Apple Madness

Today’s joke is a bit in the “adult” category, but I don’t think you have to be 18 to enjoy it. After all, it involves apples, and that’s all we need to know. Apples and cannibals, to be more accurate…

…and the story goes like this: once upon a time, there were three brave explorers trying to find some treasures in a jungle. Unfortunately, they found cannibals… or the cannibals found them, that’s not really important. They got caught, and all three were sure their final hour is drawing near, but…

…the cannibal in charge (CIC, for those crazy about “CEO-ish” acronyms) decided to give them a chance, so he looked at them and said:

- I think you deserve a chance to live, so here’s the deal – go back in the jungle, and bring me some fruits. Anything you find, it doesn’t really matter for now, just remember to be quick, choose only one fruit, and be sure to bring as many as you can carry!

Obviously, it’s strange to hear about cannibals eating fruits, but our explorers didn’t give a damn about it. They just wanted to get out of it alive, so they went into the jungle.

A few hours later, the first two came back. The first one had its pockets full of cherries, while the other had some apples. Pockets full, a few in his hands, as much as he was able to carry.

Smiling, the CIC said:

- Good, now take all the fruits and stick them up your own ass. If you manage to do it, we’ll set you all free!

After the cherries-guy finished, the one with the apples started to laugh. Even some monkeys fell off the nearest tree because of that. When he stopped, the CIC said:

- Why laugh? You may have some troubles with those apples, you know…

- Yes, I know, you can fire up that big cooking pot of yours already! I may get lucky with those apples or not, but I saw the last guy picking up some watermelons, that’s why he’s not here yet…

This morning I had an apple, as I usually do. A rather big one, if you would ask me. In fact, that just changed, because I found out about the largest apple, and I had to reconsider the size of the one I had this morning. OK, let’s start this once again – “this morning I had a tiny apple, as usual, and so I had a great day, good enough to come here and tell you a few quick facts about apple varieties.”

That should be better, I guess, and before we get to the apple varieties part, one more thing – I won’t tell you anything about the largest apple today, I have to research the subject a bit more, maybe I can find some pictures with some apples over 1 kg, that would be awesome!

Good, these being said, let’s check a few interesting facts on apple varieties I’ve been able to find earlier today:

- In the United States, over 2,500 apple varieties of apples are being grown.

- One of the oldest apple varieties is the Lady Apple, also known as the Api apple. Even more, since this apple was traditionally used in Christmas decorations and stockings, it is also known as the Christmas Apple. This apple variety deserves a story of its own, so I’ll stop here now.

That’s all, folks, but we’ll get back to apple varieties as soon as I digg out more interesting info. In the meantime, feel free to drop a comment below if you know more!

As we all know, the next person you won’t take with you on a deserted island, right after your mother-in-law is your boss. I hope this is not true for you, because sometimes you get to spend more time with your boss than your family, so… having a good relationship with him is the key to success. Anyway, let’s see a short story about a boss and 4 apples, shall we?

After a tiny mathematical error on some of those routine reports we all hate, a worker’s boss tried to belittle him in front of his peers. Well, that’s not something out of ordinary. The outcome of this story, on the other hand, is perfect – if you can outsmart your boss, do as our worker here!

With an angry voice, the boss asked:

“If you had 4 apples and I asked for one, how many would you have left?”

The answer came quickly, and was 100% honest:

“If it was you who asked, I’d still have 4 apples.”

These last few days I’ve been searching all over the Internet for some Fiona Apple bootlegs, but I almost failed. Fortunately, I won’t write here about those Fiona Apple bootleg recordings I’ve been able to find information about, because those are just a few tracks, although their history is pretty interesting.

Today, I will tell you about two full shows, recorded in 2005 and 2006. Even better, I will give you the download links to them! I only hope Sony won’t come to tell me what I do is wrong, because I think we’re only trading information like real fans should – I am not selling what I found, and I don’t charge anything for my research work.

