Once Upon A Nightwish (the biography)

[Fugazi]

If you don't own Mape Ollila's biography, you can read it on Issuu at this link:

https://issuu.com/danailvladimirov/docs/once_upon_a_nightwish.compressed

It's also available as an e-book on Kobo and possibly other supports.

[Moondance]

It looks like Backstage Rock Shop isn't selling it anymore. ☹️ Thank goodness I bought a copy while I still could.

[Ocean Soul]

https://www.recordshopx.com/book/nightwish/once_upon_a_nightwish_the_official_biography/#330907 

 

Backstage Rockshop might not, but we are selling it at Record Shop X! We've had compliments about fast shipping from our foreign customers. If you have any questions, I'm more than happy to answer. 🙂 

[Paul Botterell]

I'm in the UK and have used recordshopx several times in the last year. @Ocean Soul is right. Their shipping is really quick and I didn't have any additional hassle from our UK Customs. If It wasn't a 4000 mile round trip I would be shopping here weekly in person. 

[Fugazi]

17 hours ago, Moondance said:

It looks like Backstage Rock Shop isn't selling it anymore. ☹️ Thank goodness I bought a copy while I still could.

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.

15 hours ago, Ocean Soul said:

https://www.recordshopx.com/book/nightwish/once_upon_a_nightwish_the_official_biography/#330907

Backstage Rockshop might not, but we are selling it at Record Shop X! We've had compliments about fast shipping from our foreign customers. If you have any questions, I'm more than happy to answer. 🙂 

5 hours ago, Paul Botterell said:

I'm in the UK and have used recordshopx several times in the last year. @Ocean Soul is right. Their shipping is really quick and I didn't have any additional hassle from our UK Customs. If It wasn't a 4000 mile round trip I would be shopping here weekly in person. 

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.

[Ocean Soul]

Well thank you @Paul Botterell! This kind of compliments really warm my heart and I will pass on your kind words to my supervisor. If you ever come to Finland and Jyväskylä, I will personally assist you to find the merch you are interested in. 🙂 If it wasn't clear enough for everybody already, I work as a part time employee at Record Shop X in Jyväskylä, the best job in the world 😁

[Paul Botterell]

@Ocean SoulHi, I'm new here and didn't realise you worked there. It makes no difference to my feedback though, always had great service.
Feel free to share my comments with your supervisor. If they would like a more formal review written for your store website let me know and I will be happy to write something. I always try to let people in the UK know I have had good service from sites around the world because some people here are worried about getting hit with import duty etc. I've never had a problem with this from the Finland stores as they all seem to add on the correct UK taxes at checkout.

Some of what Marko said in his retirement letter regarding the music industry hit me hard. I had been very reliant on Spotify and other streaming services. Last year I started buying a lot more physical releases of music I liked on CD and especially vinyl. Also supporting real record stores and band merch sites as opposed to Amazon. This led me to the Nightwish part of Backstage Rockshop and then your store. I also bought second hand music from several sellers in Finland through the 'Discogs' website. Everyone I have dealt with in Finland over the last 12 months have been awesome. Efficient, friendly and a pleasure to talk to.

What a goldmine Record Shop X is though. I know the stock is spread over several shops but I could happily spend hours going through the racks. That used to be a Saturday morning ritual in the UK in the 1990s for me. We had 5 or 6 independent stores in my city alone.
I only have a national chain store near me and they only sell UK chart music and a few Metallica albums etc. 

I'm rambling now 🤣

If your supervisor would like a review let me know.

[Ocean Soul]

@Paul Botterell I noticed that you're a newbie! You're more than welcome here 🙂 And please ramble away, it's always nice to chat with new people here. My gosh I would have so much to say about Marco's case (it really made me upset and a bit depressed, because the future of the band was on the brink of quitting) and about vinyl/cd sales nowadays. Actually Jyväskylä's store moves to bigger business premises next month because the current store was made more for "CD record shop", not for "vinyl shop". We sell vinyls waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than ever before (Record Shop X turned 24 last Saturday, so it didn't exist around the golden age of vinyls), vinyls are back! 

