OMG, GBD on CTE!
Thanks to Chasing The Essential for playing our raucous rockabilly number “Crazy About You” during Episode 88, in which host Rick referred to it as “a song with a punch.” He also socked it to us by placing our powerpop tune “She Said” in the running for the July Essential Pop Three. In this election, you vote with your ears and cast multiple ballots with wild abandon, confident in knowing that every Tom, Dick, Harry, and hanging Chad will be counted. And if you check out Episode 88, you’ll hear a quirky little new wave-ish song by Cotton Mather (not the quirky little 17th century Puritan minister, the band named after him) called “Better Than A Hit.”
I Don’t Know Why You Say Goodbye, I Say Cello
Earlier this week on Facebook, while talking about episode 127 of Ralphy’s Music Of The World, we shared Miss Chloe Ray’s song, “New York,” and mentioned its gorgeous cello accompaniment. As fate would have it, we recently had the pleasure of bringing the wonderful cellist Brittany Maroney into Zoe Tribe Studios to record some cello tracks for our own soon-to-be-released folksy singer-songwriter tune. (That’s her above preparing to play a concert with Celtic Woman — and we were fortunate enough to work with the talented Brittany previously when she performed the violin arrangements on our almost grand, nearly epic tribute to The Righteous Brothers, “Dance With Me.”) The cello has a full, rich tone that adds sonorous solemnity, orchestral ornamentation, and grandiose gravitas to any production, including pop arrangements like the Old World ballad “Those Were The Days,” the symphonic “Eleanor Rigby,” or the upbeat rock number “Living Thing.” The cello has been around since 16th century luthiers first constructed the hefty bowed instruments as a larger variant of the violin. Our song happens to be in the key of F#Maj, so we had to be careful of a pesky little anomoly called the “wolf tone,” in which specific notes cause certain resonant frequencies from the string and the hollow body to clash due to the physics of the instrument’s shape, configuration, and components. (Not to be confused with the traditional “wolf whistle,” which is also a reaction to shape, configuration, and components.) Luckily, the cello can be equipped with a wolf tone eliminator that dampens the obnoxious overtones, although Brittany avoided the notorious wolf by simply adjusting her expert touch and technique. (Alas, the only device that eliminates unwanted wolf whistles is a set of brass knuckles.) Anyway, Brittany played beautifully and we’re looking forward to releasing this song to the tender mercies of your unsuspecting ears very soon. By the way, if you’re interested in hearing some fascinating cello compositions, check out a guy we call the Jimmie Hendrix of the cello because he gets the most varied, unexpected and sometimes bizarre sounds out of the instrument. It’s the late, great Arthur Russell’s 1986 experimental album featuring the musician and his cello with just some percussion and effects, called “World Of Echo.”
Another Country Heard From
While ensconced deep within the hidden, inner recesses of our studio hideaway, we also laid down some twangy Bakersfield GIH-tar tracks for our soon to be critically ignored country song, which is chock full of country music staple ingredients such as trains, loneliness, and the perennial favorite, running away from problems. It’s going to be part of our new record called “Manifest Destiny,” a tale of regret, reflection and redemption. Although the title is meant as a reference to fate’s inevitability, we actually borrowed the phrase from the USA’s 19th century policy of aggressive westward expansion. In a historical nutshell, if a debate about the controversial doctrine were held in the vernacular of pop music, Groucho Marx would have been a proponent exuberantly shouting, “Go West, Young Man,” while Paul Revere and the Raiders would have gotten into the action by reciting “The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian” in somber tones. But before we get too distracted by the fascinating finer points of arcane diplomacy, remember that our fine first record “Fine State Of Affairs” is virtually flying off the digital Bandcamp shelves for zero dinero. The other leading brands can’t even come close to beating our rock bottom prices!
Thanks to Chasing The Essential and Ralphy’s Music Of The World for playing our songs, Brittany Maroney for playing on our songs, and everyone for playing our songs on their chosen listening devices.
