Tigirlily

As you know, I don't listen to modern country. I figure, there's only so many minutes in a day - I can't waste 'em on stuff that's just going to annoy me. (Trust me, when you get to be my age, you'll understand the "only so many minutes in a day" thing.)

As you may also know, I'm from North Dakota. Yea, it's actually one of the fifty states, and no, North Dakota doesn't have snow twelve months out of the year. And yes, it does have electricity. (North Dakota had MTV years before New York City did, so bite me, geography snobs.)

That said, a song titled, "North Dakota" probably isn't going anywhere. There's an inherent bias against anything that contains the word "north", because, you know, North = Cold.

If the title was simply "Dakota", then sure. The Dakota Apartments was where John Lennon lived, after all.

I wonder if people hear "South Dakota" and think, boy, I bet it's hot there. After all, it's in the south.

Anyway, there's this band (if two people can be called a band) called Tigirlily, and they're from North Dakota. Now, right off the bat, I have a problem with the spelling of their name. Maybe it's a play on words. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, because if it's not a play on words, then it's just dumb.

I don't know anything about these girls except that they're from North Dakota, and well, that's good enough for me. And, to my ears, they sound about as good as anything else country radio pukes out (no offense).

The first thing I noticed when watching this video that MY BRIDGE is in the background in some of the scenes. Yes, that's MY BRIDGE. I lived right across the river, on the west side of that bridge.Sure, it means nothing to you, but I've been away from home for fourteen years. Seeing that bridge is like seeing home again.

I did chuckle at this line:

We're from the north, but we're not Canadian.

That's kinda cheesy! However, as a songwriter, I know that sometimes you just have to give up and throw in a line that rhymes. Still makes me laugh, though.

So, if you want to check out "tigirlily", their website is here

We don't get a lot of famous people from North Dakota. We have Lawrence Welk and Angie Dickinson and Roger Maris. Oh, and that actor - what's his name? Josh Duhamel (he's married to Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas). If my friend Alice hadn't died young, she would have been a huge Nashville star. You can read about her in my book that's over there --> in the margin.

So kudos to anybody who's from North Dakota who has even a smidgeon of talent. To be fair, though, North Dakota's population is teeny tiny compared to those other forty-nine no doubt frigid states.

Is This a New Song?

My husband was watching some boring science show today; I believe it was about asteroids.  What I gleaned from the show is that there is a main computer on which the scientists store the giant map of all asteroid locations.  I said, "Sure hope they backed that up."  Because you know how that goes.  Then I fell asleep.  

Apparently, a commercial must have come on, and as a man, he was obliged to channel surf.  This is also why I choose to not become interested in anything my husband is watching, because, on the off-chance it would be interesting, click!  It's gone!

I woke up to this video on CMT or GAC; not sure which.

Is this new?  I admit I don't listen to country radio, so I don't know.

Regardless, I like it!  And the video is cool, too.

So, there I go.  I actually admit that I like a modern country song.

Happy Birthday, Merle!

 

 

 

 

 

 

2012 Country Music Hall of Fame

Fine!

Downloads? No Thanks.

Downloadable albums are so gauche.

Amazon keeps emailing me their "special deals" ~ $5.00 album downloads, and I think, nah, just not worth it.

What do physical CD's sell for nowadays?  Ten bucks?  Definitely not worth it.

At least, however, if one purchases a physical CD, they get something to hold in their hand, and a nice pretty picture, and some little tiny liner notes, along with their crappy music.

With a download, all you get is the crappy music.

I wouldn't give two figs for any of today's music, if I actually had any figs, and who does, really?

When's the last time I heard a song I liked?  Can we count oldies?

Maybe it's just me.  Maybe I'm worn out by music.

There was big online buzz recently about Taylor Swift's new single (I wonder how much she pays for that "free" publicity).  The song is titled, "We Are Never Getting Back Together".  Just the title alone makes me hate the song, without even hearing it.

To be fair, though, I clicked on the music video this morning.  I got through the first verse and half of the chorus before clicking it off.  Same old......

