The Living Rockumentary

Advice for New Bands: Don't All Love the Same Music

2012-01-23T18:28:00.000-05:00

This is a post that Brian just wrote over on his famous blog Where's That Sound Coming From.

I'll always remember the crestfallen look on my long-time close friend and band mate's face when the realization hit him:
"You'll just never love The Moody Blues, will you, Brian?"
I had to be honest. After all, he and I ranked many of the same artists in the highest regard. From The Zombies to Love to The Stooges.
But The Moody Blues...he was right. I just could not get with them. Still can't, honestly.

Well, before I go any further, and if he is reading this (and crying), I will right now list a few Moody Blues songs that I can say I like very very much and wouldn't kick out of bed, as it were:

1) Peak Hour
2) Tuesday Afternoon
3) Evening (Time to Get Away)
4) Voices in the Sky
5) Questions
6) Thinking Is the Best Way to Travel
7) Lovely to See You

So there. That wasn't so hard.

That same person, I was surprised to find, enjoyed listening to Bob Marley. I couldn't rap my head around that. It took me getting into Desmond Dekker, a few years later, to discover early Marley, and then allow myself to get mellow enough to appreciate the slow stuff (this was when you wouldn't catch me within 20 yards of a Grateful Dead album).

So my point is this: If a band forms because everyone worships and wants to be, say, Radiohead, or Arcade Fire or The Clash, guess what you're going to sound like? And guess how interesting that will be?

Did you form a band just so you could get compared to the band you worship?

In fact, it helps if there's even an unspoken (for the sake of keeping the peace) extreme distaste for an artist within a band. That's how new sounds evolve. Or even a guilty, unspoken love for a band. (Holy Christ, imagine if so and so actually was a HUGE Red Hot Chili Peppers fanatic this whole time?)

So, say.... one guy starts playing a bassline that's totally derivative of a Fall song. The drummer, who knows nothing of the Fall, but loves The Replacements, will steer the song in a totally different, but hopefully compatible direction. The guitar player who worships Richard Thompson might suggest an interesting twist. And badda bing.There's an interesting band. (Just don't mention the name "Richard Thompon" to the bassist or he'll ditch the song--and possibly the band-- immediately).

You see, by not forcing one's taste on the others, but just presenting ideas, the whole band can learn.
It's like putting dill in a recipe and not telling the person who you know would never eat it if that person knew it had dill.

I could get totally turned off if I said "bloody great riff there! It makes the song!" Then the person said "Yeah, it's a total Ben Harper rip off". So sometimes it's good not to say anything.

Let's take for example one band I've played with.

School For the Dead is pretty compatible, in that, for example we all like XTC. But...some of us get off on the over produced, layered, Oranges and Lemons (which could also be called Samples and Triggers (sound geek laughter)), and some of us like the sharp, angular, "seal-bark" vocals, full of jagged herky jerky stops and starts of the early stuff like Go 2 and Drums and Wires. Some find that unrewarding.

Let's look a bit more. I hope this is seen as just a fun sociological study and not a way to break up the band. Crikey, we've been together 10 years.

While sometimes compared to They Might Be Giants, only a couple of us would consider ourselves fans. Some have never seen them or ever would even entertain the idea. Some have only listened to an album of theirs all the way through because their high school girlfriend liked it. Some admit a strong distaste for them. Some really like a handful of singles but that's enough.

Some would declare Neil Diamond "boring".
Some would declare Cat Stevens "unbearable"
Some would declare The Doors "the worst".
Some like "Shattered" by the Stones. Some hate it.
Some can't name more than 3 Rush songs.
Some have probably never sat through all of Axis: Bold As Love. Or Zen Arcade. Or Physical Graffiti.
Or Band on the Run. Or Solitude Standing. Or The Head on the Door. Or anything by Billy Joel.

But some have.

Everyone loves The Velvet Underground and Robyn Hitchcock as far as I know?

Most will diss anything Clapton post '74.

Some know more about 80's hair metal than they're letting on.

Some have a hard time not falling asleep to women singing without drums.

Some will say they like King Crimson, despite never having listened to more than two songs.

