Big, big music news !!!
I am very excited and here's why. I've played box office concerts at the Inwood Theater as Hunkasaurus and His Pet Dog guitar, for about 10 years now (world's first and only one to do so, as far as I know) and I, and the guitar, a '64 Silvertone, decided it was time to record our 120 song repertoire. (The guitar prefers instrumentals!)
SO... This summer as long as my money, and voice, and finger calluses, and studio and engineer* availability, holds out; I will TRY to record up to120 songs in my VOICE AND GUITAR style
I'll keep those who are interested, posted throughout the summer on my recording marathon. I am also starting a contest. You have to September 1 '04 to guess how many songs I'll record by my Birthday on Sept. 15. (Somewhere between 1 and 120). First correct answer wins either my Inwood CD, a reproduction of one of my paintings, or my new novel, Library Planet - your choice. Guess as much as once a week. E-mail me your guess. Only one person per number.
Why just voice and guitar? On a newsgroup I answered that by saying I was trying to do something new and original. A poster responded with: "How about standing in a vat of cold rice pudding up to your neck whilst singing opera in REVERSE!! Now THAT would be original!" (Lynn?) which got me to thinking. And I answered with, "No, that would just be weird, and weird isn't innovative. I think I know what you are expecting (from "new" music). Like many you may think musical innovation couldn't be innovative unless it was offbeat - that is has to be weird, over produced, maybe melodramatic stuff with far out surreal lyrics, etc. Instead I'm opposed to all that. And that by itself, is new in many ways. So with that in mind, here's my 'reasons why' voice and guitar might be more innovative than you may have first thought.
Picasso had a blue period where he concentrated on a single color for all his works. And it led to some of his most profound works. I'm doing the same with my voice and guitar period - but in my case, instead of a single color , blue, I'm only using a single instrument - a single guitar, Pet Dog Guitar.
And in a similar art vein, think of this big 'voice and guitar' summer recording event as a huge MUSICAL CONCEPTUAL ART PROJECT that contains 120 songs for voice and guitar and was 10 years in the making. Or think of it as a musical book with 120 pages and each page is a song. After I've done it, (a one time thing) I won't ever do it again.
Some history:
For almost 10 years I've been playing box office concerts in the box office of the beautiful 1947 Dallas Theater, The Inwood. I sing (voice) and play (guitar that I call Pet Dog) a 40 year old Silvertone standard guitar; all through a shoebox sized amp that barely fits the ticket window slot.
For those walking by, it would first seem like just another guitar player playing in an unusual venue. But I think there are advantages to just "Voice and Guitar" such as:
1. It is more intense. With bands or orchestras or big groups you have a group music - or art by a committee. With just me and guitar it gets down to basics - it becomes more intense and more focused - there is certainly no way not to be the center of attention. It's as direct as music can get.
2. I've pioneered a new technical way of playing that is a lot of fun (and very hard to do!) Most guitar players either strum chords, or do finger picking. I do both, but more often I try to mimic these 3 guitar parts all at once: bass, rhythm, and lead guitar. The arrangements become full, rich, and contain a lot of variety. I switch from a bass run, to chords, to leads, and back and forth.
3. 'Voice and Guitar' style is a protest against over produced (and underinspired) corporate music. Without the over production there is no place for a musician to hide - they have to have some talent.
4. It is a protest against the 40 year legacy of bands that have turned to band clones and sound-alikes. I think we all need a break from bands - even if its just some of the people that turn their backs on band-mania, and even if it's just for a few years.
5. It is a way to bring back the 'roll' to rock and rejoin rhythm to melody with both having equal power. Pop is too often mushy melody with whiney lyrics; while rap and most rock or alt bands are all rhythm and psychotic lyrics.
6. With just the voice and guitar I can vary the timing to intensify the mood. (Though this is causing havoc in the recording sessions!)
7. It forces full rich arrangements and challenges me in the guitar parts. It forces me into innovation and experimentation.
8. It spotlights my '64 Silvertone guitar (Pet Dog Guitar) - which often gets more attention than I do! And by using a 40 year old guitar, I thumb my nose at those that say you have to have expensive instruments and equipment to make great music
9. I play all kinds of music and am not forced to sound alike on any two tunes. I can also switch to instrumentals or sing a cappella (Pet Dog prefers instrumentals, I prefer a cappella!)
10. I can learn more tunes, quicker, and shift the play order at a moments notice (130 song repertoire so far, and to be honest that is about all the lyrics my memory can hold at one time.)