Taylor, do you ever just want to grow up?  Most little girls do.

(And, P.S., this is not country.)

Dwight has a new CD coming out soon.  I love Dwight, but the free tunes I sampled did absolutely nothing for me.  Did everybody suddenly get amnesia about what good music is supposed to sound like?

If you, and I mean you, know of a new song that I would really like, send me a link.  I want to believe that good new music actually exists.

Tip:  Here's an example of the kind of music I consider "good":




Thank you.

Music and Memory

I've begun to wonder...

Why don't I listen to music anymore?

I mean, I could listen to music. After all, it's just a click away. And when I do listen to music, it's an enjoyable experience.

For me, as a so-called musical person, something just seems off-kilter.

I could click on some tracks right now, and I would be transformed. But I hardly ever do it.

Is it because the choices are so plentiful that I wouldn't know where to begin?

When I was a kid, I didn't have much physical music. In fact, I would wait impatiently for my big brother to go somewhere, anywhere, so I could sneak into his room and play his records. That was a thrill for me. "Rubber Soul" - absolute heaven.

It was exciting. Maybe it was all the cloak and dagger stuff, but I don't really think so.

I could click on some of those tracks right now (yes, I have them all), and I would still feel that little stab in my heart; the same one that I felt all those years ago, when I would carefully place the needle on the turntable.

Which leads me to wonder....is it the music, or is it the memory?

I really believe that they're tied together, inevitably. I think that's why music doesn't mean as much to me anymore.

There are certain songs that, when I hear them, I'm immediately transported back to a certain place; the feelings I was feeling; the actual physical place where that song became lodged inside my heart, or at least my subconscious. What I was doing when that happened.

Those things don't happen to me anymore. And here's why....

Life is sort of a "get by, day-to-day thing", in all honesty. I get up; I put my makeup on; I go downstairs and make breakfast for my "kids" (Josie and Bob); I ride with my husband to work. I work. I go home. I make supper for the kids and for us. I check out the net; I watch a little TV news; I go to bed.

Where is the memory-making opportunity? It's not there.

I'm not out, riding around in a '70 blue Malibu, at midnight, with the AM station turned up as high as those knobs will turn; heady with the smell of the sweet grass; there, along the banks of the Missouri. Itching and ready to find out what will happen next. And if nothing happens, well, we still laugh a lot, and we still have those songs.

And, really, that's what music is about, I've come to believe. It's not for "us" (the "us" that we are now). It's for the us that used to be.

When you hear some old person harping on the songs of yore, cut them a little slack. They're just like you, really. Except that Katy Perry is Karen Carpenter.

Us oldies have to find a new reality in music. It's hard-fought, though. Maybe we're jaded. Maybe the musical past was so much better, filtered through our young ears.

Maybe the music is really beside the point.

Maybe, after all, it's not really the music. It's the memory.

My Latest Fake CD!

Gosh, has it really been two years since my band, Holwell/Hertfordshire, released our last album? I guess time flies when you're busy in the studio.

If you don't know the history of Holwell/Hertfordshire, we started our band after my previous band, Governor of West Virginia, broke up. Before that, I was in a band called William Pinkney, but a bunch of us quit that band because William insisted on naming the band after himself. He's really a selfish bastard.

Well, as things happen, I've got another new band. That's really how it goes in the music biz. You basically break up because someone's a bastard, or because of the drummer.

To refresh your memory regarding the creation of your own band and CD, it's really easy!

1. Go to Random Article on Wikipedia (the random article link will be on the left-hand side of the page). The title of the article will be your band name.

2. Click Random Article again. This will be the title of your CD.

3. Click Random Article 12 more times. These will be your track titles.

To create your CD/album cover:

4. Click here. The picture that comes up will be your album cover.

So, here we go!



I wanted to post the picture again, because I'm so proud and excited!