Some could argue the relative merits of various Beach Boys and Kinks albums for hours, without the help of external stimuli.

One might name their kid Miles after a famous jazz musician.

One would consider naming his kid Elvin for similar reasons. But probably won't.

Elvin would be a great name for a cat, however.

Only a couple of us could name more than 7 Monkees songs.

At least one of us could name 100 Monkees songs, who wrote them and the month they were recorded.

Some can sit through an entire Dire Straits album.
Some can maybe sit through half of a Dire Straits song.

One or two could be happy driving cross country listening to nothing but oldies stations. One or two might arrange for other transport were that the case.

Some grew up on 70's Pink Floyd. Some have never even listened to Dark Side of the Moon or The Wall beginning to end.

Some only like the Syd Barrett stuff.

Some lives were changed when one got some into Harry Nilsson.

One didn't think anyone under 40 listened to solo Paul Simon (back when we were all far from 40)

One could expound for an hour on all the differences between 1969, 1973 and 1977 Grateful Dead and why they sound like three different bands. Then offer to fully demonstrate using an 11.3 hour playlist.

That same person might need some money or medication if made to listen to Phish.

Some may have never thought they'd be in a band where the singer played an acoustic guitar.

Some really like Queen. Some just don't get it. One had to admit that he'd never paid full attention to Bohemian Rhapsody until made to play it for a few thousand people.

Some love The Fall. Some just don't get it.
Some love Exile on Main Street. Some probably never will.
Most love the Beatles.
Some much more than others.

Some might prefer newer bands that sound like The Beatles.

Some might find Buzzcocks much more interesting than The Ramones.

Some might like Frank Zappa? Some definitely don't.

Some might not be able to see what the fuss is about with NRBQ or Steely Dan. Some won't care to try to find out. Some may ask for a mix CD to learn and be eternally thankful.

And yet, whenever we get together, since the first time, we sound like School For the Dead. Crazy, that.

Henning's Two Songs at a Loretta Lynn Tribute Show

2012-01-18T15:43:00.001-05:00

Honky Tonk Girl: A Tribute to Loretta Lynn

2012-01-14T12:41:00.001-05:00

Sunday, January 15, 2012
The Iron Horse Music Hall - Northampton, MA

Eilen Jewell Band

Salvation Alley String Band

Rusty Belle

Jim Armenti

The Boxcar Lilies

Heather Maloney

Lesa Bezo

Henning Ohlenbusch

Rocky Roberts and Friends

Valley musicians interpret the music of the legendary coal miner's daughter in our annual January tribute show with proceeds to the Pioneer Valley Red Cross

Digital Killed The Analog Star

2012-01-06T15:23:00.004-05:00

We reached the tipping point finally.

"NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The times they are a-changin'. For the first time in history, digital music sales topped the physical sale of music.

According to a Nielsen and Billboard report, digital music purchases accounted for 50.3% of music sales in 2011. Digital sales were up 8.4% from the previous year, while physical album sales declined 5%.

Full article:

A Video for Meatballs

2011-12-22T15:39:00.001-05:00

The Great Rub Wrongways Records Five Dollar Sale

2011-12-14T11:47:00.002-05:00

The Great Rub Wrongways Records Five Dollar Sale

From now until the end of the year you can order a whole
mess of our albums (normally $10) for FIVE DOLLARS!

We're trying to organize our inventory, maybe you can help!

Visit the FIVE DOLLAR SALE

How Do You Give Music?

2011-12-07T15:46:00.001-05:00

One of the problems with the new ways that we listen to and procure music these days is that it has made gift giving more difficult. Particularly albums use to be on everyone's lists. But, people aren't listening to records or CDS so much anymore and it's not really possible to give someone an album on iTunes. You can make a playlist and then give them that I guess but it's really not the same. You can give gift certificates but that takes out the whole point of wanting to share specific music. Even mix CDs don't feel as special as mix tapes. Mix CDs feel like a bunch of individual songs, mix tapes felt like whole things.

What's one to do?

A New Christmas Song

2011-12-07T15:36:00.001-05:00

Coming Home Alone On Christmas Eve by Henning Ohlenbusch

Gig Diary - SFTD at The Basement - December 3, 2011

2011-12-05T12:23:00.001-05:00

It'd been a while since I wrote a gig diary but this one needed to be written.

