Brain Teaser Contest Winner Is…

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A note on how I determined how many correct answers each person had, – your partial answers didn’t count.  

Let me explain: If the question asked for ‘when and where’ and the only thing I had from you was ’2002′ instead of the actual date and location, – it wasn’t enough; saying ’2002′ doesn’t really show me that you genuinely knew which specific gig something came from. If the question asked for ‘when and what’ and you didn’t answer the ‘when’ portion of it at all, then I had no choice but to not count it. Doing otherwise would have been unfair to those Musers who did answer both parts of the question. If you’ve answered a contest question with one word followed by a question mark (for example: ‘design?’), it didn’t count either, that was a guess, not an answer. If two or more people had the same number of correct answers, then the person who sent their email first won that particular tie. If you amended your answers, then the time stamp from your latest e-mail was used, not your earliest.

I relied on common sense as much as I possibly could when counting or not counting your answers. I have done my best to make this fair to all of you. If I was 100% convinced that you knew the correct answer even if you didn’t follow the expected format (for example: you forgot to mention the date but called the gig by its proper name), I gave you credit anyway.

I really do hope that our little contest was fun and that it didn’t cause you too much grief! And I will do something like this again, my head is stuffed full of useless Muse-trivia, so might as well put it to good use.

Thank you everyone!

I am not going to make you wait any longer, the contest winner is… drum roll please… MICAL! Mical missed 3 questions out of 30; and not only that, her answers (and the reasons behind them) were fully explained. I couldn’t have done it any better myself, and I can’t even imagine how much work must have gone into it! Mical, please email me your details and your well-earned prize will be on its way to you as soon as the ice storm in Dallas is over.

I also want to mention that Jennifer J, Allison H, Ioana, Sarah L, Ellen H, Catalina F, Valerie M, Laura V, Karla P, and Catherine M. have done amazingly well! You guys are the Muse-experts!

Thank you to everyone who participated! I know the questions turned out to be a little harder than what I initially anticipated, so I hope that those of you who spent a day online reading about Muse got to learn something new and had some fun.

If you are curious about the answers, then read on.

 

Contest Answers:

1.This picture is one of the most famous shots of 2008. Who took it? (the photographer’s blog, flickr, or .mu name will suffice)

Crazybobbles, who is undoubtedly one of the most amazing photographers to ever photograph Muse. Click on his name to see his Royal Albert Hall 2008 Set.

2. There are 28 Singles listed in the Discography section on muse.mu, which single is missing from that list?

Apocalypse Please. Not sure why it was omitted from .mu, perhaps because it was an online only charity download without cover art. Although to be fair, Stockholm Syndrome was also an online download, yet it made the Singles list. I guess we’ll never know.

 3. What year did Coldplay support Muse on tour?

2000

4. Watch the video below:

– When and where did this event take place?

Independence Days Festival in Bologna Italy, September 3rd 2000. Here’s the full clip, (the ending of Showbiz is epic!):

 

5. What did Matt describe as “a bit faffy and bollocks” in 2000?

Showbiz, the album. The band were not 100% pleased with their first release… I’ll never understand why, Showbiz is my second favourite Muse album.

6. What’s the connection between The Slim Shady LP and Showbiz (aside from the year of their release)?

This question has more than one answer, so most of you answered correctly as long as your answers were complete and made some sense. Some of your replies were simply ingenious, comparing everything from the cover art to lyrics. My favourite creative answer was given by Allison: ‘The Slim Shady LP contains a song called “Guilty Conscience” which is a lyric in “Sunburn”‘.

Another thing to remember about Eminem is that both Muse and Eminem were nominated in the Best New Artist category, yet it was Muse who walked away with the prize at the NME Awards on February 1st 2000. They beat Eminem… I find it incredible, especially taking into account how successful he is today and how massive he already was back then.

7. Complete the name moniker timeline of this one band: Carnage Mayhem –> … –> … –> … –> Muse.

Carnage Mayhem — Youngblood — Gothic Plague — Rocket Baby Dolls — Muse. This was almost a trick question and a lot of you fell for it by including Fixed Penalty in the timeline. Fixed Penalty was a separate band, – Chris’s band. I only wanted the timeline of Carnage Mayhem.