You're probably wondering where the name of our band, Religion In Italy, came from. Well, our bass player, Brad (or "Father Brad", as we teasingly call him), used to be an ordained priest! He never got to have his own parish; he was always just the assistant pastor. Thus, he always had to do the 7:00 a.m. Sunday mass, and he had to man the confessional, because the main priest (I guess you'd call him) said that it was too boring ~ never any GOOD sins to hear. He also had to type up the Sunday bulletin and clean and shine the chalices. And he never got to swing that incense thing during Lenten services, which he really, really wanted to do. So, he finally got bored and quit.

Brad found our ad in (ironically!) the Sunday bulletin, for a bass player, so he applied! We liked him a lot, and we always let him douse the audience with incense during our shows. That makes Brad happy.

So, enough about Brad. Let's move on to the tracks on our CD, "White-eared Solitaire", shall we?

1. Pardis
2. Rocka Rolla
3. Georgia State Route 98
4. Cryptantha Nevadensis
5. 798 Art Zone
6. Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Riga
7. Bochov
8. Cobie Legrange
9. Helichochaetus
10. Terminal Building (Lincoln, Nebraska)
11. Stefanie von Schnurbein
12. Charbaria Lamchari

As you can see, our songs lean heavily on that Latin and Italian romance languages (guess whose idea that was!), plus a light dose of Southern Rock. You wouldn't think it would work, but it really does!

We've provided some links to samples of our music ~ we know you'll love it!

You can find "White-eared Solitaire" in the Southern Gregorian Metal section of your local independent record shop. And on iTunes, of course!

And I would be remiss if I didn't list all the band members:

Lead Guitar: Theodore (The Beav') Kleaver

Bass: Father Brad

Rhythm Guitar: Petrie Rob

Vocals: me! (Sugar Val)

Keyboards: Edie Ameene

Drums: whomever is available

I know I always say THIS BAND (Holwell/Hertfordshire, Governor of West Virginia, William Pinkney) will be the one that gets us to the BIG TIME! But I really think we've hit on something now, with Religion In Italy.

I mean, c'mon! Southern Gregorian Metal is IT! If you miss it, you're just going to be mocked for your naive comments on the Entertainment Weekly website comment section! And those people will hunt you down! (Believe me, I know.)

Do you REALLY want to come off as a rube?? I thought not.

So, be the first on your block to buy "White-eared Solitaire". If you do, that one guy who was in "127 Hours" will come to your house, and Ricky Gervais will be AFRAID to mock you!

Need I say more?

The Songwriter

My boss once asked me (feigning interest), "How do you write a song?"

This happened in the midst of an actual work-related conversation, so needless to say, I was taken by surprise.

So, there was a lot of stuttering and stammering, and I believe I said "you know" approximately 38 times. Meanwhile my boss was thinking, "I was just being polite".

I never did answer the question satisfactorily. And mercifully, we went back to discussing weekly production goals and overtime.

The problem, as I see it, is that songwriting is such a technically challenging vocation that it defies description.

Alas, if I'd only had this video to show her. It truly explains my songwriting process.

Songwriting is like.......

......a job that you actually like going to.

It's been two months since FAWM ended, and I've had time to ponder the experience.

FAWM was a success for me this year, because I completed the challenge and then some.

It was a success in more ways, of course. It taught me that if I used some discipline, I could be a prolific songwriter.

I spent every weekend in February (albeit, some were three-day weekends) picking up the guitar and forcing myself to write. While it felt like a burden at times, and while sometimes I cursed myself for getting into this mess, I often found myself actually looking forward to it. Mostly, I guess, because I was eager for the surprise of something being born that had never existed in the world before.

I'm certainly not saying that all sixteen of the songs I wrote were world-shattering. Okay, none of them were. However, in hindsight, I think 10 of the 16 are dang good!

Okay, enough of patting myself on the back.

I also learned that, unless you're some kind of idiot savant, songwriting is WORK. I guess I kinda knew that already, but the FAWM experience really drove it home.

The deal was, with time at a premium, I needed to write a complete song in one day. But yet, it had to be something that I wasn't embarrassed to share with my fellow FAWMers.

