Six Songs In July on Bandcamp

"Mary Magazine", "Running Scared", "Justine" and such like are on Bandcamp.

It had to happen sometime. And that sometime is now.

Bengal Burlap now at Bandcamp

I'll be honest.  I've no clue. 

But stuff like "Grunt Grunt Pig" and "Encounters With Insects" is now downloadable via Bandcamp.



Price varies according to my whim.  And yours.  Sometimes the album minimum price is 5 bucks US.  Sometimes it's zilch.   (Sorry,  I'm going through a crazy time right now . . . )  But from that minimum on the rest is up to you--name your price.   In any case, the album of 11 tunes is the value package.

Meanwhile, still considering reupping the soon to be dead streaming links.

pinned down again

This is a pin I homebrewed circa 1982 to commemorate a fave post-punk band, Orange Juice.

The fine construction/New World craftsmanship is easily seen . . .


Their "Breakfast Time" (b-side to "Simply Thrilled Honey"), their work in general and that of other bands on Postcard Records was some influence on my own more rusticated inventions:

Instrumental for Plug


Something in the mood of another Orange Juice song, "In A Nutshell", might be heard in these:

Be Here Soon


A Love For All The Ages

a legacy

My middle brother passed away late last month.

And for better or worse, for anyone in earshot, he had made some contributions to my music. Direct or indirect.

His old sax that he used to play fell into my untutored hands to be used in numerous tunes:

the ever popular Grunt Grunt Pig


the skronky Bobo


the comparatively refined Music and Candlelight


And tho' I'm leery of words like "inspiration", my brother was somewhere in mind when I wrote these:

Cascade


Who in the Heck Are You?


as well as . . .

sounds like?

Ehh, maybe the Bengal Burlap. Or something noisy & recent.

3:13 AM, Instrumental Frenzy, I'm Off, Afterdinner Outerlude

3:13 AM

(UPDATE: 3:13AM and the rest are on Bengal Burlap, available at Bandcamp.)

I was always kinda happy with this instrumental. I had a bass, that Synsonics drum machine and a flanger. I played something that resembled a melody (not something I'm entirely adverse to doing) without concerning myself with having a real guitar.


Instrumental Frenzy



When I did get a real guitar, this was about the first thing I did. Urgent Zebra may've been the second.


I'm Off



Before said real guitar, my friend Dom or someone loaned me one of those electric fan powered gadgets, a Magnus Chord Organ. My friend Bob, who could actually play, played the organ. Flanging everything in sight, I did the rest. All in view of the Corner rooftops of C'ville and the HoJo MoLo sign.


Afterdinner Outerlude

Urgent Zebra

Urgent Zebra

(UPDATE: Urgent Zebra is out on Six Songs In July, available on Bandcamp.)

It's hard to say when I got a proper guitar.

Before, I had a bass, a kazoo, my brother's saxophone, a scavenged phone bell. And a very warped old acoustic guitar bearing the image of cowboys singing 'round a campfire.

That guitar, dug out of the dark corner of a upstairs closet, would be the slide guitar in Hey Little Darlin' and the Fred Frith-oid prepared & flanged percussion guitar of Encounters With Insects.

So when my friend Mark sold me his Vantage electric, an actual guitar with decent action & intonation, it was a odd thing to play. And having come from the bass and not knowing a lot of chords, intervals were a big part of anything I played.

Thus Urgent Zebra was born.

The name was a reference, both oblique & obscure, to the instrumental tune Zebra Trucks that had originally come out on the Young Marble Giants' Testcard EP. I was and still am a big fan of that group and that record.

What I came up with may or may not resemble that point of reference.