Daring Ambition of The Magnetic Fields: One Song For Every Year of a Life

Watch Live via Facebook:

Some folks get a fast car, a tattoo, or a drum set for their mid-life crisis. However, New York singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Stephin Merritt, songwriter of The Magnetic Fields recorded 50 Song Memoir: a five-disc, two-and-a-half-hour audio autobiography, featuring one song for each year of his life from conception to teenage years; early explorations of synthesizer to when he founded The Magnetic Fields, and made 69 Love Songs; all the way up to 2015, his 50th year. There were certain rules: no more than seven instruments per song (which works well for the live band configuration), and no instrument could be used more than seven times across the album - oh and the song material came from personal life events.

When the band performs the collection of songs live, it takes two full nights to perform, which they'll do on June 15 & 16 at the Apollo Theater. Stephin Merritt and Sam Davol are in the studio to play a few of these story-songs of cartoon pop, club disco, fractured love songs, and beyond, and maybe tell a few stories too.