All posts by Andrew

Father. Partner. Folk singer. Guitar picker. Vinyl record collector. Comic book reader.

Random Record Pick: Margie Meinert, Crazy Calliope Music

Vinyl record of Margie Meinert, Crazy Calliope Music.
For more photos, connect to @afrancisb on Instagram.

Random Record Pick is a way to organize and archive an always-growing collection of vinyl records. Each record is randomly picked from a shelf or crate or dusty corner of my house, a photo is taken of the cover, and then the entire record is played all the way through, even if it’s terrible. 

Random Record Pick: King Oliver’s Jazz Band, 1923

Vinyl record of King Oliver's Jazz Band, 1923.
For more photos, connect to @afrancisb on Instagram.

Random Record Pick is a way to organize and archive an always-growing collection of vinyl records. Each record is randomly picked from a shelf or crate or dusty corner of my house, a photo is taken of the cover, and then the entire record is played all the way through, even if it’s terrible. 

New Song: What’s always in my dreams

Well, here’s another song I wrote on my trip out to New Jersey. This one I wrote in an airplane way up high on my way back to Chicago after spending some time way up high on a mountaintop in the middle of the Catskills in Upper State New York.

It’s another train song. Been writing a lot of those lately. Most of them have nothing to do with a train, though.

Anyway, it’s a new song and I like it. This’ll be one that I commit myself to learning. I’ll add mouth harp. I’ll play it with conviction. So much conviction that whenever I play it I’ll just start to giggle in the middle of the tune. So watch closely for that.

New Song: Don’t you see?

And here’s the final new song recording for the night. This caps off the three tunes I wrote on my way out to New Jersey to visit some very close personal friends.

The third verse of this one needs a lot of work. Maybe even some completely different words.

But overall, I like this tune the best of the three I recorded tonight. That’s it.

New Song: That confuses me too

This one is just ridiculous.

I had to edit it, slightly, which is why it took a little bit to record. Meaning…it took 29 minutes to:

  1. adjust some of the lines so they fit better in the rhyme scheme and the whole song flowed a little better
  2. Press record and hope I got through all the words
  3. Press record 3 more times after flubbing lines part way through the song
  4. Write this
  5. Press “Publish”
  6. Go back and add this numbered list
  7. Press “Save Post”

The end.