8. Only 2 Muse singles were ever released on cassettes (UK releases), which singles are they?

Unintended and Plug in Baby. A lot of you also said Showbiz and Origin of Symmetry, – those are not singles, they are albums.

9. Name the first Muse song (album release) to be used in a movie.

Cave. It was used in ‘Little Nicky’. 

10. Muse’s first publicity biog was written by NME’s …. (insert the name of the writer).

James Oldham in 1999. Mr. Oldham also had the pleasure of reviewing Muse’s first single Uno. The answer to this was found on the first page of ‘Out Of This World: The Story Of Muse’. I have published a scan of the page (and several others) a couple of months ago. So if you read the scans I post (and most of you don’t), then you had no trouble with this question at all:

 11. To the best of our current knowledge, when was the guitar version of Cave first performed live? (what year)

1996. To the best of our knowledge both Cave and Overdue existed as early as 1996 and were most likely played at the Big Top Trip tour in Exeter on August 18th. Mark Beaumont goes as far as to say that the existence of those two tracks, even in their raw, unpolished form, was enough of a reason for the Cavern promoters to offer Muse the headline slot at that gig.  

12. What’s the connection between Nishe, Screenager and Plug in Baby? (and please don’t say that they are all Muse songs; obviously, that’s not what I mean)

All three of these songs were first played at the Amsterdam Paradiso on January 6th 2000. 

13. Name one album release that had the shortest run as a live track.

My answer to this is Futurism. Futurism is a bonus track on the Japanese release of Origin of Symmetry, and it’s known to have been played only once at the Reading Festival on August 25th 2000. That’s why I say that Futurism had the shortest run as a live track: one day. Those of you who answered ‘Spiral Static’ will also get credit for this question, simply because it is unknown how many times Spiral Static has been played aside from its first known appearance at the Plymouth Fest in 1997.

 14. Muse performed at the Battle Of The Bands contest in November 1994 under the name of _____ (fill in the blank)

Muse. Yes, they performed under the name Muse. This was a trick question and 99% of you fell for it. Most Musers don’t remember that Muse played the Battle of the Bands contest not just once, but three times ( February 1994, November 1994, and Spring 1995), and I specifically asked about November, – I was trying to be difficult. They played the February 1994 gig, – the gig they won, – under the name of ‘Rocket Baby Dolls’, but all the following gigs were played under ‘Muse’. Watch the video below, you can clearly hear them being introduced as Muse:

15. What was the first song Matt Bellamy learned to play on the guitar?

Shazam by Duane Eddy. Matt answers that question by playing a short sample during the ‘Olaive’ interview in France in 1999.

Most of you answered that it was the theme song from the TV show ‘Dallas’… yes, he played that tune on the piano when he was just a baby, but not on the guitar.

16. Who created this symphonic arrangement?

Ian Cologne.

17. Who drove Matt, Dom and Chris to their first gig together?

Tom Kirk. 

18. [Think about this very carefully] Which one of these songs (Muse album releases) has been played for the most number of years? (and I don’t mean the oldest song, OK? I literally mean the song that’s been played for the most number of years)

a. Cave
b. Feeling Good
c. Bliss
d. Plug in Baby
e. New Born

Not a trick question at all, and the answer is Plug in Baby. All you had to do to figure this one out was count to ten. It’s not Cave, even though Cave is the oldest song on the list, because Cave hasn’t been played for many years prior to 2009. And it’s not Feeling Good either (first performed on guitar in November 1999) because Feeling Good wasn’t played at all for a couple of years during the Absolution era (2003 – 2006). That leaves Plug in Baby, the song that’s been used consistently since January 6th 2000.

The question clearly stated ‘Muse album releases’ — that was your clue NOT to go looking at Nina Simone and Michael Buble… 

19. A live vocal bootleg of which older song (album release) doesn’t exist?

Falling Away With You. An instrumental version of FAWY was played twice in 2002, but the song itself was never actually sung live. That’s why the vocal bootleg of it doesn’t exist. (Go on, try looking for it on YT or anywhere else) 

20. Listen to this guitar version of Screenager and notice how different it is from most other live versions from the same era. When and where was it performed?

