Happiness...Is Not a Fish That You Can Catch
Encyclopedia
Happiness... Is Not a Fish That You Can Catch is the third studio album by Canadian alternative rock
band Our Lady Peace
. It was released on September 21, 1999 by Columbia Records
. The album was very successful in Canada, debuting at #1 on the Canadian Albums Chart
. The album was certified 3x Platinum in July 2001. Hit singles from the album include "One Man Army
", "Is Anybody Home?
", and "Thief
". The final track on the CD, "Stealing Babies", features Elvin Jones
, a famous jazz drummer who died in 2004. The photo shoot for this album took place around Staten Island
in New York State.
said in a March 1998 interview. "We're all writing collectively and individually. Everyone's hovered over their four-track machines, if we're not trying to work things out in sound checks."
Mike Turner and Raine Maida say they wanted to make an album that didn't sound derivative, an accusation that had stung them in the past. Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan
infamously accused them of ripping off his band. They tried to counter the remark for their new album. "We've toured so much for the last five years throughout the U.S. and Canada and with all the bands we've played with . . . music became so diluted and so disposable we said: `If we're going to make a record, let's put out something that maybe challenges people.'"
According to Raine Maida, the overall idea of the album is human obsession, "A lot of this record came from obsessions: Definitely seeing those obsessions in the States, the guns, the Gap ads and how the media determines who you are these days.... During the recording of this record, we talked a lot about death, for whatever reason. There's definitely an obsession with death and a huge fear. But in knowing that, it makes you hate these other things more, because it's not what life's about. Buying Tommy Hilfinger (sic) because it's cool has nothing to do with any kind of emotional value or content, and music for me does. So when they hit each other, I get pretty emotional about it."
in Toronto
. The band began writing, demoing and general jamming for Happiness... in late November soon after their appearance at the 1998 Summersault
festival. Raine brought in many of the songs he had written in demo form already recorded and the rest of the band expanded upon those. Unlike previous albums, Mike Turner took little part in writing the album. Recording began in mid-January 1999. The band isolated themselves in the studio with little outside contact. They spent one and a half months recording the bed tracks of vocals and guitar and a week and a half each for drum and bass parts. The album took four months to record in all. For the first time, this album was recorded entirely on digital equipment using ProTools to edit. "It's the best thing for us because you don't have to wait between takes like if I'm doing a vocal take or Jeremy's doing drum stuff, if you want to do it again, you can do it instantaneously." Other new effects the band used included filtering percussion through a distortion box and recording guitar parts through antique microphones, including one used by Stevie Wonder
.
Former drummer for John Coltrane
, Elvin Jones
makes a guest appearance on the final track of the album "Stealing Babies". Jeremy Taggart was a big fan of Jones' and was able to meet him through his drum technician while at a show in Seattle. He invited Jones' into the Toronto studio early into the recording sessions to record drums for the song, which were recorded in one take.
Halfway through recording, the band realized that the music they were recording would be very hard to recreate live, especially for Mike Turner. They decided to hire Boston
area multi-instrumentalist Jamie Edwards, who had formerly played with Blue Man Group
and that Jeremy knew through a mutual friend, to augment their live shows. "The turning point was when we decided to take off the table our usual constraint, which is that if we can't pull it off as a three-piece instrumental then we shouldn't be doing it," said Mike Turner. "Now we're like, we'll get another guy, we'll do whatever we have to, let's just make a great record. So we indulged ourselves with a lot of textures, a lot of other sounds." Jamie provided extra guitar as well as Keyboards
and other special effects and ended up recording for the album. The band was looking to make a sonic leap forward from their previous albums. "We took the things we thought were original from 'Clumsy' and 'Naveed' and tried to overdo them." said Raine Maida, "As well, our songwriting really improved."
Raine Maida has stated that the album is so tight and so well executed because the band only recorded 12 songs during the Happiness sessions, instead of recording 20 or more like they did with their previous two albums. They strove to achieve a much simpler method of songwriting than on the previous albums which included tightening up songs and forming more cohesive tracks. This allowed each song to have the utmost attention given to it while being written and it sometimes took one week or more to record one song. "Annie" for example, took over two weeks of jam sessions to become a fully realized song. The only recorded song that did not make the album was the long running concert favorite "Trapeze", which had previously been recorded, and omitted from "Clumsy".