I guess that it's good enough when I show your very kind messages to my supervisor, but if she wants a formal review, I'll let you know. I'm here like duuuuude, that's so nice how you talk about Finnish people!! 😄😊 We are hard working and really dedicated to our work at Record Shop X. Personally I love my job and this is my first job that really matters to me. I really want to help musicians sell their music and get their much earned money for doing the art. I guess that Dani Filth of Cradle Of Filth told that their music had been streamed on Spotify for 100 000 times (I'm not quite sure...) and he earned less than 100€:s (84,66GBP) of it. This is why I do that job. This is why it's important to buy those vinyls, CDs and even cassettes (yeah, Record Shop X sells those too 😄). Some portion will go to the record stores too, but musicians will get bigger portion for themselves from a single CD or vinyl than one stream in Spotify. Please somebody correct me if I'm wrong in some point, I'm more than happy to educate myself on this topic. 

[Moondance]

10 hours ago, Fugazi said:

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.

I hope there will be another Nightwish biography in the future that will cover on the Anette Olzon era to the present time with Floor, which can acknowledge more on certain events that happened from the band's point of view. It'd be interesting to see what went on behind the scenes during those times. The book We Were Here technically already covers on the Endless Forms Most Beautiful part of Nightwish's tale, so I would wonder how they would add to it if there was a second biography for those times. I'd say keep your fingers crossed just in case. 🙂

Edited February 7, 2022 by Moondance
Minor editing, forgot some words.

[Fugazi]

4 hours ago, Paul Botterell said:

Some of what Marko said in his retirement letter regarding the music industry hit me hard. I had been very reliant on Spotify and other streaming services. Last year I started buying a lot more physical releases of music I liked on CD and especially vinyl. Also supporting real record stores and band merch sites as opposed to Amazon.

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/

2 hours ago, Ocean Soul said:

I really want to help musicians sell their music and get their much earned money for doing the art. I guess that Dani Filth of Cradle Of Filth told that their music had been streamed on Spotify for 100 000 times (I'm not quite sure...) and he earned less than 100€:s (84,66GBP) of it. This is why I do that job. This is why it's important to buy those vinyls, CDs and even cassettes (yeah, Record Shop X sells those too 😄). Some portion will go to the record stores too, but musicians will get bigger portion for themselves from a single CD or vinyl than one stream in Spotify. Please somebody correct me if I'm wrong in some point, I'm more than happy to educate myself on this topic. 

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?! 😬

11 minutes ago, Moondance said:

I hope there will be another Nightwish biography in the future that will cover on the Anette Olzon era to the present time with Floor, which can acknowledge more on certain events that happened from the band's point of view. It'd be interesting to see what went on behind the scenes during those times. The book We Were Here technically already covers on the Endless Forms Most Beautiful part of Nightwish's tale, so I would wonder how they would add to it if there was a second biography for those times. I'd say keep your fingers crossed just in case. 🙂

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. 🤔

[Paul Botterell]

@Ocean SoulI have heard similar figures quoted for streaming revenue. It is a very secretive business model and they are reluctant to tell people how much they pay artists. This also leads me to believe they do not pay very much. I still use spotify as my car CD player has a mind of it's own and at best, stops playinga CD or endlessley jumps. At worst it refuses to eject the disk. I have my phone connected by wire instead.
What I have stopped doing though is using spotify instead of buying physical copies. I like receiving random packages through the post, occasionally I forget something I had on pre-order which makes a nice surprise.

I would love to be able to go to a local record store and search the racks but we just don't have one. We have 'HMV' which is a national chain that I support when I can but their stock is centred around the charts. This is where your store and others like it come into their own.

Last night I decided to search your store for quite obscure, local, English artists. Plus a couple that are not so obscure and I was quite shocked at the stock you have.