The goal was for us to meet at The Basement at 7:15 so we could load in and set everything up to get the show started by 8:00. The day pretty much revolved around that looming time; 7:15. Have to eat dinner early and leave time to pack up and load the car with all the stuff. Need to make set lists and remember to bring mics, and cables, and stands since they only have a partial P.A.

At 7:12, I turned the corner onto Gothic Street to find cars parked in all the spots even way back at the end. This is unusual for this time, usually you can find a few spots back there even on busy Northampton weekend nights. As I drove on I saw the reason for the full spots. There was a barrier blocking the road and a sign that said Construction Crews only. Behind the barricade was the second half of Gothic Street. The half that the Basement is on. The street was empty for about 100 yards and then there was a battle zone. Giant halogen lights on high towers lit the area. The whole scene was clouded in dust. Twenty, or so, guys in hard hats were down there, giants machinery stretched high in the air lifting pipes and steel beams. I rolled down the window and could hear the churning of engines and scraping of rock. All of this was happening in the Basement parking lot. Huh.

I made a U-Turn and headed to Center Street where I double parked with my flashers on right next to the police station. I ran down the steps of the back entrance to the Basement and approached the noisy chaos of construction. As I drew close I saw gaping holes the ground and four or five workers shoveling hot road fill directly in front of the Basement door. The bar was all dark and there was absolutely no access. "Perhaps this show is cancelled again." I thought.

Then I saw an exasperated Eric Suher standing watching the work with his arms folded. He saw me and came over and assured me that the bar would open and the show would go on and the work should be done in five minutes. You see, the building next to the Basement is the Northampton Police Station and it is being dismantled and moved in to a new building next door. The construction is continuing for another year or so. Eric tried to remain as positive about it all as he could and said we "should" be able to pull up our cars and load in shortly.

As it turns out, the construction crew was working on a different schedule, though they did clear a foot path for us to the door.

We ended up having to load in from cars pulled over pretty far away. I was nervous to leave the cars alone illegally stopped right next to the police departmenr so I stayed there keeping watch while Brian carried all his drums down the slippery back entrance. It was cold and dark and it all was feeling very pointless. I wondered how anybody was even going to find their way back to the club to come to the show.

Ken pulled up and with the help of some friends, he loaded in his stuff. I could see Max through the trees as a sillouette pushing his bass amp through the cloud of dust beneath the towering steam shovels. Shortly after, I saw Lord Russ in a similar light carrying his guitars past the construction crews.

A friend happened past and offered to watch the cars while Ken and I brought in all the rest of the gear. Then I went off to try to find parking. This was about 45 minutes later and the road was still closed and the crews were still at it. I parked pretty far down Gothic in the James Lot and walked back to the club, feeling like I was trespassing as I walked right through all the work, one eye on the hardhats and the other on the enormous steel plate that was hanging from a crane above my head.

Inside the club, I was surprised to see a number of people already sitting in the seats. Everyone was scampering around trying to set up as quickly as possible. It was already half an hour after we were meant to start. Then I realized that I forgot the case with the microphones and cables. I showed Russ and Tony all the lights that I brought so they could set them up and I ran back through the war-zone to the car and drove home, grabbed the stuff, and came back hoping the road would now be open and I could get near the venue. No such luck, I parked in the same spot and ran back again with my mic case.

We set up the rest as quickly as possible and Lord Russ finally started at about 9:00.

He put on a great show, of course, switching between acoustic guitar songs and pieces with backing tracks. He also debuted a few excellent new numbers. At the end of his set he invited Brian, Ken, and I up and we played Juices. I played Max's bass which felt different to me. I later learned that is was brand new and I had been the first to play it out. It was purple and sparkly.

We started our set as fast as we could. It was going to be cut in half, of course, because of the loss of time. We played through a lot of the new songs and the band did an amazing job at them I was never quite there unfortunately, I was so harried and rushed from the chaotic load-in / set-up that I never was able to catch my breath. Add to that a very distracting table of piercing loud-talkers directly in my line of vision and I never felt fully immersed. I had been looking forward to this show.