Fiona Apple Live

Because when I first heard about bootlegs, I had no idea what is such a thing, let’s say, first of all, that a “bootleg recording,” usually referred to simply as “bootleg,” is a video or audio recording of a show not officially released by the artist, or under other legal authority. I don’t want to get deeper into the legal matters of the story – I only hope nobody will shoot me for providing download links to Fiona Apple bootlegs here…

Anyway, since this is more about information, let’s get started with what I managed to find out so far. You can consider this list below to be “work in progress,” and it would be great if you could help me make it the most accurate list of Fiona Apple bootleg recordings on the Web. OK, these being said, let’s start with…

2005. Extraordinary Machine (Bootleg release)

Track Listing

“Not About Love”
“Red, Red, Red”
“Get Him Back”
“Better Version of Me”
“Oh Well”
“Oh, Sailor”
“Used to Love Him”
“Window”
“Waltz”
“Extraordinary Machine”
“Please, Please, Please”

Personnel

Fiona Apple – vocals, piano
Jon Brion – producer
Tom Biller – engineer
Matt Chamberlain – percussion, drums
Jim Keltner – drums (track 5)
Eric Gorfain – violin (track 5)
Steven Rhodes – assistant

2005. Live in Los Angeles (unknown location, 26 November)

Track Listing

“Intro”
“Get Him Back”
“Better Version Of Me”
“Shadowboxer”
“To Your Love”
“I Know”
“Sleep To Dream”
“Limp”
“Paper Bag”
“Tymps”(The Sick In The Head Song)
“Oh, Well”
“On The Bound”
“Red, Red, Red”
“Not About Love”
“O’Sailor”
“Get Gone” & Band Intro
“Fast As You Can”
“Extraordinary Machine”
“Criminal”
“Parting Gift”

2006. Live in Paris (Folies Bergere, 10 April)

Track Listing

“Get Him Back”
“Better Version Of Me”
“Shadowboxer”
“To Your Love”
“I Know”
“Sleep To Dream”
“Limp”
“Paper Bag”
“Tymps”(The Sick In The Head Song)
“Oh, Well”
“On The Bound”
“Red, Red, Red”
“Not About Love”
“O’Sailor”
“Get Gone”
“Fast As You Can”
“Extraordinary Machine”
“Criminal”
“Parting Gift”

I have no idea about who recorded these last two bootlegs here, but sound quality is decent, as you’ll be able to figure out for yourselves once you download them. The Paris bootleg has 118 MB in size, and “Parting Gift” is missing from the archive(the only one I’ve been able to find was damaged), while the archive containing the LA concert has 134 MB, and that should be all for now.

Oh, I almost forgot about the password! This is the same for both archives – “We_Love_Fiona_Apple” – without the quotation marks, of course. To unpack the archives, you’ll need 7-Zip, the best free archiver money can’t get. That’s it folks, I’ll add new bootlegs as soon as I find them below this line, but for now, it’s “bye bye,” and nothing more!

15th of February – As I was hoping, I managed to find another Fiona Apple bootleg in the meantime. This time, we’re talking about an old one, recorded way back in January 2000. To be more accurate, I’m talking about a live set recorded at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York on the 7th of January, 2000. As expected, the songs are coming from her first two albums, “Tidal” and “When The Pawn.”

2000. Live at the Eastman (7 January)

Track Listing

“On The Bound”
“To Your Love”
“Criminal”
“Limp”
“Sullen Girl”
“Paper Bag”
“Get Gone”
“Love Ridden”
“Sleep To Dream”
“Carrion”
“The Way Things Are”
“I Know”
“A Mistake”
“Fast As You Can”
“Just One Of Those Things”

The password is the same as for the other two bootlegs, but this archive is a bit smaller, with a bit less than 68 MB in size. Just click here, and grab this new Fiona Apple bootleg I managed to retrieve. Oh, yeah, and maybe you’ll get back here from time to time… I’ll do my best to keep this page updated with useful information for true Fiona Apple fans!

