What Cheer, Netop?

I bought some new microphones yesterday and wanted to try them out. Also, I continue to be obsessed by tomorrow's Songs of Social Consciousness show, which I will put some more information about at the end of this message under a cut.

I'll be doing three or four songs, so here are some old songs I'm thinking of doing, plus two new ones, plus two new songs which I should under no account play at this show, I think.

Old Songs:

• Hybrid Car Blues
• Praise Boss
• Waist Deep in the Big Muddy

And here are the new songs (the first one is an original song):

• Oil Price Blues
• Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Any More

And, finally, here are the two ringers:

• Power Plant Strike
• Pollution Is A Bad Thing

As usual, these songs can be retrieved from my music web page and you can also get them via podcast.

( Information about the show )

Hey, I almost forgot -- I recorded a couple of new things this week!

The first is an Andy Breckman song called 'Passing Trains'. [spoken introduction] When I went to California the other week for the marriage of my friends Rachel and Larry, I brought my backpacker guitar and one of the songs I played was the only Andy Breckman song I knew, Railroad Bill. Larry had not only heard of Andy but had himself learned a different song of his, Passing Trains, and he played it for me. Once I got home I ordered Andy's two CDs and set about learning the song. It's a pretty little thing.

The second song is Sister Kate. [spoken introduction] This is a song I remembered my father singing from way back, but I could never quite figure out the chords or remember all the lyrics. I still am not sure that I have the chords completely right, but hopefully it is close enough, and I got Dad to type up the lyrics and send them to me. I also got a little backstory: it turns out that this song is a combination of several other songs (which would explain why trying to find the lyrics online was such a puzzling experience), and this particular combination and arrangement was put together by my dad's cousin Johnny, who taught it to dad and then proceeded to forget completely about it. I think I will try to get this song included in the Killdevils repertoire.

As always, you can see a list of all the recordings on the main page of my music website and instructions on how to subscribe to the podcast on the podcast page.

As long as I'm talking about podcasts I might as well recommend one that doesn't have anything to do with me: The Sound of Young America, which features interviews with people like Terry Gilliam, John Hodgman, Chris Elliot, Michael J. Nelson, and many other people who I think are pretty great. The podcast archives go back a really long way, which is another think I like about it, and you can also see all the archives on its archive page.

I recorded a couple more songs, plus added something I recorded in 2004.

1. I Walk The Line [introduction] (August 21, 2006) -- vocals, guitar
2. The World's In A Tangle [introduction] (August 22, 2006) -- vocals, guitar, piano
3. Stealing [introduction] (August 23, 2006) -- vocals, dual guitars

Thanks to everyone who's filled out my poll so far.

As always, you can see a list of all the recordings on the main page of my music website and instructions on how to subscribe to the podcast on the podcast page.

I guess it's time to start packing up for the music party. See some of you there!

Hey, my fiftieth podcast! And recordings of songs by Andy Breckman, Woody Guthrie, and John Brunner!

I've mentioned Andy Breckman before. Before he became a hotshot TV producer he was a humorous folk singer (here is his description of his tour with Don McLean, which is followed by a response from McLean in which he calls Andy a 'dufus') and his song Railroad Bill is an example of the kind of song I would like to write if my brain worked that way.

cgoldfish suggested a while ago that I record Guthrie's Car Song. I was hindered for quite a while by a complete inability to make car sounds with my mouth, but then a couple of days ago I figured out how to make some pretty substandard motor noises, and the result is here.

The result of the Brunner poll was clear: a surprising number of people wanted to hear Faithless Jack the Spaceman. So here it is, a simple arrangement for vocals and washboard. I will try to record the other songs people wanted sometime soon.

1. Railroad Bill [introduction] (July 6, 2006) -- guitar, vocals
2. The Car Song [introduction] (July 7, 2006) -- guitar, vocals
3. Faithless Jack the Spaceman [introduction] (July 8, 2006) -- vocals, washboard

As always, you can see a list of all the recordings on the main page of my music website and instructions on how to subscribe to the podcast on the podcast page.

Update: Fixed links. Grrr.

The last time I made one of these posts was May 6. Phoo.

Anyway, I've recorded a few things since then:

1. I Can Hear You [introduction] (May 7, 2006) -- backpacker guitar, whistling, vocals
2. My Bucket's Got A Hole In It [introduction] (May 22, 2006) -- guitar, vocals
3. Older [introduction] (May 29, 2006) -- guitar, vocals

However! I've done some more recording today so there should be at least a few new recordings this week, including two new original songs, and hopefully this will put me back on track.

As always, you can see a list of all the recordings on the main page of my music website and instructions on how to subscribe to the podcast on the podcast page.