Luckily and amazingly, we had a room full of people to play for. They saved the day! Friends and strangers listened and made it all worth while. When I saw the mess out front, I was fully expecting a poor turn out. Thank you everyone, for coming and for battling the obstacles.

Tony later told me he actually climbed a chain link fence to get to the show. Not exactly sure how he got himself into that one, but it's hilarious to picture isn't it?

School for the Dead and Lord Russ Together Again

2011-11-22T11:28:00.001-05:00

Secret Concert

2011-11-09T11:17:00.002-05:00

There are still tickets available for a secret loft concert in Holyoke, MA this Saturday.

Go here to learn how to get in: Dark Dining Room

Pay for a Review

2011-11-08T11:42:00.002-05:00

As a record label owner, this is the kind of sad thing I deal with on a daily basis:

RE: Leicester Bangs /Amazon Review for HENNING GOES TO THE MOVIES

Dear Henning,

My name is Sandra Greenand I’m the Reviews Editor of Leicester Bangs webzine (links below).

We’re a music-basedpublication with an emphasis on breaking new artists. We get well over athousand hits a day on our website, mostly from music fans keen to discover newartists, and we’d like to invite you to participate in our ever-popular ReviewSection of the website. If you’re interested, please read on and then reply tothis e-mail.

First of all, we charge £11.99for the service. As soon as we’ve received instructions from you to proceed,we’ll forward a PayPal bill for your attention.

Once payment has beenreceived, one of our writers will listen to your music online, and write a reviewof the recording, accentuating the positive aspects of the music (no badreviews – we’ve contacted you because we’ve enjoyed what we’ve heard so far).Please note, all reviews published on the Leicester Bangs are linked to CDBaby, Amazon.co.uk (if the title is listed at time of publication) and to yourown website / MySpace page, so readers are only one click away from becomingcustomers.

Our typical reviews arebetween 100 and 200 words and all are published on individual pages within theLeicester Bangs site. Once the review is online, we’ll send you a confirmatione-mail with links to your review, and another to inform our mailing list ofover two thousand addresses, including hundreds of music journalists as well asour readership.

Please feel free toreprint it on your own website, or to use quotes from the review in any promotionalway you see fit.

Our review will automatically be reprinted on your product pages on Amazon.co.ukand Amazon.com.

Please note, there’s noneed to send us any music or a CD. We’ll find everything we need online.

Thank you, and hope tohear from you soon.

Sandra Green.
Leicester Bangs ReviewsEditor

PS: Please note, your review will be written either by our editor, Robor senior writer, Simon. Both are veteran reviewers with nearly 30 yearsexperience of writing between them.

Think they'll write me a bad review for posting this?

School for the Dead at the Florence Rag Shag 2011

2011-11-07T15:35:00.003-05:00

Photo by Bill Childs

Don Lennon, Henning, Original Cowards, Jason Bourgeois

2011-11-04T09:16:00.001-04:00

Friday, November 4, 2011 at 8:00 PM Flywheel in Easthampton, MA

DON LENNON
In the early/mid-1990s, Don Lennon served as lead singer of Boston's The Umpteens, who released three cassettes and one single during their brief tenure. Lennon went solo in 1997, knocking out deadpan songs in the tradition of Jonathan Richman or the Magnetic Fields, about topics ranging from standup comics to Dave Matthews to minimum wage employment.

HENNING OHLENBUSCH
Henning Ohlenbusch is a singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/producer living in Northampton. He fronts the band School for the Dead and is a member of The Fawns, The Gay Potatoes, The Aloha Steamtrain, The Rub Wrongways Caravan of Stars & Sitting Next To Brian.

ORIGINAL COWARDS
Equal parts garage rock stomp & '80s alternative jangle, with some psych/mod influence for good measure.

JASON BOURGEOIS
Featuring Ken Maiuri, playing the classics.

An Instant Song - Snowstorm on Halloween.

2011-11-01T10:25:00.001-04:00

On October 29, 2011, the Northeast United States was hit with a crazy out-of-season snowstorm. The heavy snow combined with trees that still had leaves resulted in everybody losing power.