This was the first album of theirs to not be mixed by their producer Arnold Lanni
. It was instead sent to Kevin Shirley
at Avatar Studios
in New York City
. The mixing of the album was completed by late June 1999 when they played many of the songs for the first time for a large audience at Woodstock 1999
.
Happiness... was released in Canada on September 21, 1999. The album was very successful in its first week, selling 40,090 copies and debuting at #1 on the Canadian Albums Chart.
Upon its release, Happiness... was panned by many critics who cited it as being over-ambitious and too dour in subject manner. In the band's hometown, Ben Rayner, the reviewer of The Toronto Star said, "...there's something curiously unmoving and dispassionate about it - it's canned angst ordered from some overstocked and increasingly disused alt-rock warehouse outside of Seattle, too studious and sterile to ever really hit you the way rock 'n' roll is supposed to." Leigh Buckley Fountain of the Richmond Times-Dispatch
gave the album a B- and positively noted that, "The same catchy melodies, same distracted off-kilter rhythms dominate this album that dominated 1998's "Clumsy." but went on to criticize Maida's vocal performance as being "too experimental". He also had to say about the lyrical content, "One problem with the album is its typically vague, tangential lyrics. Critics have called Maida a "philosopher," but I'm not so sure I'd go all that far. I like what he does, but snippets out of the blue like "Nazis breast feeding" don't do much for me."
David Gerard of the Boston Globe praised the guitar playing from the album, especially on the song "Blister" and also noted how the band had expanded its musical turf. Melissa Maino of The Buffalo News
also reviewed the album positively, citing "Theif" as a stand-out track and saying that, "Our Lady Peace's music may be a little predictable, but if it's not broke, don't fix it." In a 2.5 star review, the San Antonio Express-News
praised the album for its high energy and subtle textures but criticized the vocals, saying "Raine Maida's overexposed falsetto is grating enough to send borderline psychotics over the edge."
's extreme range of octaves sung in a falsetto
-like manner. He could travel from one octave to another with ease and very smoothly. This created a very surreal effect to the songs, best shown on songs like "Happiness & the Fish", "Blister" and "Lying Awake", much like "Big Dumb Rocket" from Clumsy. The overall sound was quite a departure from their first album, Naveed
, featuring very toned-down guitars and the addition of synthesizers and other instruments, typical in most alternative rock
albums.
Raine explained the album's overall concept in an early 2000 interview with Vue Weekly
:
The lyrics on the album are mostly written in the first-person. The lyrics are usually about unusual themes—laziness, isolation, loneliness and happiness, most explained in a metaphorical manner. The track "Lying Awake" was said to be about Benny Hinn
, and how Raine Maida viewed him as a con-artist, trying to scam people into religion. "Annie" is said to be about a girl who is made an outcast, and ends up killing everybody in the end, similar to Pearl Jam
's song "Jeremy
" on their début album Ten
. The band has said in many interviews that "Thief" was about Mina Kim, a girl the band knew who was dying of a brain tumor.
when she was 6 years old. She went around the world and visited other kids with AIDS. Raine was so inspired. John Coltrane
’s drummer, Elvin Jones, he played on A Love Supreme
.
Soon after the release of Happiness... in September 1999 the band set off on a tour across the United States
opening with Oleander
for Creed
. They did a short tour in Europe opening for The Stereophonics in December as well as in February 2000 back in Canada. The cross-America tour continued into January 2000 before the band began their cross-Canadian headline tour dubbed "The World's a Blister Tour". They returned to the United States in the Spring to participate in multiple music festivals such as Pointfest
in St. Louis, Missouri
and Springfest
in Pensacola, Florida
.
During August 2000, the members of OLP organized the second Summersault
tour, where them and other Canadian and American bands including The Smashing Pumpkins
and Foo Fighters
toured together across Canada. Touring effectively ended after Summersault as the band had announced work for a brand new studio album, Spiritual Machines
which they had been working on since before the festival and which would be completed and released in Canada before the end of the year.