11. Hopefully I am pioneering a music that builds on rock and roll, but leads to a new type of music, a more GLOBAL type of music that includes all styles from all countries. And a music that is more open to all types of world music styles. In that sense voice and guitar can be quite revolutionary.
12. I think it is a more intimate music. It seems like I am singing directly to you with lyrics that mean something to you - a one to one dialogue. Hopefully its very romantic for many of you women. And overall I want to awe with subtleties not a sledgehammer, and speak simply and directly to the listener - sing like I talk.
13. I can play just about anywhere under just about any conditions.
14. And when playing in the box office (did I mention that I was the worlds first and only person to do that?) I can break more rules - this time, the rule that says you aren't a real musician unless you're playing a bar, or a corporate concert hall.
15. I'm trying to break the boredom, and bring excitement and something new back to music - to invigorate it, shake it up, and turn it upside down - now that's fun!
In the end, IF you can get past the idea that its not a band and there is no base, drums, or electric guitar, I think you'll really enjoy the songs I'm recording this summer. They're fun with lots of love songs, party songs, and songs in every genre. The arrangements are mostly one guitar, one lead voice, and some background voices - used sparingly - to 'sweeten'! Hey, it's fun to have fun and be passionate about music again.
And as I tell Pet Dog Guitar - stay tuned!
While you're waiting for the songs I'm recording this summer, there are 27 MP3's on my website. And I WANT YOU TO DOWNLOAD AND SHARE THESE MUSIC FILES. You have my permission in writing!
The letter following the title tells you how good the technical recording is - from A - F. A = studio recording. C or lower = home recording. For Voice and Guitar style, the style I'm recording in now, listen to these three Elvis standards and the cartoon TV theme song:
1. Treat Me Nice - A. Some rockabilly. 2. That's All Right Mama - A. More rockabilly
3. Heartbreak Hotel - A.
4 Bugs Bunny Theme - A.
Next come some full band songs from the past:
5. Dallas - A. Tribute to my home. "This town lies in the future!"
6. Stories - A. 2 verse/stories with this moral "Heaven help the man who refuses to change"
These two are both beautiful slow songs by very talented friends from my 12 By 12 recordings:
7. Love Is Forever. - A. Alayna Mosteller sings while the composer, Scott Jacob Loehr plays the piano accompaniment
8. Angel - A. Anthony Baugh sings one of his own songs.
Next come these keyboard pieces. These are what I call 'bagatelles. They are each a very short keyboard composition usually with a major theme, a minor break, and a repeat of the major theme. All are poor, C-F for technical sound quality.
9. Bullfrog -single melody line for a looooow horn.
10. Circus - circus type music with a kinda calliope sound
11. Fractured Beethoven - my fractured version of Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy" from his ninth symphony. Purists cover your ears!
12. Leaves - harpsichord music - you are back in the 18th century.
13. Skating - a waltz. You can almost see the gliding of skaters in the carefree music.
14. Sparrow - synthesizer lite
15. Sprite - eerie and ghostly waltz for things that go bump in the night
16. Strings - sounds like a grand orchestra of violins
17. The Happy Flea - a whistling song
18. Subatomic Particles - hear them electrons buzzing?
19. Walk in the Field - I don't remember a thing about this one. But I think it was melodic.
Here are some home recordings, and they sound it (tech quality C-F) of voice and/or guitar.
20. I'll Sing For You - slow love song.
21. Spanish Melody - a composition of mine in the classical guitar vein.
22. History of Rock and Roll - beat poetry with 'crazy' guitar - you dig!
23. Tommy's Got A Song in His Guitar - little bit of autobio about songwriting.
Some more synthesizer music. These are loosely jazz improvisations. Again all have low technical quality, C-F.
24 Soul Searching - jazz exploring.
25 The Happy Flea part 2 - happy jazz.
26 Watching Her Walk From Behind - sexy jazz.
27. The Signal - bells ring and exotic rhythms beckon.
PUTTING THE ROLL BACK IN
I mentioned above about putting the 'roll' back in rock.
Here's a Musea e-mail club post on that:
When I play my concerts in the Box Office of the Inwood Theater,
I've been trying something old that's new again.
I've been trying to bring back the roll!
Bring back the roll to what used to be rock AND ROLL.
After the Beatles split up, it seemed like the music did too.
Half went to hard rock with little melody and mostly beat.
You can hear this in heavy metal, punk, alt, rap. The music has a great beat - but no melody and often the words are downright psychotic. The other half went to mostly melody and little rhythm. You can hear that today in pop with the boy bands, girl singers, divas, etc. The music has melody - but nothing much happening in the rhythm department and the lyrics are sickly sweet, self centered, and whiney.
