Most of the time I’m a peaceful man

· Musicology, Nesbitt's Lime Soda, Songs for Beginners, The Reuben Kincaid

[desaturated image of a Nesbitt's Orange Soda bottle label]Over the last few years the Kincaids have messed around with quite a few cover songs. Some we adopt into our core repertoire, such as it is (as with Chilton’s “I’m in Love with a Girl” or Reed’s “Satellite of Love”). Others we toy with for a week or three and then forget again (too many to mention).

Back in early ’10 we decided to try the one real song song from Negativland’s class Escape from Noise LP (that’s what we used to call a vinyl record, kids).

We had a lot of fun with it, playing the tune at various tempos, eventually stretching it out into an odd Grateful Dead meets Velvet Underground space. As if often the case, the penultimate take was really the best one.

On this one Cecil Dan is on bass and Rev Bill is on the acoustic guitar. I’m on electric uke and lead vocals. Dan and Bill sing backups. I like to dedicate this one to B, who’s name is often misspelled in the way of the soda*.

Nesbitt’s Lime Soda

* Speaking of which, there doesn’t seem to be a Nesbitt’s Lime Soda, although there appears to be, or to have been, a Nesbitt’s Lemon-Lime at some point.

Video of ‘Playful Design’ from UX Lisbon

· Design, Games, Information Architecture, Satellite of Love, Social Design, User Experience

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:

Bringing the rain

· Musicology, The Reuben Kincaid

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.”)

 

This ain’t no cocktail you buy in a bar

· Music, Musicology, Songs for Beginners, The Reuben Kincaid, ukulele stories

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:

Pruno (demo)

UPDATE: Shared with the gracious permission of Dan Brodnitz!

Ukepalooza remixed

· Anarchy in the UK, I'm in Love with a Girl, If Only You Were Lonely, Musicology, Songs for Beginners, You Ain't Goin' Nowhere

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!