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
band Our Lady Peace
Our Lady Peace
Our Lady Peace is a Canadian alternative rock band that formed in Toronto, Ontario in 1992. Headed by lead vocalist Raine Maida since its formation, the band additionally consists of Jeremy Taggart on percussion, Duncan Coutts on bass, and Steve Mazur as lead guitarist...
. It was released on September 21, 1999 by Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
. The album was very successful in Canada, debuting at #1 on the Canadian Albums Chart
Canadian Albums Chart
The Canadian Albums Chart is the official album sales chart in Canada. It is compiled every Wednesday by U.S.-based music sales tracking company Nielsen Soundscan, and published every Thursday by Jam! Canoe and Billboard, along with its sister charts the Canadian Singles Chart and the Canadian BDS...
. The album was certified 3x Platinum in July 2001. Hit singles from the album include "One Man Army
One Man Army (song)
"One Man Army" is a 1999 song by Our Lady Peace, released as the first single from their third album, Happiness...Is Not a Fish That You Can Catch.-Meaning:...
", "Is Anybody Home?
Is Anybody Home?
"Is Anybody Home?" is a song by Canadian Alternative rock band Our Lady Peace, and was the second single released from their third album, Happiness...Is Not a Fish That You Can Catch...
", and "Thief
Thief (Our Lady Peace song)
"Thief" is a song written and performed by Canadian rock band Our Lady Peace and released in 1999 on the album Happiness... Is Not a Fish That You Can Catch.-Song meaning:...
". The final track on the CD, "Stealing Babies", features Elvin Jones
Elvin Jones
Elvin Ray Jones was a jazz drummer of the post-bop era. He showed interest in drums at a young age, watching the circus bands march by his family's home in Pontiac, Michigan....
, a famous jazz drummer who died in 2004. The photo shoot for this album took place around Staten Island
Staten Island
Staten Island is a borough of New York City, New York, United States, located in the southwest part of the city. Staten Island is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull, and from the rest of New York by New York Bay...
in New York State.
Background
By early 1998, while touring for Clumsy, the members of Our Lady Peace were already eager to get back into the studio. "We're all starting to get that itch," bass player Duncan CouttsDuncan Coutts
Robert Duncan Coutts is a Canadian musician, best known for being the bassist for Our Lady Peace since 1995.-Our Lady Peace:...
said in a March 1998 interview. "We're all writing collectively and individually. Everyone's hovered over their four-track machines, if we're not trying to work things out in sound checks."
Mike Turner and Raine Maida say they wanted to make an album that didn't sound derivative, an accusation that had stung them in the past. Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan
Billy Corgan
William Patrick "Billy" Corgan, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional poet best known as the frontman and sole permanent member of The Smashing Pumpkins. Formed by Corgan and guitarist James Iha in Chicago, Illinois in 1987, the band quickly gained steam with the...
infamously accused them of ripping off his band. They tried to counter the remark for their new album. "We've toured so much for the last five years throughout the U.S. and Canada and with all the bands we've played with . . . music became so diluted and so disposable we said: `If we're going to make a record, let's put out something that maybe challenges people.'"
According to Raine Maida, the overall idea of the album is human obsession, "A lot of this record came from obsessions: Definitely seeing those obsessions in the States, the guns, the Gap ads and how the media determines who you are these days.... During the recording of this record, we talked a lot about death, for whatever reason. There's definitely an obsession with death and a huge fear. But in knowing that, it makes you hate these other things more, because it's not what life's about. Buying Tommy Hilfinger (sic) because it's cool has nothing to do with any kind of emotional value or content, and music for me does. So when they hit each other, I get pretty emotional about it."