Seth Lakeman. A folk music singer songwriter from my actual city, Plymouth. You have 10 results!
Greenslade. A really obscure English prog rock band that stopped recording 20 years ago. 9 Results.
The Ozric Tentacles. Instrumental Space Rock band based approx 70km from my house. 22 results.
Hawkwind. Not so obscure. Based approx 50km from my house. 74 results. 

With the exception of a couple of Hawkwind albums none of this is available to me locally. This is why I get a little over enthusiastic when I find such well stocked stores like yours. There are some really good ones in the UK I can, and do, mail order from as well, but they don't carry much Scandinavian and Finnish music so I shop around. 

[Ocean Soul]

@Paul Botterell I think that you're Record Shop X's number one fan in the UK 😄 Ozric Tentacles is really something else. We listened some of their albums at work once, and my co-worker thought out loud and said 'well this music has some restless vibe in it' 😁

We have a huge amount of used CDs which are not yet available for our customers. My co workers are a freaking super duo of handling those used CDs and putting them online for sale. Nobody else is able to do it as fast as they do, so I'm very happy to be at the counter selling stuff while they are doing the deep dive with used CDs. So if you are intersted in some particular artist, you can turn on the notification, and it immediatly tells you when we have some new merch or records available. 

We do have a good amount of Hawkwinds products available! It's so nice to hear once again that you have found so much interesting stuff from our website. We work hard to keep our customers satisfied and we rarely get any negative feedback. I've been working there since August 2020, and I have received only once negative feedback (one new CD was a little bit scratched, so it hadn't nothing to do with me or any of us at Record Shop X). 

[Fugazi]

@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.

[Ocean Soul]

Good question @Fugazi, we don't do it because we don't have time for that. I've seen some videos on YouTube where people do that and it helps! I can ask that at work tomorrow 😌👍

[Fugazi]

4 minutes ago, Ocean Soul said:

Good question @Fugazi, we don't do it because we don't have time for that. I've seen some videos on YouTube where people do that and it helps! I can ask that at work tomorrow 😌👍

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

[Ocean Soul]

17 hours ago, Fugazi said:

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

I asked my colleague, and he said that he doesn't know any better than I. Some people use toothpaste to do that 🤔

[Fugazi]

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! 😜

[Paul Botterell]

My daughter used to get scratches on her xbox disks to the point they would no longer play.

Our local gaming chain store, imaginatively called 'Game', had a polishing machine. They used to charge a pound per disc and the process took around 20 minutes but it usually worked. It ground away a thin layer of the plastic top surface of the disc. This could only be done once or twice before the top surface would be entirely ground away but seemed to work.

Unfortunately, now most games are digital downloads, they seem to have removed the machines. I know there are hand versions of the same thing but can't say how effective they are. 

Toothpaste is a very fine abrasive. In the UK we have a car polish called 'T-Cut'. This is also a fine abrasive that removes surface oxidisation from car paint and can polish out fine scratches. Again, I'm not sure how effective this is on CD's but I have heard of people using it.

[Fugazi]

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

[Ocean Soul]

On 2/9/2022 at 2:18 PM, Fugazi said:

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

That's a very interesting thought.  Didn't realize that!! 

[Fugazi]

5 minutes ago, Ocean Soul said:

That's a very interesting thought.  Didn't realize that!! 

Original CDs seem to be durable enough, but burnt CD-Rs are less so. I do have a number of file backups on CD-R/CD-RWs and every once in a while I wonder if they're still readable. But I never do anything about it. 🙄😁

[Fugazi]

TARJA TURUNEN's Husband Files Lawsuit Over NIGHTWISH Book

November 13, 2009

https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/tarja-turunen-s-husband-files-lawsuit-over-nightwish-book/

Marcelo Cabuli, the husband of former NIGHTWISH singer Tarja Turunen, and his business partners have filed a lawsuit against the parties behind the NIGHTWISH book "Once Upon a Nightwish: The Official Biography 1996-2006" for slander.

Named in the lawsuit were the publishing house Like Kustannus Oy, its CEO Päivi Isosaari and the author of the book, Marko "Mape" Ollila.

