in the Sun (the 6ths)
6. The Sun and the Sea and the Sky (previously unreleased)
7. Yet Another Girl (the 6ths)
8. Scream (Till you Make the Scene) (previously unreleased)
9. The Song from Venus (previously unreleased)
10. Beach-A-Boop-Boop (The Magnetic Fields)
11. When I'm Not Looking, You're Not There (The Magnetic Fields)
12. Take Ecstasy with Me (The Magnetic Fields)
13. When You're Young and In Love (previously unreleased)
14. You Are Not My Mother and I Want to Go Home (The Gothic Archies)

Be wise. Be brave. Be tricky.

2009-03-17T07:30:00.000+00:00

From the House of Tomorrow Newsletter:

Tickets for the stage adaption of Neil Gaiman's Coraline, with music and lyrics by Stephin Merritt (The Sixths, The Magnetic Fields, et al), will go on sale Monday, 23 March 2009 via the MCC Theater website.

The production, a collaboration between Merritt, director Leigh Silverman, and writer/actor David Greenspan, begins a special limited engagement run on 7 May at New York City's Lucille Lortel Theatre.

From 23 March to 12 April single price tickets to any performance will be available at the special price of USD 39 (Regular ticket prices start at USD 65). To purchase tickets at the discounted price, apply the promotional code CLHT upon checkout at the MCC Theater website. There is a limit of eight tickets per order. Availability is subject to change.

Be wise. Be brave. Be tricky. See Coraline this spring!

Stephin Merritt's music for Volvo car ad

2007-09-13T13:27:00.000+01:00

Stephin Merritt (The Sixths, also known to have recorded as The Magnetic Fields, furthermore known to be a member of The Gothic Archies) has supplied the music for a new advertisement for Volvo cars. Stephin sings "The wheels on the car go round and round" in a new version of the nursery rhyme.

Stephin Merritt's Showtunes out mid-February 2006

2005-11-06T22:39:00.000+00:00

From The House of Tomorrow Newsletter:

Nonesuch Records will release 'Showtunes', a selection of original theater music by Stephin Merritt (The Sixths, The Magnetic Fields, et al) composed for director Chen Shi-Zheng's 'The Orphan of Zhao' (2003), 'Peach Blossom Fan' (2004), and 'My Life as a Fairy Tale' (2005). The projected release date is mid-February, 2006.

The complete catalog of songs from all three shows will also be made available by digital download. More information about the downloadable songs will be available shortly.

The House of Tomorrow
Nonesuch Records
Chen Shi-Zheng

Merritt's music for My Life as a Fairy Tale

2005-03-09T22:13:00.000+00:00

Stephin Merritt (The 6ths, The Magnetic Fields, Future Bible Heroes, Gothic Archies) has written the music for a new musical play about the life of Hans Christian Andersen. The show, which is based on the book by Erik Ehn, is entitled 'My Life as a Fairy Tale' and will be directed by Chen Shi-Zheng when it makes its world premiere as part of the Lincoln Center Festival this summer.

Wednesday 27 July 2005
8:00pm
Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College

Stephin Merritt (official) at houseoftomorrow.com

Sweetly acerbic

2004-06-18T17:17:00.000+01:00

Stephin Merritt (The 6ths, The Magnetic Fields) answers another one of those questionnaires (in fact the same one Vini Reilly did a while ago) in Time Out. Here is a selection of his answers:

Have you ever sung karaoke? I haven't. When occasionally my friends ask me to sing karaoke, I have a great excuse, which is that I sing for a living. No money, no singing!

So, do you live on takeaways or eat out? I eat out. Everyone in New York eats out - we don't really have kitchens here.

Who's the most famous person you've ever met? John Lennon. I was at the Syracuse Children's Museum in the early 70's; he and Yoko Ono were having a show there. I walked up to him just as he was taking a chisel to a block of ice and asked him what he was doing. He said, 'I'm carving an iced tea' - and it turns out he was in fact carving a large letter 'T'.