Our annual School for the Dead Frankenconcert was canceled, the house got really cold and dark, cell phone and land lines were unusable.

But worst of all, Trick or Treating was canceled in most towns due to dangers from fallen branches and downed power lines.

When the power came on 36 hours later at my home, I was so happy that I quickly wrote this song.

I uploaded it to Facebook but I couldn't get it on YouTube without wi-fi.Anyway, here it is.

Hope you enjoy it.

By the way: we DID get two li'l trick or treaters: Hulk and Thor.

School for the Dead's Frankenconcert II

2011-10-25T09:11:00.001-04:00

Video for Henning's - The Straight Story

2011-10-19T13:49:00.001-04:00

2011-10-12T16:05:00.001-04:00

Henning Goes To The Movies by Jason Bourgeois

2011-10-03T12:29:00.002-04:00

Henning Goes to the Movies- promo video from junglejasonjr on Vimeo.

2011-09-22T08:52:00.000-04:00

Thursday - September 22, 2011 at 10:00 PM
School for the Dead, The Fawns, Sitting Next To Brian, and Lord Russ join a large roster of bands celebrating the anniversary of the Reanimate the Baystate concert series at The Sierra Grille in Northampton, MA

Friday - September 23, 2011 at 8:00 PM
Henning joins Adam Greenberg, Rick Murnane, and Seth Adams for a songwriter in the round show at The Basement in Northampton, MA

2011-09-19T15:53:00.001-04:00

School for the Dead, The Fawns, and Sitting Next To Brian are playing at this event on this Thursday along with a long list of other bands, that I can't seem to find anywhere (but I know The Novels and The Claudia Malibu are involved and I think Lord Russ).

We'll be playing brief sets highlighted with our own versions of songs by some good ole Baystate Hotel bands.

School for the Dead will be playing songs by The Claudia Malibu, The Lonesome Brothers, and Drunk Stuntmen.

Should be a fun night. It starts at 10:00 and the place is staying open an extra hour ('til 2) to fit in all the music.

Names

2011-09-18T12:23:00.003-04:00

This year’s student’s names list, I must admit, is not as rich as in year’s past. For one thing, I have a lot of students this year that I’ve had in the past so previous listees like Emily Aronica, Kyleigh Krawczyk and Alejandro Camerieri-Rodriguez are not eligible and I also have fewer students overall this year. So for 2011, I’m limiting the list to 5, with the number 4 and 5 slots actually going to students I had last year but who were squeezed out of that list.

5. Olivia Passafaro

4. Adrian Plaisance

3. Haakon Harstrup

2. Asher Wilson (the “sound” of the name isn’t what’s so special, it’s the fact that I’m simply reminded of the songwriting credits, [Tony Asher/Brian Wilson] on many of the tunes on one of my favorite albums ever, The Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds.” Currently, there are three Wilsons at our school and I’ll be working with two of them, while the third possesses a much closer connection to “Pet Sounds” than Asher does.

1. Lily Woodward-Logan

Name posts from previous years:
2009 Names
2010 Names
2010 More Names

Henning Show This Friday

2011-09-14T14:26:00.001-04:00

The Aloha Steamtrain as Queen at Transperformance 2011

2011-09-12T17:30:00.001-04:00

Henning Goes To The Movies is Here!

2011-08-24T08:50:00.000-04:00

The latest album from Henning Ohlenbusch was officially released on August 23, 2011. It's available in CD format right here or for download at Itunes, Emusic, and Bandcamp etc. If you order a CD it'll be shipped first class for free right away.

<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://henningohlenbusch.bandcamp.com/album/henning-goes-to-the-movies"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Henning Goes To The Movies by Henning Ohlenbusch&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>
It's nine songs about nine movies. We hope you enjoy it!

Follow Henning Goes To The Movies on Facebook and Twitter now.

Pre-Order Download of "Henning Goes To The Movies"

2011-08-08T12:51:00.000-04:00

You can now pre-order "Henning Goes To The Movies" for downloading from the wonderful Bandcamp. The files come in a number of quality choices. If you order today, you'll get instant downloads of two songs "Joe Vs. The Volcano" and "Poltergeist" and when the album is released on August 23rd, you'll get an email with the rest of the songs and artwork etc.