Recording
For their third studio album, Our Lady Peace chose again to work with producer Arnold LanniArnold Lanni
Arnold David Lanni is a Canadian record producer, and former member of both Frozen Ghost and Sheriff. He wrote Sheriff's most successful song, "When I'm With You."-History:...
in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
. The band began writing, demoing and general jamming for Happiness... in late November soon after their appearance at the 1998 Summersault
Summersault
Summersault was a Canadian music festival organized by the band Our Lady Peace in 1998 and again in 2000. Summersault 1998 was held in Barrie, Ontario, at Molson Park, St...
festival. Raine brought in many of the songs he had written in demo form already recorded and the rest of the band expanded upon those. Unlike previous albums, Mike Turner took little part in writing the album. Recording began in mid-January 1999. The band isolated themselves in the studio with little outside contact. They spent one and a half months recording the bed tracks of vocals and guitar and a week and a half each for drum and bass parts. The album took four months to record in all. For the first time, this album was recorded entirely on digital equipment using ProTools to edit. "It's the best thing for us because you don't have to wait between takes like if I'm doing a vocal take or Jeremy's doing drum stuff, if you want to do it again, you can do it instantaneously." Other new effects the band used included filtering percussion through a distortion box and recording guitar parts through antique microphones, including one used by Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris , better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist...
.
Former drummer for John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
, Elvin Jones
Elvin Jones
Elvin Ray Jones was a jazz drummer of the post-bop era. He showed interest in drums at a young age, watching the circus bands march by his family's home in Pontiac, Michigan....
makes a guest appearance on the final track of the album "Stealing Babies". Jeremy Taggart was a big fan of Jones' and was able to meet him through his drum technician while at a show in Seattle. He invited Jones' into the Toronto studio early into the recording sessions to record drums for the song, which were recorded in one take.
Halfway through recording, the band realized that the music they were recording would be very hard to recreate live, especially for Mike Turner. They decided to hire Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
area multi-instrumentalist Jamie Edwards, who had formerly played with Blue Man Group
Blue Man Group
Blue Man Group is an organization founded by Chris Wink, Matt Goldman and Phil Stanton. The organization produces theatrical shows and concerts featuring popular music, comedy and multimedia; recorded music and scores for film and television; television appearances for shows such as The Tonight...
and that Jeremy knew through a mutual friend, to augment their live shows. "The turning point was when we decided to take off the table our usual constraint, which is that if we can't pull it off as a three-piece instrumental then we shouldn't be doing it," said Mike Turner. "Now we're like, we'll get another guy, we'll do whatever we have to, let's just make a great record. So we indulged ourselves with a lot of textures, a lot of other sounds." Jamie provided extra guitar as well as Keyboards
Keyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
and other special effects and ended up recording for the album. The band was looking to make a sonic leap forward from their previous albums. "We took the things we thought were original from 'Clumsy' and 'Naveed' and tried to overdo them." said Raine Maida, "As well, our songwriting really improved."
Raine Maida has stated that the album is so tight and so well executed because the band only recorded 12 songs during the Happiness sessions, instead of recording 20 or more like they did with their previous two albums. They strove to achieve a much simpler method of songwriting than on the previous albums which included tightening up songs and forming more cohesive tracks. This allowed each song to have the utmost attention given to it while being written and it sometimes took one week or more to record one song. "Annie" for example, took over two weeks of jam sessions to become a fully realized song. The only recorded song that did not make the album was the long running concert favorite "Trapeze", which had previously been recorded, and omitted from "Clumsy".
This was the first album of theirs to not be mixed by their producer Arnold Lanni
Arnold Lanni
Arnold David Lanni is a Canadian record producer, and former member of both Frozen Ghost and Sheriff. He wrote Sheriff's most successful song, "When I'm With You."-History:...
. It was instead sent to Kevin Shirley
Kevin Shirley
Kevin Shirley is a music producer and mixer for many artists, such as the bands Journey, Iron Maiden, Rush, Led Zeppelin, Joe Bonamassa, Marya Roxx, Dream Theater, Tyler Bryant, Mr. Big, and Europe.-Biography:...
at Avatar Studios
Avatar Studios
Avatar Studios, formerly known as The Power Station, is a recording studio at 441 West 53rd Street in Manhattan, New York City.The building was originally a Consolidated Edison power plant; but after a period of vacancy, it was used as a sound stage for the television game show Let's Make a Deal...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. The mixing of the album was completed by late June 1999 when they played many of the songs for the first time for a large audience at Woodstock 1999
Woodstock 1999
Woodstock 1999, also called Woodstock 99, performed July 22–25, 1999, was the second large-scale music festival that attempted to emulate the original Woodstock Festival of 1969. Like the previous Woodstock festivals it was performed in upstate New York, this time in Rome, New York, around 200...