What's your favourite animal? My dog, Irving. He's a five-year-old chihuahua.

Archived

2004-06-13T15:23:00.000+01:00

Due to popular request here is a link to the old Durutti Column page on the Fac 2.07 Factory website courtesy of our friends at the Wayback Machine. The page includes info on the (aborted) launched of the Kiss of Def single, the Sex and Death CD-ROM and "some small files to spruce up your desktop" including short .wav sound samples of Vini's guitar.

You may say "hey, what about Space Monkeys and Hopper and the Sixths!?", in which case here's a link to the generic Wayback page containing all the archived versions of the whole site. This contains (at the moment) the various updated versions from Dec 96 to July 97.

Thanks to Bruce (not THE Bruce) for inspiration.

Pop pays better

2004-06-11T15:59:00.000+01:00

The Magnetic Fields kicked off their sold out 3-night sojourn at The Lyric in Hammersmith on Thursday and continue on through to Saturday. The HouseOfTomorrow.com has news of forthcoming dates in the USA. The newly-revised schedule is:

June

24: Minneapolis, MN: Pantages Theatre
25-27: Chicago, IL: Old Town School of Folk Music (Two shows Sat and Sun)
29: St. Louis, MO: The Pageant
30: Columbus, OH: Wexner Center for the Arts

July

1: Detroit, MI: Theater at Second City
2: Toronto, Ontario: Trinity Saint Paul's United Church
17: Los Angeles, CA: Wilshire Ebell Theatre
19/20: San Francisco, CA: Palace of Fine Arts Theatre

The site also contains a profile of the The 6ths ("every lisper's nightmare"!) which features a revealing connection with Momus, whose 'The History of Sexual Jealousy Parts 17-24' from the Creation Records compilation Doing It For The Kids is a personal favourite.

Finally, there's an interview with the multi-talented, multi-group (Magnetic Fields, The 6ths, Future Bible Heroes, The Gothic Archies) and, apparently, slightly reticent, Stephin Merritt in The Independent online edition from back in May.

Pieces of Stephin Merritt

2004-05-06T01:39:00.000+01:00

Just picked up the excellent soundtrack by Stephin Merritt (also known as The Magnetic Fields, furthermore known as The 6ths, known to dabble as Future Bible Heroes] to last year's US indie movie Pieces of April which starred Katie Holmes [Dawsons Creek]. The short but sweet album contains tunes from [the 3CD set] 69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields, a couple of tracks from Hyacinths and Thistles by The 6ths (or The Sixths if you prefer) plus some new Stephin Merritt tunes. It's ridiculously over-priced in the UK but can be had at a snip of around USD 12.99 in the States.

The new album by The Magnetic Fields, succinctly titled 'i' [Nonesuch] was released on Tuesday 4 May 2004 and to coincide The House of Tomorrow, the official website for all things Stephin Merritt has very recently announced that The Magnetic Fields are playing live in London on 10-12 June 2004 at the Lyric Hammersmith, King Street, London, W6. The shows will begin at 8pm. Tickets are priced 20 Euros [10 Euros for a limited number of concessions tickets].

Mr Merritt is certainly not one to rest on his laurels...

Prolific

2003-09-29T17:00:00.000+01:00

Alongside Space Monkeys, Hopper and The Durutti Column, The Sixths were in the first (only?) roster of Factory Too bands.

Essentially a one-man-band - Stephin Merritt - they are certainly intriguing. Their first album Wasps' Nests (1995) which was released on Factory Too is still available in the USA on Polygram. The second album, Hyacinths and Thistles (2000), is also still in print and, like the first one, is highly rated.

Merritt has brought in a plethora of guest singers to sing his material including artists as diverse as Gary Numan, Anna Domino, Bob Mould, Clare Grogan and Marc Almond to mention but a few. As well as The Sixths, the prolific Merritt also founded and has recorded with Future Bible Heroes and Magnetic Fields.