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Here’s a funny interaction between my friend Rachel, and her son Noah, as reported on Facebook:

Driving in the car with Noah, age 6½, listening to Wake the Dragon, from Talk to Total Strangers:
Noah: What are we listening to? Turn it up – this is totally my kind of music!
Rachel (Noah’s mom): I’m glad you like it, Noah. It’s my friend, Brad Yoder.
Noah: Woah – you have a friend who’s a rock star?
Rachel: Yep.
Noah: He totally has the most perfect name.
Rachel: …?….! Oh, did you think I said RAD Yoder? His first name is BRAD.
Noah: Oh! Yeah, I thought you said Rad…

So, that does it—I’m changing my name to Rad Yoder. The hip-hop moniker will be B-Rad. Yup…

There are 3 new videos on YouTube.com, of my 4/18/09 show at the Daily Grind in Richmond, VA (thanks to Jim!): School Together, Two Left Feet, and a sax encore, This Little Light of Mine. Scott Lashinsky also played mandolin with me on these songs.
I also (finally) posted 3 duo videos David Jose recorded in the summer of 2007: Head Together, Can’t Sleep, and a little banjo/mando instrumental, Porch Swing Blues. Finally, I was super-pleased to see that there’s a video of Raina Rose’s super-catchy song “King’s Flashlight” up on YouTube, with me playing glockenspiel! :] (yes, I do own one.)

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.

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.

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.)