Last year when I was living in the Lower Haight I discovered the video songs on youtube. It’s amazing what some people doing with idea. Check out Pomplamoose. They originated it I think. Video Songs are essentially: what you hear is what you see. That might not be the official definition, but that’s the idea. I thought I’d give it a try and do a cover song. Come to think of it, I had never even recorded a cover song until this. So, I guess this is both my first Bob Dylan cover song and my first cover song. Ramble ramble ramble…. Check it out:

In other news, I have always been a huge fan of Dylan particularly:

Bob Dylan (1962)
The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963)
The Times They Are A-Changin’ (1964)
Another Side Of Bob Dylan (1964)
The Basement Tapes (1967 / 1969)
Nashville Skyline (1969)
Dylan (1973)
Blood On The Tracks (1975)
Desire(1976)

but I have never seen him live. So, when he rolled into the Bay Area this past year, I went to see him at the Greek Theater in Berkeley. I was pretty excited since I really liked his album Modern Times(2006) and I was hoping he’d play Workingmans Blues #2, but it was not to be. It was a pretty cool show. Not too shabby for a 71 year old dude. He plays the piano mostly and sometimes just stands up there and sings.The part I didn’t like so much was: I found it odd how he altered the melodies of his songs so drastically. Here’s what he played:

Watching the River Flow
To Ramona
Things Have Changed
Tangled Up in Blue
Cry a While
Make You Feel My Love
The Levee’s Gonna Break
Shelter From the Storm
Highway 61 Revisited
Desolation Row
Thunder on the Mountain
Ballad of a Thin Man
Like a Rolling Stone
All Along the Watchtower
Blowin’ in the Wind

I  took the BART over to SF and went to my favorite Taqueria across from Safeway near Church and Market and got a couple magnificent chicken tacos the other day. I was buzzing with food-joy and decided to venture out to Ocean Beach since it was such a clear fog-free day. I jumped on the N Judah and zoomed past some of my old stomping ground in the Lower Haight and eventually wound up at the Great Highway. I jumped out and was contemplating some more coffee at that place on the corner, but decided against it since I was still buzzing from the morning’s dose. It was so nice out at the beach. The sky was clear, there was no wind, and the temperature was just right. So I filmed this video for my new ska song Laurie(Watch it in HD 1080):

I had a whole bunch of fun working with Toby Brock and Nick Wright on this new Tarantula Serpent song. We were all hanging around one night playing some Townes Van Zandt songs together an we decided to make our own song. Making up new songs is really the most fun part about music isn’t it? I had a couple rhythm guitar parts that I’d been playing for a while and so we setup the microphone and I played my Santa Cruz acoustic guitar into it for a bit and captured the parts. Meanwhile, Nick and Toby were scratching down some lyrics based on some very old folk/country tunes one of which was entitled “Jawbone”.

We identified the two main parts of the song and began building it out in Ableton Live. We have really been enjoying the acoustic + electronic / folktronica sound lately, so we decided to put some synth lines over it. Together we all picked some sounds that fit and I played out some melody parts.

We needed some acoustic guitar lead lines, so Nick laid down some solos and melody lines on his nylon string guitar which turned out great! Thanks Nick! He has such sweet country licks, it was a pleasure hearing them on this song. At one point, it sounded so authentic I had to stop myself from laughing out-loud and spoiling the take.

Now that Nick’s part was worked out, it was time for the vocals. Toby had  a piece of paper with some marks on it. That was good enough for me and I pushed record. In a bout 5 min we were done with the vocals. He nailed them right away –which is always nice! Great work Mr. Brock.

Finally, we needed a chorus section, so we had that part on loop and began making stuff up. “And the cars are driving by” seemed to stick so we went with it.

A few days later, Toby and I went back and put the final touches on it i.e. chopping it up a bit, mixing, and mastering.

Here is the song. Take a listen:

Lyrics:

Old man passing by
I said to him your horse will die
If he dies I’ll tan his skin
If he lives I’ll ride again

15 cents of turpentine
A dollar and a half will buy you wine
Whiskey when I’m dry
Sweet cornbread at suppertime

And the cars are driving by
whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa
And the cars are driving by
whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa

Jawbone walk and jawbone talk
Jawbone eat with knife and fork
Jawbone broke and wire flew
Hang my head in the highland too

They say I drink whiskey but my money’s my own
They don’t like me they can leave me alone
Lay my money down
Lay my money down

And the cars are driving by
whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa
And the cars are driving by
whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa

Once upon a time, when I was playing with the Mezzy boys we used to love playing this punk rock inspired tune called Jodi. It would always get us fired up. I don’t have any recordings of it laying around and was considering teaming up with a drummer friend of mine from LA to crank out a studio version. The only time I remember it being recorded was with Toby, Justy, Liam, and I in the recording room at Mission Creek Studios. Hopefully, I can get my hands on that sometime soon. Anyways, my point in going on about the tune Jodi is I recently wrote the other side of the story in this new ska song “Laurie”. I didn’t actually intend to do any of this, it just sort of happened. Hope you like it! Here are the Lyrics:

Laurie was a boy he’s just barely 17
from the time he was born he was livin in his dreams
all his life he carried a heavy heavy load
rocks coming up and trees falling down in the road

jodi was his his girl she was sweet as cherry pie
when laurie got drunk you know his jodi would drive
drive him round town take him to make a deal
when things went wrong his jodi she was good behind the wheel

oh man I can’t wait till laurie come down
uh oh I forget about you

they walking by the sea they sitting in the cypress shade
when the cops pull up nothings going Laurie’s way
what you doing round here kid we’re gonna haul you in
empty your pockets hand us that bottle of gin

laurie went downtown they busted him for LSD
his mind was breaking he wanted to make his plea, but
they took him to trial, the judge made him face a penalty
5 year upstate you behave we’ll make it three

oh man I can’t wait till laurie come down. You can listen to it on Soundcloud here:

One of these days, I am going to get a collection of all my ska tunes and put out a record. For right now, I will keep some of them on soundcloud.

Hey y’all, I recently recorded a country inspired version of the classic Elvis tune “Blue Christmas” featuring Nick Wright on Lap Steel. One of my old pals sent me a text message the other day asking me to make a Christmas song and so I started looking around for one that I liked. I remembered hearing Dave Andersen play this classic in Chicago years ago. For some reason it stuck with me. Mostly, because Dave is such an amazing musician and perfomer, but it’s a pretty cool tune as well. I didn’t care for some of the accompanying melody in the original so I left them out and went as close to pure twang as I could get.

I hope you enjoy it.