Here is a demo of a new song I have been working on. This video is just to document the tune. I plan to do a full recording of it sometime later this month:
And here are the lyrics:
It Is What It Is
By Brad Rourke
It is what it is they say
But it doesn’t have to be that way
You can still call me on the telephone
Go ahead and take the car
I’ll walk cause I don’t have far
Can’t promise I’ll wait cause you know I hate to be alone
You could never tell me tell me if it’s really something
Following the signal till it fades into nothing
We go our separate ways
Every other Saturday
Never asking why we’re crawling back
Meet me in the park
Some time before it’s dark
I can never say where I’m going to be at night
We’ll make the handoff there
At the statue by the stairs
I can’t say for sure but I’m sure you’re right
Keeping it together for the sake of keeping it together
Running out the clock on every time we said never never
Never get the lesson but by now you’d think we both know better
Contingencies in place but even so you can’t escape the weather
(Note in the video I do not play the last two lines of the bridge, my mistake.)
The other day my friend, Dennis Ellington, asked just out of curiosity how I string my guitar. It was hard to explain in writing, but when I was done he said my method is unusual. So I thought it would be easier to demonstrate on video:
Here is what I originally wrote:
If you are looking down at the head, I turn the tuning posts so the holes are all pointing up-and-down. I thread each string through the post, and give it a slight tug. Keeping tension on it, I wrap the string clockwise and down, and pass it under the string that is coming into the post. Again keeping tension, I then wrap the string up towards me and bend it over the string I just went under. So I have just gone 1/2 way around the post, and made a little hook around the string. I then tighten the strung using the tuner. The tension I was putting on the string by hand is negligible, so I usually turn the tuning post about 3/4 way around or a bit more. Then I cut off the end of the string.
I know that many say you need to wrap the string fully around the post multiple times, for a “better connection,” but I cannot see how this actually helps. It may even make the connection with headstock worse, as the wrapping multiple times can be uneven. My method the string is in direct contact with the post ONLY.
The partial wrap and hook around the string are enough to fully seat the string. No slippage. Stays in tune once strings are stretched through use. To see what this looks like (it is more complicated in writing than in reality), see 6:40 in the video.
This is just a demo so my bandmates can see what the song sounds like . . . which means it sounds quite lo-fi on purpose!
Tomorrow’s Gonna Come
By Brad Rourke
Who knows how I’ll feel when I wake up?
The way it looks now I won’t even nearly have enough
Tonight I’m going to try my best to fly
Rise or fall, no matter, but a man he’s got to try
Tomorrow’s gonna come
And kick in your front door
So stay awake tonight
We’ll get to run some more
Tomorrow’s gonna come
Hey I lost my car and need a ride
I’ll pay you back for gas if I can make my way inside
you know I’ve got some business yet to do
Careful, you don’t know who’d ever want to follow you
Tomorrow’s gonna come
But I can’t wait around
Don’t you follow me
I don’t want to be found
As many of my colleagues and friends know, I play in a band. One of the things I love about it is that I get the chance to write songs — something I have come to enjoy.
Here’s a new song I have been working on. I typically do a quick video demo of new songs, as that is the easiest way to audition them for the band.
Here you go:
Wouldn’t Have Let You Run
By Brad Rourke
If I were a different man
I would roll all my own smokes
I would only drink blue Johnny
You wouldn’t get the joke
I’d pine for No Depression
I’d love Fortunate Son
No need for the black Mariah
I wouldn’t have let you run
I wouldn’t have let you run
I wouldn’t have let you run
I’d tie you down and keep you here
I wouldn’t have let you run
I lay awake at night
Wonder what to do
How to let you know I’m here
Waiting here for you
Working day to day
I watch you in my mind
The nerve it always fails me
When it’s talking time
No I’ll never change
Or turn the other cheek
Won’t find no Rosetta Stone
For the language that you speak
But if I should find you
My heart will open wide
I’ll confess my darkest fantasies
To keep you at my side
I shouldn’t have let you run
No, I shouldn’t have let you run
I left you all alone one time
I shouldn’t have let you run
Friends and colleagues may know I am in a band called The West End.
