Back in May I posted my slides from my talk at UX Lisbon this spring, on the topic of Playful Design.
Recently, the UX LX organizers released a free version of the video of my talk (including a very brief little ukulele demo at the end), so here it is for y’all:
Earlier this year I was in New York on business so of course I spent some time hanging out with my brother, codename “xourmas.” (We have a little duo when we play together called the Power & Mighty.)
He taught me a few cover tunes he had been working on over the past little while, and soon afterward I was back home in Cali rehearsing with the Kincaid and I introduced those two tunes to the band.
The first one is a tune by an obscure band called the Greenhornes called “There is an End.” The second is a classic psychedelic lovesong by the German band Can, called “She Brings the Rain.” The former has a lyric in it that goes “Spring brings the rain,” so I’ve always associated the two songs. (One other I’d also associate with these is Morphine’s “You Look Like Rain” – another one I’d like to learn some day.)
Anyway, TRK quickly recorded a few live takes of both songs and a few of them came out pretty well. We’ve gradually been putting up our carefully recorded studio cuts on our new Bandcamp site, but I can’t resist sharing these more off-the-cuff live demo takes, so here are a few more for our multitudes of fans:
(I consider these two recordings to constitute an EP that I call “Tribute to Xourmas.”)
One of the songs I’ve been playing the longest with the Reuben Kincaid is an original by Dan Brodnitz aka Cecil aka Dan about prison booze called “Pruno.”
In fact, before the Kincaid even got together Pruno was one of the first tunes Dan taught me and that we played together, and it was one of the first songs I recorded myself playing with Dan, when I started to get the idea that this playing music together thing is actually pretty cool. At the time we were playing it on piano and uke but not TRK plays it in our current power trio format, with Dan on guitar (sometimes acoustic, sometimes electric), the Reverend So-Called Bill on bass, and myself on ukululu, of course. Vocals on the “I don’t want to be right” chorus by hillbilly leprechaun Samuel, who would himself never make or consume pruno.
Over the last few years we’ve played the song scores of times, usually with some major or minor flubs. The version I’m posting today is done in the slow epic/anthem mode, and has its share of clams, but is also a fairly representative demo of how we play “Pruno” today:
UPDATE: Shared with the gracious permission of Dan Brodnitz!
For your listening pleasure, this Bob Dylan and The Band 1969-1970 Compilation DVD:
At long last, the entire Cheeses & Tequila set from Web Directions in ’10 is available, now with multi-camera intercutting and rockstar-like fretboard closeups!
I’ve been messing around with the Bob Dylan song “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” which was popularized by the Byrds, among others. Six years ago I posted some vocal and baritone uke musings to this blog and promptly forgot about it. Then the Reuben Kincaid started jamming together and we broke this song out once or twice. (It’s only got three chords and the verses and choruses are the same so it’s, uh… kind of easy to play.)
When the time came for my scary stage debut as Cheeses & Tequila with Bill DeRouchey at Ukepalooza, I dragged it out of my memory banks for our frantic rehearsal and sessions and this ended up being one of the songs we played in our set.
Recently, while one of the members of the Kincaid was gallivanting halfway around the globe, the Right Reverend “So-Called” Bill and I got together for a duo rehearsal, Bill on acoustic guitar and myself on my trusty electrified ukulele, and among other things we played this song.
Now, after I played in Portland with Other Bill, my old friend Levi Asher dropped me a note complimenting me on choosing to sing that particular version of the lyrics. It happened to be the one I was more familiar with at the time, and that’s the first version So-Called Bill and I improvised.
What’s strange to me now is that I distinctly remember that Levi used to quote the lyrics “strap yourself to a tree with roots” in one of his email sigs of yore, and that’s from the other well known version of the song. I can never keep straight which one came first.
Well, Bill also expected more lyrics so I found the other version and we played that one too. Bill demurred when I suggested a guitar solo, so I take all five solos (two in the first version and three in the second) with varying degrees of success and ability to resolve a phrase in time for the next verse.
Given that every ensemble has to have a name, Bill and I have dubbed ourselves Bacon ‘n’ Biscuit for the purposes of our duo excursions, so without further ado, I give you two versions of You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere, performed by Bacon ‘n’ Biscuit live in the studio:
