Category: Musicology

  • A town the size of Mountain View

    Starting to get this cover tune into shape (a Hunter/Garcia original that debuted on Jerry Garcia’s first solo album, Garcia, and popularized by the Dead):

  • Now it can be told

    The walrus was nick…

  • All I know is something

    …like a bird within her sang

  • I know a little something

    Before applying the electrodes to the heart of the typewriter yesterday my last post here was about an experiment I started last July of posting videos of myself playing and singing songs to YouTube. That’s really where my “blogging” energy has been since then, as I have built of quite a body of performances. It’s…

  • …and I’m already addicted

    “the light I… never knowed”

  • Joining the youtube generation

    somewhere there’s somebody throwing up (always)

  • One day in California, 1987

    One day in California, 1987

    What I do know is that at the end of the first set, Steve was basically a convert, utterly convinced that this was a thing and he was doing it. I’d gotten other friends to this point, especially after the exciting crescendo at the end of a first set. It’s a bit of a crossroads:…

  • Video of ‘Playful Design’ from UX Lisbon

    Video of my talk in Lisbon this past spring.

  • Bringing the rain

    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,…

  • This ain’t no cocktail you buy in a bar

    This ain’t no cocktail you buy in a bar

    One of the songs I’ve been playing the longest with the Reuben Kincaid is an original by Ceil Vortex about prison booze called “Pruno”…

  • Must-share flotsam: Dylan and the Band live

    For your listening pleasure, this Bob Dylan and The Band 1969-1970 Compilation DVD:

  • Ukepalooza remixed

    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!

  • Tomorrow’s the day my bride’s a-gonna come

    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…

  • Probably time to break out the Edirol

    I love the spontaneity of recording the band on the phone, and the quality is really not bad, but I’ve got a nice compact digital recorder and I should be using it.

  • I must admit I felt a little uneasy

    Sometime last year I was messing with the changes to “Tangled Up in Blue” by Bob Dylan and worked out a somewhat comfortable way to play it on the ukulele. I put down a basic rhythm track with a little bit of fingerpicking on it, doubled it (there are, like, nine verses) and then sang…

  • I kind of wanna, wanna drown…

    I kind of wanna, wanna drown…

  • I like to watch things on TV

    Recently Cecil aka Dan aka Cecil suggested that the Kincaid cover a Lou Reed song I’ve loved for quite some time, “Satellite of Love.” I’ve been working out a ukulele part and the other night in my hotel when I couldn’t sleep I spent some time putting together a quickie solo version of it: Satellite…

  • Genghis Khan and his brother Don…

    The fourth and final song from our Ukepalooza set was the oft-recorded Dylan classic, “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” a tune close observers of this blog and my ukulele adventures would know I’ve been working on for years (it’s really easy to play!): http://www.youtube.com/v/o_iB4BEGv9w

  • Another day come and gone, oh well

    The third song in our Cheeses & Tequila set was a semi-obscure number by the Replacements called “If Only You Were Lonely.” For equal time I’ll post the Vimeo version here (but then I’ll go and “like” the YouTube version so it shows up on Facebook where people actually notice when I post something):

  • Finest girl in the world

    My partner in Cheese and Tequila, Bill DeRouchey, has been busy putting us up all over the interwebs, so as a followup to that vimeo embed from yesterday of Bill singing the punk classic Anarchy in the UK, here’s a youtube video of the second song from our Ukepalooza set, Big Star’s “I’m in Love…

  • My life, cheeses and tequila

    Samantha Soma, the lovely the talented bride of my partner in ukulele crime, Bill DeRouchey, shot some footage of our Ukepalooza act at WebVisions, where we debuted our duo act known as Cheeses and Tequila. Bill has now chopped it up into four video segments (one for each song) and posted them to Vimeo, so…