Over the summer, we were fortunate enough to play an awesome gig at the City of Rockville’s annual “Uncorked Wine Festival.” When we play City gigs, they always provide pro sound (usually through the very awesome RCI Sound). Since we knew there’s be a good sound engineer, we brought along a recorder to grab the performance.
We recorded through two mics set up at the back of the audience. The results were pretty good, I think, and they give a good document of our performance. (The only thing is the keys are not as loud as they usually sound in the mix, and the guitar is a bit louder than usual.)
These are all originals (Brad Rourke or Mike Shawn) except where indicated. Just click on the links to listen:
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Summertime (Gershwin)
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Sorry Somehow (Grant Hart)
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Free To Choose (Rourke)
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Persephone (Shawn)
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Halah (Mazzy Star)
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Give You My Lovin’ (Mazzy Star)
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One Last Time (Rourke)
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Hard To Sleep (Rourke)
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By The Mark (Gillian Welch)
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Mary, Don’t You Weep (Trad.)
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Angel From Montgomery (John Prine)
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Snitch (Rourke)
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Long Black Veil (Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkin)
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Many of my colleagues and readers know that I am in a local rock band called The West End. We’re not going to be rich anytime soon, but people say we’re not too shabby. We’ve got a fair sized local fan base and we play out regularly. We’ve recorded and released two CD’s (the latest is here or use this iTunes link).
We had a show last Friday and I thought that some of my readers might be interested in how it went. I give a full recap at my blog about being in a band called amusingly enough In The Band.
WOW, I was tired on the morning after our last show! It seemed like we really poured out more energy than usual, and as usual we played three sets starting late so by the end there we were all pretty wiped. . . . All in all, it was very cool. We had a large crowd, and they mostly stuck around for the whole evening. In those later songs, it is always way more fun when there is a crowd than when there are just a few barflys hanging around. So I really enjoyed that.
We changed the set list on the fly this time around, which we rarely do, and I thought it might be interesting to know how that went and what our thinking was.
There’s lots more at the original article, including our thinking about our three set lists and how they changed. A number of my friends and colleagues have expressed interest in the band, so I thought I would provide this pointer to it for those who are curious.
I recently spent an evening with two friends, working on a soundtrack for a DVD. My friend Ed Corr’s company, OPX, is creating a video presentation about what the office of the future might look like, if you ask the twenty-somethings who are going to have to work in them and design them. To its great credit, OPX did not want to just slap some royalty-free ambient noises on the presentation, nor were they comfortable pirating commercial music. So Ed asked me and Mike Shawn to help out. (Mike and I are band mates in The West End; Ed is a member of the band City Farm.)
I did not realize it at the time, but I would gain a number of insights into collaboration from that evening. A couple of days after our session, Ed dropped off a thank you card. On it was a Xeroxed passage from a book (which turned out to be Zen Guitar by Philip Toshio Sudo):
When your collaborator has a strong vision of where to go and you do not, follow the vision.
When you have a strong vision of where to go and your collaborators do not, invite them along and help them see it.
If no one in the project has a strong vision of where to go, develop a common vision before you start working, or at a minimum find one before you finish. A project with no vision yields mediocre results at best, and usually wastes everyone’s time.
Terrific advice to keep in mind the next time your organization collaborates with another. There’s got to be a vision that controls things. It does not have to be a consensus (one party may dominate). But all must submit to it.
Here is a sample of what we (performing as “West Farm”) recorded:
Last weekend my band, The West End, played a show and in the midst of it I had just the best feeling. I looked out at the audience and saw that everyone was paying attention, listening to the music. They weren’t distracted by the ball game behind the bar, weren’t playing Liar’s Poker, weren’t embroiled in some animated conversation. They were just listening.
As a performer of original music, I can tell you there is no better feeling.
What’s more, the song we were playing is one of our more . . . unconventional . . . songs. It’s got this beat that’s sort of a cross between a shuffle and a carnival calliope.
The topic is even more unconventional. It’s based on the account of Mary Rowlandson, who was taken captive by Indians during the bloodiest war in North America — King Phillip’s War in the late 17th century. Her tract, titled “The Narrative of the Captivity and the Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” and collected in the scholarly work So Dreadfull A Judgment, became the archetype of a new form of American writing called the captivity narrative.