My friend, and my new most cherished possession, became a Mead 70-page wide-ruled notebook.

I usually use Microsoft Word to transcribe my lyrics, but let me tell you, there is something about writing stuff out in longhand, with all the scribbles and strike-throughs, that sort of captures one's soul.

I wrote my chord notations next to each line, and played and scribbled and scratched. And I'm never parting with that notebook. A computer program saves things in a nice, sterile, clean, tidy little package. It makes it look as though I just dashed off some dictation, and voila! A song was born!

Ha! Sorry, but no. It was work!

And, you know, that's sorta what I love about songwriting. It's like a puzzle that I know if I work at long enough and smartly enough, I'm going to solve. And nobody is ever going to be able to solve it in the exact same way that I did.

And, silly me, I didn't realize it at the time, but in listening to those 16 songs, there's a bit of me in each one of them. Some of them may be fanciful, but there's at least a tiny bit of "my" truth in every one. I could listen to any one of those songs, had they been written by someone else, and say, I know that life! I lived it! I felt those feelings!

I love songwriting.

FAWM 2010 - Success!

Well, I did it.

Not only did I accomplish the goal of writing 14 songs in 28 days, but I actually wrote 16!

So, here you go. They're not all keepers. In fact, probably few of them are. That's not the point, really.

The point is, write, write, write.

And that's what I did.





I'll have more thoughts on this year's FAWM later, but since time is up, as they say, I wanted to post the fruits of my labor.

FAWM Thoughts - February 15 - The Month Is Half Over!

Since it’s the middle of the month, I thought I would do a short recap of the challenge so far, and add some muddled thoughts.
1. Writing 14 songs in 28 days is hard!
I don’t do anything music-related during the work week, so my weekends are completely consumed with FAWM. I’ve had a couple of three-day weekends (thankfully), and I have FORCED myself to pick up the guitar every day. There were days when I had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, and yet I still managed to come up with A song. Not necessarily a good song; but a song nevertheless.
I’ve still managed to feed and walk the dog, do laundry, do some housework, and catch up with The Office, but in the back of my mind, I’m always thinking about or looking for song ideas.
I find myself looking at product labels and wondering if there’s a song in there. Or looking at random inanimate objects and wondering the same thing. It’s pitiful.
2. I’ve written some pretty good songs!
I’ve surprised myself by coming up with some winners (comparatively). Interestingly, when I’m doing the songs, I sometimes consider them to be throwaways; it’s only after a few days and a few subsequent listens that I realize they’re not bad!
3. My songwriting skills have taken leaps forward!
I definitely see the improvement in my skills, and that’s pretty exciting!
4. I’ve gotten out of my comfort zone.
My goal was to write songs in different styles, and I’ve done that to some extent. Those actually are the songs I like the best, in retrospect.

5. I feel guilty for not commenting enough on other people’s songs.
By the time my evening of songwriting is done, I’m too exhausted to do anything, but I will be going back and listening to a whole bunch of songs. Once this madness is over.

6. I just don’t have the will or the time to post each song individually and to tell the story of them.
I started doing that, but now that I have 12 songs, it’s gotten to be too big of an undertaking. Once this whole thing is done, I’m going to load them into one of those jukebox thingies and post ‘em all in one neat package.
7. I’m not sure at this point if I would do it again next year!
But I probably will. It’s like childbirth. After awhile, you forget the pain, and then you do it all over again.

It's February Album Writing Month (FAWM)!

Here we go again! It's time to try to write 14 songs (an album's worth) in 28 days!

This'll be my third year participating in FAWM, and I aim to be more successful this year. Okay, it shouldn't be difficult to be MORE successful than I've been in previous years, since my past output was awful. I always have good intentions in the beginning, but I either get sidetracked or discouraged or both.

This year, however, I'm more excited than ever to get started.

The premise of FAWM is to get MOVING! Since one has to write fast in order to complete the challenge, there's no time to agonize over every word; every line. Just write! It forces one to be creative on the fly.