Tokyo Japan, March 1st 2000.

21. [This question may be a bit hard and will definitely require some thinking] Name one common denominator between Pirates of the Caribbean and Muse.

There is more than one common denominator between that movie and Muse, so I have accepted most of your answers as long as they were creative, reasonable and at least partially true. Most of you answered ‘Man With A Harmonica’, and it’s correct, MWAH was re-orchestrated and used in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.

Another simple way to answer this question is: Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp used to own The Viper Room where Muse did a showcase for Maverick in 1999. Also, Map of the Problematique was used in the trailer for the latest Depp/Jolie movie The Tourist.

22. Which Muse song has the lyrics “bollocks, bollocks and bollocks to you”?

Fashionless. Lovely lyric, don’t you think? 

23. Name the riff:

Dracula Mountain, first played in Dec 2004. 

24. What do Deimos and Phobos have to do with Muse?

From MuseWiki: “fear and panic in the air” may be a reference to Mars, in that the red planet’s two moons are named Phobos and Deimos, who were the Greek gods of Fear and Panic.” ‘Fear and panic in the air’ can be found in Map of the Problematique. 

25. Zane Lowe’s debut on BBC’s Radio 1 is also known for an important Muse event that took place during his set. When did Zane’s debut take place, and what Muse-related event happened on his show that day?

Zane Lowe has been with BBC Radio 1 since June 2003; other than a couple of people, most of you answered that Stockholm Syndrome premiered in June of that year, when in reality, the first exclusive play of Stockholm Syndrome happened on July 1st 2003, – it was Zane’s first show and a Tuesday. Although, and I actually still remember this, – a few people claimed that they’ve heard SS on XFM a couple of days before BBC’s broadcast…

Anyway, to cut to the chase – since so many people couldn’t find when Zane’s debut actually took place, I am going to accept ‘June 2003, first exclusive play of Stockholm Syndrome’ as the answer to this question. If you didn’t provide a complete answer, then you didn’t get credit.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/zanelowe/tracklistingarchive.shtml?20030701 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/zanelowe/biography.shtml

26. When did most of the tracks from Showbiz see their first live acoustic performance in the US?

KCRW, Morning Becomes Eclectic, August 3rd 1999. I’ve posted the gig on this blog a while ago, that radio show was also Muse’s radio debut in the US.

27. Which famous guitar piece by Tarrega did Matt play during one of the radio interviews in France in 1999?

This is also from ‘Olaive’ in 1999, Matt plays the beginning section of ‘Recuerdos de la Alhambra’ by Francisco Tarrega.

28. Who were Muse supporting when the first-ever professional video recording of their gig took place?

Gene. Reading University gig, February 28th 1999 (I’ll post the gig tomorrow, it contains a rather significant, very rare performance). Most of you answered ‘Red Hot Chili Peppers’ and I was very surprised by that. I do not a have a pro shot from any of those RHCP gigs; but if you do, I’d very much like to see it!

29. The bridge section of which Muse song was inspired by the band’s rendition of this track? (Prelude in Gm)

Assassin (Grand Omega Bosses Edit). You can easily look this up on MuseWiki. A modified Prelude in Gm was even used a few times as an intro to Assassin.

Most of you said ‘Screenager’. That’s incorrect because Screenager is a nod to Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C#m. 

30. [Last question, and I felt like being very silly] John Leckie met Matt Bellamy’s mum…

a. In her front garden before the recording of Showbiz
b. In a parking lot while he was urinating behind his car
c. John Leckie never met Matt Bellamy’s mum
d. The day he fell asleep behind the mixing desk during the recording of Origin of Symmetry
e. At the NME Awards in February 2000 after Muse won in the Best New Band category

The answer is b.

John Leckie really did meet Matt’s mum as he was urinating behind his car. He talks about it in this XFM ‘Making of Origin of Symmetry’ interview:

I have posted this interview before, so those of you who actually listen to my random stuff got it right.