Cabuli claims that the information published about him and his businesses in the book is completely false.

Isosaari, however, stands behind the 380-page book, which chronicles NIGHTWISH's rise to the status of one of the most successful symphonic metal acts in the world, including the circumstances that led to the departure of Turunen.

"Well, I did read the text and I authorized it to be published and therefore I stand behind the book," Isosaari told the Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat.

In his 2006 review of the book, Jarkko Jokelainen of Helsingin Sanomat wrote, "The book points the finger [for the split with Tarja] most firmly in the direction of Marcelo Cabuli, husband and personal manager of the band's former vocal soloist Tarja Turunen. With every turning page, the charges against the Argentine Cabuli get heavier and heavier.

"The portrait of Marcelo Cabuli depicts a money-grasping, less-than-honest, arbitrary, and manipulative manager who was engaged on setting up his wife's solo career and who drove a wedge between her and the other members of the power metal band.

"NIGHTWISH's contractual dealings and touring plans became a painful exercise, as there was 'a Hispanic in the works' at every turn.

"Against this background, it is somewhat awkward that the defendant himself does not get a hearing in the book, even though the other sources close to the band are given full rein to open their hearts and mouths. Not even Tarja Turunen gets to comment on her husband's doings.

"It is probable that the decision is the couple's own, but this does not disguise the fact that it is the book's greatest drawback. The author Marko 'Mape' Ollila has sought to be even-handed in his coverage, but in part for the reasons above, this band-history inevitably becomes a speech on behalf of the male members of the group and other figures in the background.

"NIGHTWISH would seem on the basis of this work to have been so divided into two distinct camps that both sides of the story cannot be fitted between the covers of one book." [...]

 

TARJA TURUNEN's Husband Pursuing Defamation Case Over NIGHTWISH Book

April 13, 2011

https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/tarja-turunen-s-husband-pursuing-defamation-case-over-nightwish-book/

Marcelo Cabuli, the husband of former NIGHTWISH singer Tarja Turunen, and his business partners are demanding 50,000 euros (approximately $72,500) in defamation damages from the parties behind the NIGHTWISH book "Once Upon a Nightwish: The Official Biography 1996-2006". Named in the lawsuit were the publishing house Like Kustannus Oy and the author of the book, Marko "Mape" Ollila.

According to the Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat, the Helsinki District Court began processing the defamation case last Thursday in a preparatory session.

Cabuli dropped some of his previous demands, such as that the author and publisher should receive harsher punishment because "Cabuli is a citizen of Argentina," according to Ilta-Sanomat.

Cabuli and his three Brazilian business partners are demanding 15,000-euro compensation each. They claim that the information published about them in the book is completely false.

Like Kustannus Oy CEO Päivi Isosaari and Ollila deny the charges and stand behind the 380-page book, which chronicles NIGHTWISH's rise to the status of one of the most successful symphonic metal acts in the world, including the circumstances that led to the departure of Turunen. Isosaari and Ollila insist that they had good reason to believe that the claims of the book were true and they intend to call Ollila's sources, including several influential music-business figures, as their witnesses. [...]

 

Court Dismisses TARJA TURUNEN's Husband's Defamation Case Over NIGHTWISH Book

December 12, 2011

https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/court-dismisses-tarja-turunen-s-husband-s-defamation-case-over-nightwish-book/

According to YLE, the Helsinki District Court has dismissed charges of libel related to the contents of an authorized book about the Finnish symphonic metal band NIGHTWISH.

[...]

The book, which was published in Finnish in 2006 and in English three years later, blames Cabuli for the events leading up to Turunen's dramatic expulsion from the band in late 2005.

The court ruled that the book — which criticizes Cabuli on only a few of its 380 pages — did not detrimentally affect his work or reputation in South America. In addition, the court determined that Ollila did not maliciously portray Cabuli in a negative light.

As a writer, Ollila had the right to report what people familiar with NIGHTWISH told him in interviews, the District Court said. [...]