All posts by Andrew

Father. Partner. Folk singer. Guitar picker. Vinyl record collector. Comic book reader.
Chicago Song, Listen, New Song

New Song: Chicago, Chicago

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Well, I haven’t written a straight-up folk song for a few weeks, so this one kinda popped out easy last night. Had this idea floatin around up in my head, over the weekend, to do a tune about the vagrancy law in Chicago that says if you’ve got less than one dollar in your pocket they can charge you and lock you up and throw out the key.

I thought I’d do a song about that, wondering if a credit card counts for cash these days. Or, maybe, if your heap of past-due credit counts against you, and we’re all vagrants walking around.

Anyway, I don’t really write songs like that anymore. Or, haven’t in a long time. Topical songs just don’t seem so relevant anymore. At least not for what I got goin on.

So the song I did write is different than what I set out to do. I did still use the song “Jack of Diamonds” as my base, though. It’s an old traditional tune. I heard Woody Guthrie do it on a record in a way where he sings, “Chicago, Chicago, I know’d you of old, you robbed my poor pockets of silver and gold,” instead of the traditional verse, “Jack a Diamonds, Jack a Diamonds, I’ve known you of old….” So that’s where that comes from.

The rest is completely made up. Or, maybe, pieced together from a few other old songs. Try and guess which ones.

Listen

Song Post: Who Juiced the Major Leagues

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In honor of opening day of the new baseball season and April Fool’s day, I’m reposting this old tune that I recorded last year. It’s one I wrote a couple years ago, but still holds true, I’m fairly certain, today.

Anyway, PLAY BALL!

Also this coming Saturday night, I’m doing at 45 minute set. I’ll be at a soon-to-be-opened performance space in Logan Square called the Auxiliary (3012 W. Belmont Ave). It’s a fundraising event for the space, and also apparently a pig roast. Check out the invite on facebook. It’s open to everyone and it’s BYOB. All you need to do is make a small donation at the door. I go on around 10pm.

Listen, Talkin' Headline Blues

The Talkin’ Headline Blues #21

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Here’s the recap of yesterday’s headlines over at cnn.com. Listen to the song as you read. I’ve found that’s the best way to overload your brain into a blissful state.

Somewhere, someplace, in some part of the world the water is completely or a little bit contaminated with carcinogens that will kill you. In China the thing that will kill you is owning a computer and using it to subject others to your thoughts and whims. Being young and care-free will get you penalized and possibly fined. Being the leader of the free world will only get you criticism for whatever you say and do, be it good or bad or nothing at all. People died in some place far away or close in a fiery inferno that was probably intense and sad. A low-level public employee requests less money for his job setting up a future full of going back on his word. A big snake slithers away and probably into your backyard. It’s also a very poisonous snake and an aggressive snake. Don’t be a hero and try to capture it. It’s got a big gun. Some company somewhere decides its a good idea to invest money in a new monthly periodical that will be sold to homosexual soldiers in the US armed forces. Either that, or, someone has a gun with a magazine full of bullets and is aiming it straight at all the gay troops. Trustworthy sources of news and facts are the rebel forces battling in Libya. They report only the truth! Other people that report the truth are contained on the list of best Twitter feeds. There are a hundred and forty of those people, so take a break from your busy day and drown your head in other people’s business. An old vice presidential candidate, who’s running mate got hammered by Ronald Reagan, died. She was a woman, I hear. The mighty Oprah is set to stop airing her dirty laundry. Go ahead and get stoned in college, you never have to pay back those loans. A disc jockey in New York is shot and killed, for an unknown reason, by unknown assailants. His real name was unknown. Subversive cartoons made in Korea decide to stop production on an episode that makes light of nuclear tragedy. Now the younger generation will never know about nuclear disaster. Mariah Carey is home safe. She’s doing okay. No need to worry or press the panic button.

Listen, New Song

New Song: The night is long

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Started in on this one late on Saturday night. More just had the idea floatin around up in my head. The idea of being in the doghouse. Woke up Sunday morning with it fresh and at the tip of my tongue.

I didn’t quite have the chorus totally down, but I knew the idea. Went through about 7 or 8 different versions. Just wrote em all down rapid fire until something came out. Nothing did really, just yet.

The verses didn’t come either. Thought, at first I do some sort of rewrites of older lines, like:

Ain’t no farmer, ain’t no farmer’s son
but I could seed your field if you need it done

But that didn’t seem to go anyplace fast when I finally sat down to hash out the song. Plus I already sing those lines in the Barehand Jugband’s version of “My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It.”

Also had this line that I was considering using somehow:

If I bring the dough, baby can you roll it?

But, that didn’t fit the song either.

Turned out, I guess, to be less a turnaround blues type a song and more a straight up here’s what it is song. If that makes any sense.

Anyway, that’s how it went writing this one. I got half of it done, including the repeating chorus lines, Sunday afternoon, and the second half done Sunday night. You can tell from the recording that I been sick, and this one was extra hard on my throat to sing, not taking into account that I had to do it about 329 times to get all the words and guitar playing right and together.

Part of me thinks this new one’s a stupid song that I’ll never sing out. And another part of me really likes it. Especially the repeating lines. So we’ll see.

Two times I know I won’t be playin it are this week. Tomorrow night (3/29) at the Hideout with the jugband. It’s our regular, once a month, every last Tuesday gig. Starts at 9pm. It’s only 5 bucks. It’s a hot time.

And next is this coming Saturday night. I’m doing a 45 minute set at a soon-to-be-opened performance space in Logan Square called the Auxiliary. It’s a fundraising event for the space, and also apparently a pig roast. Check out the invite on facebook. It’s open to everyone and it’s BYOB. All you need to do is make a small donation at the door. I go on around 10pm.

Listen, Talkin' Headline Blues

The Talkin’ Headline Blues #20

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Here’s all the news from yesterday according to cnn.com. Let’s see if I can recap it for you based solely on the headlines:

A coalition of armed forces flew somewhere and dropped bombs and those bombs hit something deemed necessary to destroy.

The food in Japan is safe for now, but in the long run, who knows.

The stock market is doing just great.

The earth we live on often rumbles and moves, but there’s no way for us to tell when or where that’s gonna happen. We are not as all-knowing and all-powerful as we may suspect.

Children should maybe or maybe not be strapped into car seats for longer or shorter periods of time. It’s hard to know, but you should fear for your kid’s safety.

Charlie Sheen isn’t doing anything out of the ordinary. At least as far as his ordinary goes.

The president spoke, probably eloquently or exquisitely or graciously, to a group of youngsters.

Ma Bell makin’ a come back.

Big Breasted super-heroine slips into sleek outfit for cameras. Her boots are blue!

Sarah Palin’s in the news again. This time she travels to Israel to solve no problems and say absolutely nothing.

Donald Trump had sex with Muammar al-Gaddafi.

Big news. Twitter is 5 years old. Read the first tweet ever.

Okay, so, some of them were pretty literal. Some, though, just get left to the imagination and you’d never be able to tell what cnn was trying to get across. Oh well.