I have seventeen hours of video of Harry and myself, recording a “next album” as far as Harry was concerned, putting down basic tracks for Harry, with guest musicians Jimmi Accardi, Menlo Macfarlane, Bob Bachtold and more, and the engineering talent of world-famous audio engie Oz Fritz. Some of the songs we sang at those sessions were a few of my new songs that Harry and I talk about before recording them, some of them were Jimmi’s songs, and some were just blues from Kansas City & thereabouts. Continue reading →
Absolutely one of the ten most influential groups in early rock, the Diamonds were different from most; they had more than one hit, and that’s all it takes in show biz.
If there are any Official Secrets to Music, these are they:
1. Tell a Story — this simply means any story about the simple nursery song that you’ve selected for this exercise (such as “Mary Had a Little Lamb”, or “Jack & Jill” or “Sing a Song of Sixpence” — any story will do, including that there isn’t one, ie; a rambling exploration of random notes and measures. Usually it means a story, pure & simple, describing the song’s major points, such as the fact that the farmer lived in a dell, had a wife, many chicks, ducks, geese, horses, cattle, swine, and a couple of wild and crazy dogs with a penchant for handouts. A story like that generally begins with a beginning, goes on a while in the middle, and stops at the end. The MIDDLE part is generally about the obstruction, the pain, the misery or the angst of it all. A typical song story is “my baby done left me”, whether you hear it in blues, folk, pop, ballad, country-western, jazz or classical, it’s always about relationships of one kind or another. That’d be human/human (read as: “human over human”) and bottle/human and a whole chain of seductions that read more or less the same. The story is told verbally before the instrument is sounded. The STORY should NOT take more than 1 minute to tell, especially the “Boy Meets Girl, Girl Gets Drownded, Boy Gets Hanged sort of murder-ballad you’ll find commonly in folk music.
This you hafta see. I was thinkin’ of some way to do this song — our band is nowhere near the skill level needed to even sing the thing in public, but this 2 million hit single in palm-farts takes the cake. I mean, how can you top this???
I thought I’d weigh in on the subject of the most recent government shutdown as a result of a few nasty people in the well-publicized “Caucus Suicide Pact”, a power-hungry political conspiracy which is currently holding the rest of the country hostage.
Couldn’t resist posting this; not only is it a terrific method for taking it easy on the guitar, but the instructions contain the most basic secret of guitar I know — don’t bust yer chops where you don’t have to! Uncle Raggy expresses perfectly the most fundamental guitar principles I hold dear — where we differ is in the area of regret. He says he made a mistake in not mastering the guitar correctly. I always had a clear choice and carefully and consciously selected the path of “what sounds good to me” and what doesn’t bust my chops to make happen. Like Uncle Raggy, I never play the same song twice, even though I know it well enough to do so, because I follow the Navajo Rule of Music: “Listen to the whole, and adjust yourself accordingly.”.You would do well to watch Uncle Raggy’s videos — there’s more wisdom there than meets the eye directly. Somebody asked Uncle Raggy if he was familiar with a 60s song, and his reply echoes mine: “Does it look as if I missed the sixties???” Join us at the ICW, where we’ll explore some of the ideas behind the song. You can catch me at Club Leger from time to time the next few days — breaking in a new routine.
Elvis was at Club Oz last night; he sang several songs from the Angel Songbook, with which he is now very familiar. You can get his autograph most any night at Club Oz, but it’s not just Elvis — there are so many famous people here. You know, on This Side of the Veil, we get our pick of FDPs — Formerly Dead Performers. They appear here most every night, and respond well to audience requests, and at Gorby’s Place, you can hear Yma Sumac and Dave van Ronk on today’s performing schedule. You can find out more about the performances at the Ashram by living here. Meditation Pagodas are available with a $30 per month support pledge, but not many are left, the space is limited — we can only accommodate 100 avatars in each of the sims — we have two full sims atm — and work-space, healing space, meditation space, darshan space and population space are going fast. Be sure to ask about our upcoming “Come As You Were” Reincarnation Party. If you’ve never been reincarnated, you’re the only one so far. All the rest of us Bohdisattvas are on the Recycle Cycle, where all the Work is!!!
Here’s a fun way to earn Work Merit, aka “Baraka” or “Grace“. Hard work, but really rewarding, to use music to create a more or less circular angelic convocation, a landing pad for XTs. Circles are best, hence the advantage of busking or in-the-round theatres. It’s bone-simple to create a Sacred Space — the MoveAct Code gives you all the Keys! Of course, a Good Heart and Fervent Prayers for the Benefit of ALL Beings Everywhere helps a lot. The word “ALL” is the operant word, for those who are paying attention. Oh, I should mention, attention is a kind of money in the Real World. Prayer is a way of spending it.
Singing a duet with Ron Matthies, RCA Studios 1972, Al Schmidt Producer, Ritchie Schmidt & Dick Bogert, engineers. Album: RCA Live.
When I was a kid growing up in New York City during the 1940s and 50s, I went to Downtown Community School, a small private school that had, as its music teacher, Pete Seeger. I sang with Pete for 11 years both there and at Camp Woodland. I have published a book on it. Singing is a very important part of life, and if you don’t sing, you’re not getting everything out of life that you should be able to. Continue reading →
Well, I debated for several weeks about whether to post this or not; Rachel Bloom is a total scream, but she definitely goes over the limit, especially with her other videos. This one is the least offensive and has a lot of broad physical humor, the kind that made burlesque what it was. I think it’s mostly harmless, but it does underscore the interests of humans, flat or round, and illuminates the chief sport of biped males — to touch a stranger’s boobs. I guess it sort of makes sense — there is little else to provide amusement for the 60-90 years you have to wait to die.