Just a few this week:

1. Waist Deep in the Big Muddy [introduction] (April 28, 2006) -- guitar, vocals
2. Before You Accuse Me [introduction] (April 29, 2006) -- piano, vocals
3. Caldonia [introduction] (April 29, 2006) -- piano, accordion, vocals

As always, you can see a list of all the recordings on the main page of my music website and instructions on how to subscribe to the podcast on the podcast page.

After a kind of a lengthy quiet period, I put up some more podcast recordings yesterday and today. A few of them are from recordings I made at last week's party:

1. Watching Killer Robots Eat Your Head (live) [introduction] (April 14, 2006) -- guitar, vocals -- [original version]
2. Hybrid Car (live) [introduction] (April 15, 2006) -- piano and vocals with Chris Monti on guitar
3. Little Red Riding Hood (live) [introduction] (April 15, 2006) -- guitar and vocals with Chris Monti also on guitar

and there's also one completely new one:

• Praise Boss [introduction] (April 15, 2006) -- a capella

As always, you can see a list of all the recordings on the main page of my music website and instructions on how to subscribe to the podcast on the podcast page.

While I'm at it, here are recordings of all the songs that Chris and I did, starting with the solo songs I did at the beginning of the second set. (There's a lot of audience noise in the first set -- you can get a sense of this from the 'Cow Cow Blues' recording below -- so I don't think I'll link to that unless people are interested, and I haven't finished transferring the MC Copulation set yet -- and once I do I'll just send it to the good MC himself to do with as he wills.)

So here's the solo stuff I did (including one of the podcast recordings above):

1. Cow Cow Blues
2. Watching Killer Robots Eat Your Head
3. "Pumpkin, Mrs. Farnsworth" introduction
4. "Pumpkin, Mrs. Farnsworth"
5. Avocados And Beer

and here are the recordings with Chris Monti (again including a couple of items that got podcasted):

1. St. James Infirmary
2. Hybrid Car
3. She's An Angel
4. Little Red Riding Hood
5. Down By The River
6. Waterbugs
7. Beans & Cornbread
8. The KKK Took My Baby Away

Man, I'm posting to livejournal a lot today. I should watch more teevee or something.

Anyway: I should probably wait until Saturday to post this, but I'm sort of perversely pleased with this, so I present my accordion-and-guitar rendition of the Ramones's The KKK Took My Baby Away. I think it proves for once and all that I'm just not that punk. (Although that was the subject of a certain amount of disagreement at lunch today.)

That was today's podcast. Tomorrow's is going to be a bittersweet cowboy song.

Production has definitely slowed down. :-( Anyway, here's this week's musical selections:

1. Road Movie To Berlin [introduction] (March 21, 2006) -- guitar, accordion, and vocals
2. Money (That's What I Want) [introduction] (March 22, 2006) -- piano, accordion, and vocals
3. You're Bad (And You Won't Go Away) [introduction] (March 22, 2006) -- piano and vocals

As always, you can see a list of all the recordings on the main page of my music website and instructions on how to subscribe to the podcast on the podcast page.

I just put up today's podcast (Socks of Quarters Blues, with a couple of verses worth of lyrics provided by twillis), so here's a week's worth of recordings:

1. "Pumpkin, Mrs. Farnsworth" [introduction] (March 5, 2006) -- guitar, accordion, vocals
2. Sweet Baby James [introduction] (March 6, 2006) -- karaoke machine, vocals
3. Complicated [introduction] (March 7, 2006) -- accordion, vocals, fake drums
4. That'll Never Happen No More [introduction] (March 8, 2006) -- guitar, vocals
5. Hybrid Car [introduction] (March 9, 2006) -- guitar, vocals
6. I Believe To My Soul [introduction] (March 10, 2006) -- piano, vocals
7. Socks of Quarters Blues [introduction] (March 11, 2006) -- accordion, vocals

I'm pleased with how these turned out. I think "Pumpkin, Mrs. Farnsworth" is improved by the addition of the accordion, arranging Hybrid Car for the guitar kind of changed the way I thought about that song, I was glad to finally record 'I Believe To My Soul', and the Avril Lavigne song turned out better than I expected.

Also, Chris Monti loaned me his Martin while he's off touring Florida, so I got to make some recordings with that, which is nice, because it's probably the nicest acoustic guitar I'll ever play.

I've updated the website to make it a little prettier and more informative, so you can see a list of all the recordings on the main page and instructions on how to subscribe to the podcast on the podcast page.

Update: Due to sillyness on my part none of the links to the recordings worked. This has now been fixed.