Thing A Week 2014 #9

Reaching back to the days of The Sucky Young Muffins. My wife hates this song, but it's not about her. I'm a better listener now, but only barely...

Thing A Week 2014 #8

I've had Master Shakespeare in my head of late. Today, this song popped up on my ipod as I was driving to New Britain to do a repair on the set of "The Tempest". I had written the music for this many years ago for a friend's wedding. I had always meant it to be a two person, Everly Brothers type thing, but I ended up singing it solo at the wedding. Here's what it sounds like with my impression of Phil and Don!

Thing A Week 2014 #7

A few years ago, I had played with the idea of doing an edit of Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing". I wasn't sure how much I wanted to change, but when I spoke with my old friend, Scott Auden (who wrote the book for my first musical), he thought a complete update was the way to go. We'd use the story line of Shakespeare's original, but modernize the language and alter some of the characters. The idea was to have it set in a radio studio in the 1940's, and that the Duke was actually a crooner doing a live broadcast. As things tend to go with me when I'm writing, I found other things to concentrate on and abandoned the project. I came across this recording the other day. It was my first attempt at writing a crooner type song with both Shakespeare's words and Scott's lyrics. It's such an odd progression - lots of chromatic weirdness, but I dig it.

Thing A Week 2014 #6

The news I have to report is that there's no news. Or new blog entry. The idea of trying to type a lengthy blog entry on my phone makes me feel a little sick. I'm in London this week with my family and a friend. I had this idea that I'd post a new monologue I have, but I've just found out that it hasn't been looked at yet by my publisher for inclusion in a monologue compilation. It may still be rejected,  but I didn't want to post it before that decision was made. When I have access again to a real computer, I'll make up for this non-entry.
Cheerio!
Captain Crunch!

Thing A Week 2014 #5

I've always got a musical that I'm working on. This song is FAR from finished, but I was able to flesh out how the vocals would be arranged (which was key on this one) No drums, but I feel like they'd sound crappy if I used my ancient machine or (heaven forbid) I tried to drum it myself. I can play a lot of instruments passably, but drums ain't one of them!

Thing A Week 2014 #4

I really do enjoy Ben Folds as a musician and as a composer. But, he definitely has certain stylistic niches he's comfortable in. I decided to make fun of one of those niches. I kid because I love...

Thing A Week 2014 #3

I've been a fan of Stephen King's writing for ages. But, for whatever reason, I only ever knew his novels for the longest time. I somehow missed his short stories. In college, I had a theatre class called "Oral Interpretation", and we'd get up and read things dramatically and get judged by the rest of the class (and the professor, of course) I usually wrote my own stuff, or if I used something else, it was generally pretty off-beat. (I did a dramatic reading of "The Sick Bed Of Cuchuliann" by The Pogues once just to drop the F-bomb) There was a woman in the class who wasn't a theatre major, but had a really good grasp on reading aloud for dramatic effect. One day, she told me that she was going to "one up" me, and she proceeded to read King's "Real Survivor Type". It was gross, and funny, and the rest of the class was shocked, I think. I LOVED it. I immediately sought out King's short story collections and devoured them in one night. I love the protagonist in this story - he is a real scumbag and what he ends up doing to himself isn't so much as tragic as POETIC.

I wrote the lyrics a week ago and have been playing around with progressions and arrangements. I think the smooth jazz/blues does the best job for the lyrics.
Real Survivor Type