The period of rock and roll from about '56-70 had both and I want to bring that back. It was a period of just rightness to me. Afterwards it split up (see above). But before rock and roll, it was in many ways worse than the split that followed in rock and roll, with - all puff music - too slick and glib and white bready - it was the button down fifties!
AH but the rock and roll 50-60's got the mix just right. Not only in music but lyrics too.
I think of that period as blues played by horny, white teens that sped it up, or boogie-woogie brought down to basics, or country music urbanized by a track home generation of teens all listening to the same hits on top 40 radio.
First the music - it was BOTH melodic and had a beat. It also had lyrics that the listeners could relate to - not goofy nonsense. It was all about dating and school, and cars, and getting jobs, and dancing and having fun. Songs actually talked about their generation instead of whining about the singers feelings - and they even named names, Donna, Peggy Sue, Michelle, etc. The interest was on the music not the diva singing it.
And beyond the magic of the rhythm and melody coming together, there was a real sense of fun, optimism, excitement, and more than anything anticipation. And even in the heartbreak songs there was something of joy.
This part is hard to explain, but there was real joy for the listener in the longing and sadness of the great records of the time. The listener could understand and relate to what the singer was going through. It was a 2 minute catharsis with a beat. And in the best of the music, there was soul and great depth of feeling and a real engagement with every aspect of life.
I'm trying to bring that back - bring back the ROLL - do songs of mine that have both melody and rhythm, AND do songs from that era that showcase that special feeling. Bring back the roll to rock and roll!
SONGS RECORDED SO FAR*
(*If they have a 'th' after them, it's one of my compositions.)
1. Hippie Girl (th) - fun 60's pop instrumental for groovin.
2. 100 % Groovy (th) - The guys version of instrumental grooviness - see #1. They'd make a great single
3. Grey Green Eyes (th) - passionate, big chord instrumental love song.
4. Pegasus (th) - instrumental celebrating my hometown Dallas and our city symbol. That work horse flies!
5. Maybe Baby - rockabilly from Buddy Holly.
6. Full Steam (th) - powerful big-chord instrumental. You can hear the train a coming.
7. Ballad of Willie Nelson (th): Sort of a followup song to "On the Road Again". Here I have him 'heading home again." Might make a nice single if coupled with #5.
8. Misery - Early early Beatle pop.
9. There's A Place - more early Beatles. Eight and Nine would make a solid pop single.
10. I'll Never Fall In Love Again - Bacharach love ballad, lighthearted but with a bittersweet ending.
11. Mrs. Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter - Herman's Hermits classic love song gets a voice and guitar treatment.
12. Wooden Heart - German folk song made popular by Elvis, is Pet Dog Guitar's favorite song "there's no strings upon this heart of mine"
13. Last Train To Clarksville - no studio musicians in this early Monkee song version.
14. Tommy's Got A Song In His Guitar (th) A short little autobio song about one thousand compositions coming out of that guitar! "Winter's over friends/ time to play again/ and show you all of my songs.
15. Play That Country Music (th) My salute to country/bluegrass/ and rockabilly.
16. Blue Moon - version of the 50's Marcells doowop hit.
17. AOL Can Go and Tank Tomorrow (I Don't Care) (th). My protest song against the art/media conglomerate meanies! You'll never hear this played on Clear Channel radio!!!!
18. Pardon Me Sir (th) - nonsense verse with a bit of goofy guitar to set it off.
19. Dancing Across The Moon (th) rockabilly love song that shouts "Rocket up and join me soon!"
20. Searching (th) - traveling song. Guy searching for his love. Note ending.
21. Waiting (th) - short guitar piece illustrating kid waiting and bored.
22. The West (th) - another short guitar piece. You can almost hear the tumbleweeds rolling.
23. Ferry Cross The Mersey - Gary and the Pacemakers hit from the early 60's is a solid song of comfort and hometown allegiance.
24. Tristan and Isolde (th) - Folk song of the celebrated lovers from the Middle ages.
25. Through My Window (th) - short bit of poetry 26. California Dreaming - Mamas and Papas classic.
27. Downtown - Petula Clark's classic about the coolness of cities.
28. Zine World (th) - Salute to zines and the zine review zine, my beloved, Zine World.
29. Stories (th) - the guitar version of my song from the Inwood CD.
30. Dreamboat (th) - dreamy love song.
31. Help - Beatle hit.
32. I'm the Man Down There - little known Jimmy Reed song.
* Note my engineer is the very talented Pam Irwin whom I love working with. And the studio is at Cedar Valley Community College in Lancaster Texas. A very big thanks to Pam for all her help,talent, hard work, and patience.