22nd of February – Good news, people! Today, I just managed to grab Fiona’s “Fiona Has Wings” bootleg, including covers! Sound quality is very good, although we’re talking about 96kbps MP3 files, but before we get to the download part, here’s the track listing, especially since the files in the archive are not tagged, and they don’t have proper names, either…

1996/1997. Fiona Has Wings

Track Listing

“Never Is A Promise”
“Criminal” (Radio 99 X Studio Master)
“Sleep To Dream” (Atlanta)
“Slow Like Honey”
“The Child Is Gone”
“Sullen Girl”
“Pale September”
“Sleep To Dream” (“Morning Becomes Eclectic” Sessions)
“Never Is A Promise”
“Criminal” (Omega WHFS Sessions)
“Criminal” (Maryland Studios)
“The First Taste”

Password’s the same, but this time you only have to download 47 MB of data(click here). Even more, you can print the covers and burn these files to some Audio CD, and you’ll get a great present for any Fiona Apple fan you happen to know. That’s it for now, but I’ll do my best to keep’em coming!

12th of March – Another update, and this time a video bootleg! We’re talking about Spankin’ Live on MTV, but the truth is that I am a bit lost here. Some sources claim this is a 51 minute recording, while what I have is only 36 minutes long, without giving me the feeling something is missing…

1999. Spankin’ Live on MTV(Sony Studios NYC)

Track Listing

none, for now

Same password, two files to download and unpack(about 250 MB): part one and part two.

20th of June – Oh, my, I must say that I am really sorry about the delay, but at least I got my hands on some new Fiona Apple treasure, and now I’ll finally share it with you! The download has 43MB in size, and same password as the others that came before it. Enjoy!

2005. Extraordinary Machine(Leaked Version)

Extraordinary Machine Leaked Bootleg

Track Listing

“Not About Love”
“Red, Red, Red”
“Get Him Back”
“Better Version of Me” (rough mix)
“Oh Well”
“Oh, Sailor”
“Used to Love Him”
“Window”
“Waltz”
“Extraordinary Machine”
“Please, Please, Please”
“Better Version of Me” (alternate version)

That’s all, for now, but the fight for more Fiona Apple bootlegs is still far from over!

Damn, I wish I was a butterfly. Butterflies get so close to apple tree flowers, they make me jealous. Anyway, we’re not going to talk about apple fruits today, since I intentionally pushed aside Fiona Apple’s singles out of the article regarding her discography, and now the time has come to fill in another part. That’s because to some people looking to find that Fiona Apple discography, singles are also important, maybe to have a better picture of her as an artist, maybe simply to have all data nicely gathered.

Speaking for myself, well… I think most singles are released by artists who simply have 2-3 good tracks on an album, and a few fillers too many. I guess that’s why Fiona Apple hasn’t released a single for almost a decade now. Singles could be good to make you popular easier in the beginning, but not once you get serious -and she is, my friends, she really is serious!

Fiona Apple, Single(s)

OK, enough talk – let’s get to the point now – you’re looking for the Fiona Apple singles collection here, right? Unfortunately, I can’t sell any of them to you just yet, but let’s leave that aside for now. If you need my help, just ask it, and you’ll get it; these being said, here’s the collection of Fiona Apple singles:

1996 “Shadowboxer”
1997 “Sleep to Dream”
1997 “Criminal”
1998 “Never is a Promise”
1999 “Fast As You Can”

Out of that list, the first four are coming from her “Tidal” album, while the last one comes from “When The Pawn.” None of them was really a smashing hit, since the most notorious one – “Criminal” – only made it to the 4th position in the U.S. Modern Rock Tracks chart, and 10th in the U.S. ARC Weekly Top 40. Of course that this doesn’t mean anything. After all, there may be more people eating hamburgers than apples, but that doesn’t mean hamburgers are better…