Sorry Ben!! I'd love to say it was purely based on word of mouth/How awesome you are but it was the Nikon advert!!!! Glad I saw it now though!!!
A friend of mine, whose musical tastes I greatly respect, told me to listen to Radical Face. I liked it upon first listen. The same friend then played "Welcome Home" at a party and the sound seemed to fill the room. We all kind of paused and listened. I fell in love, bought it on iTunes and put it on a mixtape. Another friend was a recipient of the mixtape. She loved the song as well and YouTubed more Radical Face songs. She told me to listen to "Wrapped in Piano Strings." I loved that too and decided to buy the rest of the album. I was hooked, and now consider Radical Face to be a staple in my musical diet.
In search of some new music, I checked my recommendations on Last.fm, Electric President and/or Radical Face turned up in the list. I was hooked from the first listen. I think this was in 2009. Last.fm has been a good source for new music!
First song I heard was Insomnia on OC back in '06. Started to search around for it and found the self titled album. Got hooked after the first play and have never let it go away. After 2839 listens, Insomnia is still one of My top 3 songs ever to be made. Just can't get tired of it, and I hope I never will. Such a beautiful song. Didn't start to listen to Radical Face until 1-2 years later, but got instantly hooked there aswell. Oh yes indeed!
Pandora actually turned me on to his music... I think it was through my Blue Ridge Mountains (Fleet Foxes) station. Thank you pandora!
I received a mix cd from a friend back in 2007. One of the tracks on there was "We Crawl Through Ceilings" by Radical Face. The song was unlike anything I'd heard. It was the kind of song you always hoped to hear, and some songs might come close, but nothing ever had all the aspects you were looking for. Anyways, I really liked that song, but kind of forgot about it. A year or so later, a friend asked me if I'd heard radical face and played me that same song, which reminded me about it. After that I got a copy of ghost, and I've been a huge fan ever since. I have always been curious about "We crawl through ceilings". I've never really been able to find any information on that track, and would love if you could tell me a bit about that track. When you recorded it, and what it was associated with, and what prompted you writing it?
Got a mixtape from a friend in 2007. >Welcome Home< was one of the tracks on it. Felt in love with this voice by first listen, ordered the Ghost-Album on CD and later on Vinyl. This music got a part of my life, no other music has ever touched me this way.
I was listening to Pandora (My Morning Jacket station), when Welcome Home came on. I had to hear that song again so went on iTunes and got it. Fast forward to the other day when I picked up the new album the day it came out. I'm hooked. The Roots is terrific and moving.
I first heard about Radical Face through a pilot movie that Isenseven made. I later on saw that Uli Steck Eiger Speed Record video and was blow away. I liked almost every song I heard, so I bought the record off itunes. Now I just bought the Roots record and I am gonna hear it over a bike ride in a couple hours. Amazing work I must say. Here's the bike video.
i worked at a major independent record store in denver, co. I saw a pic of Ben next to an ad/review of the s/t album by electric president. i'm not gonna lie, i thought he was a handsome guy. i bought the magazine, and the s/t cd and took them home. i showed ben's pic off to my boyfriend and it has become a running joke. whenever he makes me angry i tell him "i can't wait until my real boyfriend ben cooper comes back for me." or if burns dinner for instance he will say "well why don't you have ben cooper make you dinner." kind of an example of the random way people's lives entertwine, even if they're strangers. i've been a super duper fan ever since.
Bahaha thirded. I wonder if anyone discovered Ben's music after watching The Swiss Machine - that film had a pretty epic final scene where Ueli Steck is smashing the speed climb record for the north face of the Eiger with Welcome Home as the soundtrack... I can only imagine he was actually listening to that track on repeat at the time. Edit: Ignore me, the only post I didn't read was Austin's above. Sorry! Shame the vid you linked to was removed, I wanted to see that again (saw it at Banff Film Festival).
My boyfriend and I took a trip up to the Catskills earlier this month to celebrate our one year anniversary. He put on The Roots on the drive there. It blew me away. Needless to say I've been listening on repeat nonstop at work and home. Its my winter soundtrack.
I heard Radical Face's music for the first time seeing the Nikon ad. I immediatly wanted to know if the song was created just for the ad or if it was an artist's song. Following this, I listened "Ghost" and "Touch the Sky" on internet and became addict. Since this moment, I have been listening your music every day. It's a kind of drug for me, without the bad effects ! Thank you Ben for everything you do. Your music is awesome. (I apologize for all the mistakes, I'm french and you know that frenches don't speak English very well !)
The Roots was mentioned in a German newspaper's (Süddeutsche Zeitung) x-mas gift recommendation list, and - fortunately - the description made me want to check it out. Needless to say: Great stuff - thanks Ben, and see you soon in Berlin! BTW: Mountains is my favorite so far - if you should read this, I'd be most grateful if you'd play it at the Berlin show!
Nikon Ad - looked it up on Youtube and I got loved one of the videos for it - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8a4iiOnzsc Now I am getting into the rest of his music and I am intrigued by the art.
Completely by accident! Was perusing the depths of the internet for songs relevent to a specific topic and somehow was led to "Along the Road" by Dan Fogelberg... which after about a 4 second listen on itunes, was clearly not for me. So I quickly clicked on to the next "Along the Road" on the list and after just a few seconds had a Eureka! moment... like I just won the lottery or something. Seriously. I clicked on to Radical Face hungry for more and without hesitation downloaded everything I could find, itunes or elsewhere. Now I can't. stop. listening. Not even to shower... the ipod and speakers have to come with. Makes my world feel crisp and momentous . Thank you.
This is fun for me, all the little stories of how people stumble across the songs. There's a certain chaos to releasing music that I really like. It can pop up in the strangest of ways. I always love finding music that way, too. When I wasn't even searching for that thing in particular, it just sort of fell into my lap.
It was definitely a divine intervention type moment. The specific grief I was trying to find vocalized that led me to the dead end that was Fogelburg has all but vanished since your music fell into my lap. Makes me feel in love with the world. Illuminated maybe. Whatever you want to call it, I adore it.
