Tuesday, August 31, 2010
8-30-09 The Road Of Bones
Sarah and I had been watching Long Way Round, a series about Ewan McGregor and his mate Charley Boorman attempting to ride his motorcycle east all the way from Scotland to New York. The Road of Bones is a treacherous expanse of highway in Siberia that they traveled as part of the journey. It's named for the labor camp workers who died while building the road during Stalin's regime. link.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
8-28-09 Malefic
I decided to try an experiment for the lyrics on this one. In order to utilize a more colorful lexical palette, every line of the song contains one word obtained by a random word generator. The results were interesting, if a little awkward at times.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
8-25-09 Baby, Let's Go West
The title sounds like it might be an Elvis song, but it's clearly moodier than it lets on. Although it didn't end up in West, I really like it and it will probably have a life of its own somewhere else. Link.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
8-24-09 Keep Them In Your Heart
This one's personal. It needs to be longer, but I really like what's there, including the sentiment. link.
8-23-09 Rubberneck Dick
This title, and the first line of the lyric, came directly from John Osebold, so you can blame him for this song. Link.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Saturday, August 21, 2010
8-21-09 Sunshine, Puppy Dogs And Lemonade
A 1920's dandy sings a song to his sweetheart, and it gets a little bawdy. Link.
8-20-09 The River
A simple song about accidental death on the way to a better life. Another West cast-off. Link
Friday, August 20, 2010
8-19-09 Old Man Kitty
Stevie has this certain meow that he does when he's trying to make us feel extra guilty. He sounds like a geriatric stray left out in the rain. We see right through his clever ruse. Link.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
8-18-09 Westward Meditation
Another West song. Lots of nice harmonies to accompany Evan falling asleep before he gets scalped. Link.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
8-17-09 Time To Get Up And Go
A nice little folk song. My $19 guitar sounds really sweet in this one. Link.
Monday, August 16, 2010
8-15-09 New Mandolin
An instrumental improvisation on my (then) brand new Collings mandolin. Sweet. Link.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
8-14-09 So Tired Of Calypso
I think I was on steel drum overload at this point. Lots and lots of calypso songs. Link.
8-12-09 Vituperation And Vitriol
Playing some catch-up tonight thanks to a couple crazy days and a summer cold...
The title came first with this song. I came across the word 'vituperation' in the Michael Chabon book I'd been reading. With his novels, I tend to look up a lot of words. It had occurred to me that my retention of these new words was next to nil unless I started using them. This was my attempt to retain that word. (I still needed to look it up just now to remember that it means 'bitter and abusive language'.)
Musically, it's a great little piece with weird chord changes and time hiccups, and it almost feels like it could be an interstitial track from The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. You know, if I sounded anything like Peter Gabriel.
The title came first with this song. I came across the word 'vituperation' in the Michael Chabon book I'd been reading. With his novels, I tend to look up a lot of words. It had occurred to me that my retention of these new words was next to nil unless I started using them. This was my attempt to retain that word. (I still needed to look it up just now to remember that it means 'bitter and abusive language'.)
Musically, it's a great little piece with weird chord changes and time hiccups, and it almost feels like it could be an interstitial track from The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. You know, if I sounded anything like Peter Gabriel.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
8-11-09 An Ocean Of Trees
A West song that did make it into the show. This is the very earliest version of the song. I still had Lewis And Clark on the brain when I wrote it. Oh, how far we had diverged from them by the time we opened the show.
8-10-09 You And I And This Room
Portrait of a relationship about to end. Time is an abstract painting you can't decode. Link.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Friday, August 6, 2010
8-5-09 Patient Boulevard
This is an honest song.
In looking back at the labels for the songs I've posted thus far, the tag I've used the most is 'working on my issues'. It's a bit of a self-deprecating thing, but it also signifies a time when I'm wearing my feelings pretty close to the bone. Sometimes it makes for self-indulgent crap, but sometimes it makes something worth listening to.
In looking back at the labels for the songs I've posted thus far, the tag I've used the most is 'working on my issues'. It's a bit of a self-deprecating thing, but it also signifies a time when I'm wearing my feelings pretty close to the bone. Sometimes it makes for self-indulgent crap, but sometimes it makes something worth listening to.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
8-4-09 Monsters?
Oooh, scary. Sort of. Extra points if you can guess the song tacked on at the end. Link.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
8-3-09 Why Am I Doing This Again?
An acoustic instrumental in the CSN vein. I like the changes a lot. It's pretty clear that it took several takes to get it down. link.
Monday, August 2, 2010
8-1-09 No More Sangria
A long alcohol soaked evening at Ben and Shari's. Sangria - yes. Bananagrams - check. Obscene telegrams - well, maybe not.
Drinky linky!
Drinky linky!
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