.
Release and reception
To promote the upcoming release of their album in September, Our Lady Peace performed a live in-studio concert and Q&A which was aired to 12 canadian radio stations simultaneously utilizing satellite and ISDN technology. Listeners to any of the stations could call in and ask the band members questions. On September 13, 1999 a special listening party was held on a newly redesigned ourladypeace.com where fans could listen to the entire album via streamlink. The band also held an online chat with fans for a Q & A session.Happiness... was released in Canada on September 21, 1999. The album was very successful in its first week, selling 40,090 copies and debuting at #1 on the Canadian Albums Chart.
Upon its release, Happiness... was panned by many critics who cited it as being over-ambitious and too dour in subject manner. In the band's hometown, Ben Rayner, the reviewer of The Toronto Star said, "...there's something curiously unmoving and dispassionate about it - it's canned angst ordered from some overstocked and increasingly disused alt-rock warehouse outside of Seattle, too studious and sterile to ever really hit you the way rock 'n' roll is supposed to." Leigh Buckley Fountain of the Richmond Times-Dispatch
Richmond Times-Dispatch
The Richmond Times-Dispatch is the primary daily newspaper in Richmond the capital of Virginia, United States, and is commonly considered the "newspaper of record" for events occurring in much of the state...
gave the album a B- and positively noted that, "The same catchy melodies, same distracted off-kilter rhythms dominate this album that dominated 1998's "Clumsy." but went on to criticize Maida's vocal performance as being "too experimental". He also had to say about the lyrical content, "One problem with the album is its typically vague, tangential lyrics. Critics have called Maida a "philosopher," but I'm not so sure I'd go all that far. I like what he does, but snippets out of the blue like "Nazis breast feeding" don't do much for me."
David Gerard of the Boston Globe praised the guitar playing from the album, especially on the song "Blister" and also noted how the band had expanded its musical turf. Melissa Maino of The Buffalo News
The Buffalo News
The Buffalo News is the primary newspaper of the Buffalo – Niagara Falls metropolitan area, and the area's only daily newspaper. It is the only newspaper owned by Berkshire Hathaway.-History:...
also reviewed the album positively, citing "Theif" as a stand-out track and saying that, "Our Lady Peace's music may be a little predictable, but if it's not broke, don't fix it." In a 2.5 star review, the San Antonio Express-News
San Antonio Express-News
The San Antonio Express-News is the daily newspaper of San Antonio, Texas. It is ranked as the third-largest daily newspaper in the state of Texas in terms of circulation, and is one of the leading news sources of South Texas, with offices in Austin, Brownsville, Laredo, and Mexico City...
praised the album for its high energy and subtle textures but criticized the vocals, saying "Raine Maida's overexposed falsetto is grating enough to send borderline psychotics over the edge."
Music and lyrics
The songs on Happiness... focus on a lighter melody, often following vocalist Raine MaidaRaine Maida
Raine Maida , is a Canadian musician best known as being the lead vocalist and primary songwriter of the alternative rock band Our Lady Peace. He has come to be known for his unique countertenor nasal falsetto singing voice, as well as his cryptic and poetry-influenced song lyrics...
's extreme range of octaves sung in a falsetto
Falsetto
Falsetto is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave. It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentous edges of the vocal folds, in whole or in part...
-like manner. He could travel from one octave to another with ease and very smoothly. This created a very surreal effect to the songs, best shown on songs like "Happiness & the Fish", "Blister" and "Lying Awake", much like "Big Dumb Rocket" from Clumsy. The overall sound was quite a departure from their first album, Naveed
Naveed (album)
Naveed is the debut album by Canadian rock band Our Lady Peace. It was produced by Arnold Lanni, and was released on March 22, 1994 by Sony Music Canada. Naveed became a success in Canada, selling over 100,000 copies by the end of the year. There were five singles released for the album,...
, featuring very toned-down guitars and the addition of synthesizers and other instruments, typical in most alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
albums.