At the Rockville Wine and Music Festival
Ever since I discovered them, I have been fascinated by captivity narratives. Puritans saw events in the world as signs of God’s pleasure or displeasure with their amount of piety, and the captivity narratives always have a heavy philosophical underpinning of judgment and retribution. (The scholarly book’s title is taken from a sermon at the time that referred to the War itself as a “dreadfull” judgment.)
So one day I thought I would write a song about this one, taking events, words and phrases from Rowlandson’s own work. And this is the song where I noticed that people seemed to be paying attention. Were they really? I don’t know for sure, but it felt like they were!
I thought, therefore, you might be interested in seeing the lyrics to my captivity narrative song (if you want to hear it, you can listen on my band’s Facebook page).
So Dreadfull A Judgment, by Brad Rourke
Was the tenth of February 1675
King Philip's men they came and they left few of us alive
At length they fell descending on us like a devil's claw
It was the dolefullest day my eyes ever saw
Captured, I was taken left for dead
So dreadful a judgment on our heads
Go or stay they finally made me choose
Now I've returned to spread the news
Eight days come and gone and my baby passed away
That little lamb left me but she didn’t go away
I laid all night beside my darling precious little one
The next day saw my Mary who’d been traded for a gun
Captured, I was taken left for dead
So dreadful a judgment on our heads
They herded me from camp to camp for days
Sold and sold again and sold away
Providence reversed and at last they sent me home
After full a year among the savages alone
But to this day, I recall a woman with some meat
A piece of bear, a boiling pot, good enough to eat
Captured, I was taken left for dead
So dreadful a judgment on our heads
Our punishment is waiting in the hills
He’ll hurl them at our arrogance and will
Note: The photo is from an outdoor festival we played some time ago. I don’t have any photos from this weekend yet. If you are reading this and happened to be there, and happened to snap a photo or two, let me know!
According to MinOnline, a little noticed phenomenon began to coalesce last year. While everyone was watching social networking and video sites soaring in popularity — Internet Audio was quietly taking off too.
It may be one of the Big Things of 2009 — indeed, it may already be. Says Arbitron: 33 million Americans listen to Internet radio each week. Among at-work listeners, Internet use went from 12% to 20%. And among college graduates, 30% of all radio listening is over the pipes.
It makes sense. Sites like Pandora and Last.fm allow listeners to tailor their experience and — more important — share favorites and playlists with ease. As people in general demand more and more customization from their organizational and institutional relationships, it boggles my mind that anyone still puts up with broadcast at all.
From the article:
Why is the rise and success of Internet radio important to publishers? On several grounds. First, this is what your prize in-office users are doing with much of their day. Finding ways to weave into one of the things they most enjoy about broadband should be a no-brainer for any veteran Web content provider. If you think they like social networks and video, then wait until you see how much users love their Pandora. The average session time is three hours. Also, Web radio is an enormously robust channel for audio programming, including podcasts. Services like Last.fm, for instance, let users find and save popular podcasts into their libraries for later playback as a channel.
More to the point, however, streaming audio represents a massively popular mode of online behavior that invites a range of publisher partnerships: branded audio channels or “editor’s choice” channels, for instance. Why shouldn’t an online site offer an audio feed of its editor’s Web radio channel or channels created by that issue’s featured celebrities? What would an Utne radio channel sound like, or a BHG or High Times channel, for that matter? Lifestyle, art, regional and certainly music publications all aggregate taste groups that likely share musical or even talk radio preferences. Web radio listeners already swap their music channels in much the same way the rest of us trade and share article links in social media. Audio is the next content type users will want to coalesce around and share. This is a Web trend in the making that Web publishers should not take lightly.
As I tweeted a few days ago, the rise of Internet radio seems to me to spell game over for satellite. SiriusXM recently got a reprieve from having their stock delisted from NASDAQ, but how do they stay afloat over the long term?
My friend Caryn Martinez has this interesting story about subliminal advertising. Seems that when hearing French music, more shoppers purchased French wine. During German oompah music, it’s all Piesporters and Rieslings.
The kicker: in post-purchase surveys, only a handful ever mentioned the music when saying why they bought what they did.
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