<p>&amp;lt;a href="http://henningohlenbusch.bandcamp.com/album/henning-goes-to-the-movies"&amp;gt;Henning Goes To The Movies by Henning Ohlenbusch&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;</p>

"Day in the Decade" Beatles tribute segment from 1977 Rolling Stone Anniversary

2011-08-06T13:23:00.000-04:00

I'm not exactly sure what to say about this. It's not a parody.

Music Brain

2011-08-04T11:55:00.000-04:00

More times than not, if I have a band practice in the evening, I can not get to sleep that night. It's like some part of my brain is awoken during the rehearsal and it won't shut off again. What is this?

The lyrics from School for the Dead's next album

2011-07-27T10:33:00.000-04:00

The lyrics from
School for the Dead's
next album.

Free Outdoor Concert (Thursday July 28)

2011-07-27T08:57:00.000-04:00

Main Street Northampton.
There shouldn't be any snow on Thursday.

We're playing a free, outdoor, all-ages show right at the spot pictured here on Thursday (July 28). The Northampton Sidewalk Sales are happening this weekend and we are going to be a part of them. This is the line-up:

5:00 - The Primate Fiasco
6:00 - The Fawns
7:00 - School for the Dead

What do you think? Wouldn't Saturday evening be a nice time to take a stroll through Northampton? Maybe get an ice-cream or a slice and hang out with us?

We played here last year and it was one of my favorite concerts of the year.

SFTD Recording Journal (Part 3)

2011-07-25T10:07:00.001-04:00

July 23, 2011: This is the weekend when we track Ken's parts for this new School for the Dead album.

Ken and I arrive at 11:00 after stopping at the local Shaw's for some provisions. The piano had been tuned during the week and after we load in our stuff, Ken sits down and starts playing Queen songs. The piano sounds beautiful.

At around noon, we begin recording. The first song is "Jake and Kim Broke Up (Leave Me Out Of It)" and Frank brings out the good old Farfisa organ. That song is so fun and now it is even more so.

By one o'clock the Hammond organ parts for "Turn It Down" are finished, Ken takes a hint from Tony's goofball guitar parts and creates some hilarious parts of his own. This song is so ridiculous.

The heat-wave continues even in the forests of New Hampshire and the room starts to get hot and humid, but we prevail while the dog and cat wander around, occasionally collapsing in lazy heaps on the floor.

Ken recoding piano, Wurlitzer, melodica, Farfisa,
Nashville-tuned acoustic guitar, accordion, bells, and pianet.
Missing from pitcture: hammond organ, electric piano, and Emu synthesizer

We move on to the foreboding, "Waiting for Life" and Ken switches to the alternate electric piano which lives in the other room. He must play the song while avoiding the low C key because it sounds crackly. He powers through and the song takes on a new life (this would happen to all the songs this weekend). As he switches to the Hammond to add some percussion doubles, my iPhone tells me that Amy Whinehouse just died.

After "Waiting For Life" organ, we take a short break while Frank makes some iced-coffee. Ken and I have peanut butter sandwiches.

At 3:00 we resume and I record a new scratch vocal for Waiting For Life, and then Ken adds piano. I'm sitting back on the comfy sofa sort of between the piano and the studio monitors. From where I am I can hear the actual piano and I can also hear it coming through the board. It sounds huge and beautiful, as though it is in a room specifically treated for piano recitals.

At 3:45 we approach "Rumor Mill". I had mentioned that piano might be good on that song as well. Ken sits down to try it, Frank hits record. Done.

4:00 we stay at the piano for "Levitation". After Ken plays his part, we double some of it with muted piano strings. This requires me to stand on one side using the flat of my hand on an octave of strings while Ken does the same with his left hand simultaneously playing the part with his right. It was nice to feel the strings vibrate through my fingers as they were struck.

Ken then adds Wurlitzer to this song and we begin a search for a good mellotron patch on the synths and computers. Ken plays the part on my Emu and Frank records it as audio but also as midi notes so that he can continue adding sounds later. Fancy.

