On the evening of Monday, March 9th (‘09), I had a great time playing in my first classical gig in a VERY long time.
Fortunately, it wasn’t really my show—Pittsburgh Symphony bassist Peter Guild heard me play Lite Brite at Pittsburgh Mennonite Church, and asked if I’d play 2 songs at the end of his recital. He played bass, of course, and Jason Rafalak joined us on mandolin (for songs on which he normally plays bass, when he plays with me). Those songs will be Lite Brite & She Loves Jesus>me.
The show was in the PNC Hall (corporate sponsorship really is everywhere!) of the Mary Pappert School of Music, at Duquesne University’s school of music, at 8pm. Here are 3 little musical jokes we worked into the 2 songs:
—Peter figured out how to play a well-known classical bass melody (Richard Strauss’Heldenleben) during the instrumental section of “Lite Brite.” Sure enough, the classical musicians (lots of bassists there) got a chuckle out of that one. It definitely would’ve gone over my head, if I hadn’t been “in the know.” —In “She Loves Jesus”, we played a little triplet figure after the line “it’s hard to compete ‘cause he’s in the Trinity” (triplet/trinity); also,Peter played a very conspicuous low C (not available on your average double bass!) on the line “the Lord gets an A+, and I get a C.” This also got a laugh from the musically astute audience. It was a very fun evening, and the classical portion of Peter’s recital was also terrific.
PULSE House Concert—w/ Rodney Cordner & Mark Dignam…
On Friday, March 6th, I had a great time playing another House Concert event at the PULSE House (5615 Stanton Ave), this time with Irish songwriter/performer Rodney Cordner, touring with American fiddler Sean Hoffman, and local Irish transplant Mark Dignam. We actually played music all the way till 11pm! Rodney’s combination of traditional, contemporary, and original songs was fun and engaging, with Sean adding some great fiddle touches. Mark was his usual terrific self, and I also played a few songs and some sax with others.
11 Songs In 2008…
Happy New Year!
My 11 new songs for 2008 were (in order): Harper Lee (our greatest 1-book author?), pity to waste it (Paul Tabachnek loves this song), secret (GLBT ally song #2), morning sickness (written at Bethel Park High School), bitter kid (Paris? Brittany?), j’ai vidé mon cœur (oui, that’s French… I had some help), Lite Brite (which won me $100-yay!), few and far between (written for a Rhode Island songwriters-in-the-round thing), headlights (love vs.3, still not sure about line #2), Eveline(I got the name from a sign for “Evaline St.”), & married a lawyer (a little Google is a dangerous thing—MP3 is now posted!).
For me, a song a month is pretty typical; my favorite new song of ‘08 is probably Lite Brite, though the French one is quite lovely; I like them all, really. (I actually do.)
“Lite Brite” wins 2nd place!!
Hey, I just learned that my song Lite Brite won 2nd place (and $100) in this year’s Paul Loyd Just this Guy Songwriting Contest, which takes place each August.
You can listen to all 8 entries here.
The winner was Victoria Vox, with her song “My Window” (Anything can be a toy, really, when you’re a kid.)
This year’s theme was “write about a favorite toy”; you also had to compare it to another toy (and explain why it was better), and use the words “toy,” “child,” “play,” and “fun,” with bonus points for “monkey.” (yes, I got monkey in there twice.)
So, check out (& download) Lite Brite!
(FYI, the theme last year was “write about a venue you like to play,” and I wrote Java 13, which I also thought turned out nicely.)
Acoustic Challenge 2008—We Won!!
Last Wednesday night (11/5/08), Jason and I “competed” in the finals of our 5th Three Rivers Productions “Acoustic Challenge.” This is a deal where there are 5 nights of 5 acts each, doing all-original material, and the winners of each night then compete in the finals for a grand prize of $1000. We had won once before (12/5/2006), so we are now “retired” from any future competitions.
We played the following set: Someone To Be Lonely With,Bitter Kid, Can’t Sleep (Jason on mandolin), Head Together, Hair Loss Blues (the latter two with sax). Other fine performers that night included the fabulous Joy Ike, (2nd place), Second Favorite’s Ben Alper and Eric Granata, Todd Jones, and Todd Edwards. It was great to hear so much excellent local music, and we were honored to play, & “win.” You can see some more pictures here. Big thanks to Nancy Lackner for organizing these fun musical happenings.
Full Band Show=Last Friday!
BIG THANKS to everyone who came out last Friday (11/7/08) to hear me and my kicking band atYour Inner Vagaond.
The Lost Sea opened, and were great (thanks, Sean!), and Your Inner Vagaond is such a great room (thanks, Andrew!): non-smoking, all-ages, BYOB, lots of couches, good sound, and easy to play not-too-loud. I hope we can play there again sometime soon .