News, Press

No song for today, but an album review….

My 2 new albums got a short review over at the blog songs:illinois. Here’s the full text, or you can read it by clicking here.:

I live near Chicago. I follow the local scene pretty closely. In the last six years of blogging I have only found a handful of Chicago artists to get excited about. I think I’m about to get excited about Andrew Francis. Andrew is a member of a local jugband (The Barehand Jugband) so that’s automatically a plus in my book. His delivery is a nasal concoction equal parts Bob Dylan and Pokey LaFarge. Musically the songs are simple guitar and voice (with occasional amateurish harmonica – and I mean that in a good way). On the song “I’m Only Trying To Say What Comes To Me” he admits his songwriting naivite but then goes on to speak from the heart and string together an unusual but affecting chorus. Andrew has just released two records. The first is his solo self titled debut and the second is a collection of songs inspired by and about Chicago called It’s Chicago!.

Buy them here and here.

So, thank you, whoever you are over at songs:illinois. That’s a pretty nice thing for you to say.

songs:illinois is a pretty cool blog about music, you should check it out.

I’m also playing a house party in Logan Square this Saturday (8/28). Starts at 8pm. It’s a FREE event. See ya there.

Listen, New Song

New Song: Some Ordinary Troubles

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This song I started a few months ago. I dug it out of an old notebook a couple months back when I was starting to put together my 2 CD albums that just came out. This song didn’t fit and it wasn’t finished and I didn’t really know what to do with it, so I put it in a stack of other unfinished, unstarted, unknown songs.

I brought it out tonight cause I didn’t have anything else. Obviously. That’s also why I’m posting it at 11:17pm and also don’t have any kind of theme set up for this week.

But oh well.

I added a couple verses and I edited some others from the original. I wrote the music tonight. It ain’t much, but at least it’s something. That counts.

Listen

Ballad on November 5

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No Theme Week

Here’s the last song for No Theme Week. It’s a song I wrote back in November of 2008. Didn’t have anything to do with anything. Wasn’t about me or you or anybody else in particular. Wasn’t no meaning behind or about or in-front of it. Took about 30 seconds to write and around 5 minutes to sing and listen to. I played it out all over in three-quarter time, two-four time, six-eight and four-four and five-ninths. It all sounded the same to me. I put it as song number one on an album I made and didn’t distribute except to a few very affectionate friends. I haven’t sung it in a year or so. I pulled it out and I think it’s a pretty good ending to No Theme Week.

See ya Monday…bright and early.

At the end of the week, listen to a ballad about November 5.

Listen

Song Post: Nothing Oughta Be Like Nothing

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No Theme Week

Here’s a song that I posted just a month or so ago during “Arrangement Week.” So it’s really new, but it also isn’t like the other songs this week, which were all written quickly (in less then 15 minutes or so) and which I didn’t have any agenda set out before I wrote them.

For “Nothing Oughta Be Like Nothing” I really had to work at the words. I took one day for each verse until I had four verses. And I kinda knew going in that I wanted to do a song that way, and had this idea for the repeating chorus line of “…nothing new oughta be like nothing old…” So this song had a lot of thought behind it and a lot of meaning heaped up already.

So why re-post it again so soon?

First, because I never really finished it after arrangement week. So this is a cleaner version. (Here’s the older version.)

And, second, because this song is about how nothing today is supposed to be like anything else that’s ever happened. As an artist you get shunned for that. Or people think you’re just out to be a copy cat or something, not knowing that all artists grow this way. Learning from what happened before and slowly changing until they become their own form built upon that left by others.

So do you get it?

Later…

Listen

Song Post: Almost Always (or Most of the Time)

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No Theme Week

Today’s song is another one I wrote somewhat recently. Back at the end of April. It’s kinda not about anything, except that I pulled the repeating chorus line from a newspaper article. It was something about some opinion poll about something that I can’t really remember, but the majority of those that responded said they agreed “almost always or most of the time.”

I thought that was funny.

Now, it could be that this is a song about someone else. One that I’m singing to someone else. One about how I’ll lend them a hand just about any time for just about any thing. But the more I listen to it the more I think I was just writing and singing to myself.

It’s autobiographical.

So there.

If I remember correctly, “Almost Always” took about 13 minutes to write out completely and I don’t think I changed anything from the original. I wouldn’t recommend this. I’ve also not yet played this song out live because I neglected it and didn’t learn it. Just let it get caught up in some dust.

Now that I’ve got some time off from the Barehand Jugband (our next show isn’t until 9/11 at Quenchers), and I’m free from having to work on CD albums, since they’re out and for sale everywhere, I’ve got some time to really learn a few of these songs that either didn’t make the cut for either album, or that I’ve written in the past 2 months and were too new to get on the albums.

Anyway…

Songwriting, home recording and vinyl records from Chicago folk singer and songwriter Andrew Francis.