Raine explained the album's overall concept in an early 2000 interview with Vue Weekly
Vue Weekly
Vue Weekly is an alternative weekly newspaper published in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and with new issues coming out every Thursday.Vue was founded in 1995 by former employees and owners of SEE Magazine, upset over losing control of SEE to creditors...
:
The lyrics on the album are mostly written in the first-person. The lyrics are usually about unusual themes—laziness, isolation, loneliness and happiness, most explained in a metaphorical manner. The track "Lying Awake" was said to be about Benny Hinn
Benny Hinn
Toufik Benedictus "Benny" Hinn הין; born December 3, 1952) is a televangelist, best known for his regular "Miracle Crusades" – revival meeting/faith healing summits that are usually held in large stadiums in major cities, which are later broadcast worldwide on his television program, This Is Your...
, and how Raine Maida viewed him as a con-artist, trying to scam people into religion. "Annie" is said to be about a girl who is made an outcast, and ends up killing everybody in the end, similar to Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam is an American rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included Eddie Vedder , Jeff Ament , Stone Gossard , and Mike McCready...
's song "Jeremy
Jeremy (song)
"Jeremy" is a song by the American grunge band Pearl Jam that features lyrics written by vocalist Eddie Vedder and music written by bassist Jeff Ament. "Jeremy" was released in 1992 as the third single from Pearl Jam's debut album, Ten . The song reached the number five spot on both the Mainstream...
" on their début album Ten
Ten (Pearl Jam album)
Ten is the debut studio album by the American grunge band Pearl Jam, released on August 27, 1991 through Epic Records. Following the disbanding of bassist Jeff Ament and guitarist Stone Gossard's previous group Mother Love Bone, the two recruited vocalist Eddie Vedder, guitarist Mike McCready, and...
. The band has said in many interviews that "Thief" was about Mina Kim, a girl the band knew who was dying of a brain tumor.
Stealing Babies
In an online chat in March 2001, Mike Turner revealed the inspiration for this song. "The song was inspired by a PBS documentary about a little girl named Eve that was diagnosed with AIDSAIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
when she was 6 years old. She went around the world and visited other kids with AIDS. Raine was so inspired. John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
’s drummer, Elvin Jones, he played on A Love Supreme
A Love Supreme
A Love Supreme is a studio album recorded by John Coltrane's quartet in December 1964 and released by Impulse! Records in February 1965...
.
Tour
Before their show at Woodstock in June, Our Lady Peace played a set of secret gigs in Muskoka and Toronto under the pseudonym Belly Flop Communist, at Jamie Edwards' suggestion. T-shirts were even made up and sold at the shows. While the shows were secret, the band divulged their true identity over the radio causing the shows to soon sell out. Here, the band played many of the songs from Happiness for the very first time live. They played at Woodstock on July 25, 1999 where they played a 12 song set including six songs from the new album.Soon after the release of Happiness... in September 1999 the band set off on a tour across the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
opening with Oleander
Oleander (band)
Oleander is a post-grunge band from Sacramento, California, USA. Its name is derived from the poisonous wildflower oleander, which line the highways of Northern California. In their nine years of activity, the band released four studio albums under various record labels...
for Creed
Creed (band)
Creed is an American rock band formed in 1995 in Tallahassee, Florida. Becoming popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the band has released three consecutive multi-platinum albums, one of which has been certified diamond, and has sold over 28 million records in the United States, with an...
. They did a short tour in Europe opening for The Stereophonics in December as well as in February 2000 back in Canada. The cross-America tour continued into January 2000 before the band began their cross-Canadian headline tour dubbed "The World's a Blister Tour". They returned to the United States in the Spring to participate in multiple music festivals such as Pointfest
Pointfest
Pointfest is a large outdoor rock music festival previously held once but now held twice every year by radio station KPNT in St. Louis, Missouri at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater St. Louis...
in St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
and Springfest
Springfest
Springfest is a common name for events occurring to celebrate the coming of Spring.*Spring Fest , popularly known as SF, is the annual social & cultural festival held at Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India during the month of January in the spring semester.*Springfest is a common name...
in Pensacola, Florida
Pensacola, Florida
Pensacola is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle and the county seat of Escambia County, Florida, United States of America. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 56,255 and as of 2009, the estimated population was 53,752...