Participants can write complete songs, or simply lyrics, or instrumentals, and they can keep their results private, if they choose (it's not a competition with others; it's a competition with oneself.) However, by sharing their creations with other FAWMers, they receive something really nice, that isn't found often enough on internet sites, and that is POSITIVE feedback. FAWMers are very ENCOURAGING toward their fellow songwriters. That's the part I like the best! Songwriters tend to be an insecure lot, and as for me, I do not willingly share my creations with others; frankly, because I feel that my songs are not GOOD ENOUGH, and I don't want to look like a fool.

FAWM, however, includes songwriters of varying levels of expertise, so I don't feel like an outsider or a wannabe.

Also, their forums are fun, entertaining, and enlightening. There's even a forum for collaborations, if one is into that sort of thing. Oh, and there are (optional) challenges to give those creative juices a nudge.

I was thinking today that if by some miracle, I actually completed the challenge this year, it would be cool to have an actual "album" of my FAWM songs. Unfortunately, all I've got to work with is a microphone and Audacity, so it'd have to be "Shelly's Acoustic Collection". Maybe I'll just make a promo copy for myself!

In summary, if you are a songwriter looking to challenge yourself to write better and write MORE, check out FAWM. It's really a lot of fun.

The Frozen-Dog Days of January

Reading song lyrics lately just depresses me. They all seem so contrived. It's like it's a trick.

Maybe it's just the frozen-dog days of January that have me in a funk.

I just can't bear to read another "drinkin' Jack Daniels, scopin' out the ladies,", or "my tractor is big and ugly". Are there any other topics besides tractors and pick-ups (of the opposite sex kind)?

Any "heart" in anybody's songs anymore? Any soul?

All I can think of right now is:

Hello darkness my old friend
I've come to talk with you again

Seems like the writer had a little heart; a little introspection.

Ah, but that's not what the market wants, now, is it?

It's all just a trick.

Red River's Latest Video - Lovely Day

Long weekends are nice. They give me time to do something creative...so here's my latest creation; a video for our song, "Lovely Day". Hope you like it!

The Brass Ring?

There is no brass ring.

The music business has changed.

If Bob Dylan were starting out today, he'd be uploading his recordings onto some internet site, and hoping that somebody would "discover" him.

He'd get lots of "friend requests" from people who never bothered to listen to his music, but want him to listen to theirs.

Money talks.

If you've got money to pay for a demo, you can make any piece of junk sound good.

If you're putting off paying the phone bill because the car insurance is due, you're not buying any demos.

No one is listening.

Even with your bright, shiny demo, who's going to listen to it?

Anybody who's got any money to pay you, isn't trolling the internet for songs.

Why bother?

Did you ever sit and doodle a nice drawing? And you thought, hey, that's nice. But what am I going to do with it?

Well, just look at it and enjoy it and pat yourself on the back, because you did a nice drawing.

That's why bother.

Please yourself.

Just In The Nick Of Time - New Music!

Red River's recording another song, just before the clock strikes twelve on New Year's Eve!

It's a song that I wrote on May 2! Wow - time flies!

This is kind of a "folkie", called "Heartview".

My husband tells me it reminds him of some of the songs from Bob Dylan's "John Wesley Harding" album. I don't actually know......cuz I don't actually know that album. Sorry, I like Bob Dylan, but I'm not a Dyl-addict, like my husband, who insisted on naming our cat "Bob".

Anyway, I'm looking forward to recording my vocals tonight. Then mixing comes tomorrow!

This song is very personal to me, and I'll confess, I spent more time refining this song than I ever have with any of my others. (Frankly, I don't spend a lot of time messing around with songs that I write - which really isn't a good thing.)

Remember, if you join our mailing list, you get a free sneak peak at our latest demos, including "Heartview" and a brand new fresh track, called, "As Best I Can".

Join our mailing list here

And here's wishing everyone a very happy 2009! Let's hope it's better than 2008. Couldn't get much worse.

~~~