WANTED: A PIANO PLAYER
Speaking of my musical compositions:
It's been a number of years that I've been writing short pieces for the piano or keyboard. I added them up and there are to date about 181 pieces. I call them bagatelles. Many are in a simple 3 part musical form of Major/minor/Major. It seems to work very well for short piano songs. But as a piano player I'm not so good. So if anyone out there is somewhat classically trained, and would like to see new material to play and or record, I've got a lot of it for you.
I was looking at the 27 MP3's on my web site, and I have versions of a
number of these piano bagatelles. I encourage those interested to play
and download them. (See list above)
Piano players, come by and browse
And thanks for listening.
(Also there are numerous other types of songs available. Out of the
1200+ compositions I've done, there are many 1. Jazz works, 2. Guitar
instrumentals, 3. 50's style rock instrumentals, 4. Children's songs, 5.
Nine llustrated short stories (rock operas) and more. Contact me for
info and I'll get you a hit!
MY DISCOGRAPHY
I've been recording music off and on since my early days in the 60's.
Here's a loose listing of all my recordings:
Your Love Is True/Say So - American Blues. Single/45. 1967. My song on
the 'A' side done by Dallas group (my original title was 'Your Lovin
Trip'). Single doesn't chart, but two of the band members go on to Z Z
Top. Recorded on the Amy label. Copy in near mint worth $25 now. Got one?
Let me know.
A Hit Song/You Single /45. 1978. A fast 'hit' on the 'a' side plus a love song from John and Marth (piano only) on the 'B' side.
DeskClerk/Others Like You. Single/45 1979. Two cuts from John and Martha. The 'B' side sung by Joy Tarver.
Stars Moon and Sun / Through My Window. Single/45 1982. Two love songs with a fast 'A' side and a slow 'B'. Note the lyrics of Through My Window are now by themselves on the voice and guitar project.
John & Martha 1984. Five act, illustrated short story (or what most call a rock opera though there is nothing melodramatic about it, AND I was working on mine before "Tommy" came out. I got the idea from the Beatles Sgt. Pepper LP where it ran songs together into a sort-of story.)
Karen Bella as Martha, Joy Tarver as Laura and Emily, Paul Hill as the Narrator, and me as John.
12 By 12 In '85 I started a co-op record company. 12 artists/bands each
banded together and sent in one song and paid 1/12 of the cost for 1/12
of the records made:
12 X 12 (#1) LP. 1985. 12 songs, with my contribution Stars, Moon, and
Sun.
12 X 12 (#2) LP. 1986 12 songs, with my contribution A Hit Song.
12 X 12 (#3)LP. 1987 12 songs, with my contribution Some Kind Of Joy
12 X 12 (#4) LP. 1988 12 songs, with my contribution FDallas, This Town Lies in the Future.
12 X 12 (#5) LP. 1989 11 songs, with my contribution, "Darling". Tom's Favorites from 12 By 12 '85 -'91. Cassette. 1991. 11 songs, with my contribution "Dallas".
12 X 12 (#6) CD. 1992 12 songs, with my contribution, Stories.
Hunkasaurus and His Pet Dog Guitar Cassette. 1995. Four song 'voice and guitar' cassette has 3 Elvis songs and the Bugs Bunny Theme.*
27 MP3's 2000? . Assorted tapes of a little bit of everything, posted on the Musea website.
Landmark Music CD. 2002. Promotional CD for Landmark's Theater Chain,
features one indy act on the 12 song recording -- me, with Stories.
Note - my photo on the cover collage.
Voice and Guitar Recording Project. 2004. (See above).
If you would like more Musea stuff on my music, see these related items.
1. Any of the recordings
2. The Hunkasaurus Songbook, Musea issue #121 (Sheet music for 12 of my songs). This is also posted on the website.
3. The MP3s on the Musea Website
4. Box Office Concerts at the Inwood Theater in Dallas, every Tuesday and Wednesday - in between selling tickets.
5. Rating The 60's Concerts - chapbook of my favorite concerts from the golden age of rock and roll.
QUOTES AND FOOTNOTES
"Rock and roll has become everything it started out opposing."
"Corporate art sings these scales, "Do Fa Mi"
"The only thing bands are rebelling against today is change!"
"Time to shift the emphasis away from the musician and back on the
music."
- all by Art S Revolutionary.
A little kid dancing to my music, told his father my name was "Strum - Strum". Now that's cool! I love it!
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