.
During August 2000, the members of OLP organized the second Summersault
Summersault
Summersault was a Canadian music festival organized by the band Our Lady Peace in 1998 and again in 2000. Summersault 1998 was held in Barrie, Ontario, at Molson Park, St...
tour, where them and other Canadian and American bands including The Smashing Pumpkins
The Smashing Pumpkins
The Smashing Pumpkins are an American alternative rock band that formed in Chicago, Illinois in 1988. Formed by Billy Corgan frontman and James Iha , the band has included Jimmy Chamberlin , D'arcy Wretzky , and currently includes Jeff Schroeder Mike Byrne , and Nicole Fiorentino The Smashing...
and Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters is an American alternative rock band originally formed in 1994 by Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl as a one-man project following the dissolution of his previous band. The band got its name from the UFOs and various aerial phenomena that were reported by Allied aircraft pilots in World War...
toured together across Canada. Touring effectively ended after Summersault as the band had announced work for a brand new studio album, Spiritual Machines
Spiritual Machines
Spiritual Machines is the fourth studio album by the Canadian alternative rock band Our Lady Peace, released by Columbia Records in December 2000. Although not initially intended, the project evolved into a conceptual interpretation of futurist and inventor Raymond Kurzweil's 1999 book The Age of...
which they had been working on since before the festival and which would be completed and released in Canada before the end of the year.
Track listing
Personnel
- Duncan Coutts - bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
- Jamie Edwards - keyboardsKeyboard instrumentA keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
, electric guitarElectric guitarAn electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker... - Elvin JonesElvin JonesElvin Ray Jones was a jazz drummer of the post-bop era. He showed interest in drums at a young age, watching the circus bands march by his family's home in Pontiac, Michigan....
- drums on "Stealing Babies" - Raine MaidaRaine MaidaRaine Maida , is a Canadian musician best known as being the lead vocalist and primary songwriter of the alternative rock band Our Lady Peace. He has come to be known for his unique countertenor nasal falsetto singing voice, as well as his cryptic and poetry-influenced song lyrics...
- vocals, acoustic guitarAcoustic guitarAn acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...
, pianoPianoThe piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal... - Jeremy TaggartJeremy TaggartJeremy Ronald John Taggart is a Canadian drummer, best known for playing with Our Lady Peace since 1993.-Early life:Taggart was born in Toronto, Ontario and has two brothers and one sister. Music was a central part of his youth, as his parents were also musicians, and Taggart learned to play drums...
- drums, percussion - Mike TurnerMike Turner (musician)Mike A. Turner is a musician and producer. He is the former lead guitarist of the band Our Lady Peace. After his departure from OLP he began producing music and played guitar in the Canadian band Fair Ground, with Harem Scarem guitarist Pete Lesperance...
- electric guitar
Studio Outtakes
- "Trapeze" - song taken from Clumsy sessions; live version available on internet
- "Ordinary/Ordinary Day" - Abandoned track from recording sessions for Happiness. The PPU Christmas 1998 video included clips of the band rehearsing this song; never released
- "Sleeping In" - Abandoned track from recording sessions for Clumsy. The lyrics were published in the PPU Christmas 1998 newsletter; never released. A poor quality recording is available on YoutubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
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Release history
| Region | Date | Label | Format | Catalog |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canada | September 21, 1999 | Columbia Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company... |
CD | |
| United States | September 28, 1999 | CK 63707 | ||
| 2CD | CK 63899 | |||
| United Kingdom | November 15, 1999 | Epic Epic Records Epic Records is an American record label, owned by Sony Music Entertainment. Though it was originally conceived as a jazz imprint, it has since expanded to represent various genres. L.A... |
CD | |
| Asia | March 8, 2000 | CD | ESCA 8108 | |
External links
- Happiness... Is Not a Fish That You Can Catch lyrics at RhapsodyRhapsody (online music service)Rhapsody is an online music store subscription service, launched in December 2001, and available in the United States only. On April 6, 2010, Rhapsody officially declared its independence from RealNetworks. Downloaded files come with restrictions on their use, enforced by Helix, Rhapsody's version...