At 5:45, we start "She Does, She Does". Ken plays the intro riff on the Whurly while at the same time I play it on the Emu. It was fun, Ken adds some more Whurly parts and then sits at the piano and plays on the chorus, basically flipping the song over and giving it twice the depth that it started out with. Frank and I shake our heads at the crazy beautiful voicings that Ken finds for this song. Imagine for a moment, if you will, that you wrote a bunch of songs and then a group of friends came along and spent time, and energy, put in thought and heart and they made all the songs sound much better than you imagined they ever would.

Dinner break! Ken, Frank, Sky and I went into town to go out to eat and...you know what? It's a long story that's probably not very important. Lets just say that three restaurants and three hours later, I finally got to eat my pizza.

After dinner (or while I was eating my you-know-what-I'll-just-take-it-to-go pizza on the sofa), Ken and Frank jumped right into "I Don't Know About Anyone Else But" with the so cool Pianet and then acoustic piano. The Pianet sounded really nice and we spent time making sure it weaved in and out with Tony's parts in a complimentary way.

"Saving Your Life Is Going To Be Real Interesting" then came to life with some piano and organ. As we were wrapping up for the evening, Ken picked up the Nashville-tuned acoustic guitar and says he has an idea for a part and proceeds to twist my brain around that song in a new way. Time to go to sleep.

I awoke early the next day in the comfortable guest suite and spent a quiet morning with Dagmar the cat. Frank and Skye appeared made waffles and bacon for us. Delicious.

At around 10:30 we start recording again. The first song is "Infinite Kitchen". Ken fires up the Hammond Organ and the first sound to pop up is perfect. We track through it and double it with the Hammond percussion. While this happens, I came up with a strange little part on the guitar which I then translate to the Pianet and we record it.

My journal notes at this point gets a bit brief:

11:45 percussive organ on "People You See Regularly Never Grow Old"
12:00 "Wrong Way Out Of Town" piano. 12:10 Done.
12:15 Finished organ.
12:20 "I Wasn't Looking For This" piano. Awesome.
12:45 "Somebody Else's Problem" Wurly.
1:00 Frank fixes strap on Ken's accordion, a neighborhood cat prowls through the backyard.
1:25 Start accordion on "Bad Day Done"
1:40 Switch to melodica instead, then piano.
2:05 Nashville-tuned Guitar on "Saving Your Life Is Going To Be Real Interesting". Sounds like sunshine.
2:25 Done.

And that was that. One weekend and we have amazing head-shaking parts for fourteen songs. Frank and Ken make a great team. Next stop, the rest of Tony's guitars and then my stuff. So far, it's all looking good, folks. Thanks for reading.

Pre-Order: Henning Goes To The Movies

2011-07-19T15:30:00.009-04:00

From Rub Wrongways Records:
You heard it here first. Rub Wrongways Records is offering the chance to pre-order the long awaited new album by Henning Ohlenbusch. If you order now, when the boxes of CDs arrive at Rub Wrongways Records a disc will be pulled out and placed into an envelope and mailed to you immediately. Be the first on your block to hear "Henning Goes To The Movies."

ABOUT THE ALBUM

It's 2011, is it still okay to release a concept album? Celebrated New England songwriter Henning Ohlenbusch thinks so. "Henning Goes To The Movies" consists of nine songs about nine movies. Ohlenbusch describes the album this way: "Like everything in life, movies are experienced differently by each viewer. On this record, I tried to express in music how these nine films impacted me personally. At the outset, I established one rule: I was not allowed to revisit a film until I composed and recorded the song that it inspired me to write. In this way, I hope that each piece genuinely conveys the ways in which each movie has stuck with me throughout the years."

The nine songs on the album are: Joe Vs. The Volcano, The Straight Story, Poltergeist, The Year My Voice Broke, Planes Trains and Automobiles, Logan's Run, Superbad, Amélie, and Meatballs. Though many of these films are widely considered to be comedies, the songs here are mostly gentle and melancholy, touching on the moving aspects of the films, whether they be sympathetic characters or defining moments. It's a relaxed, friendly record. The songs don't try to push the listener, but rather invite them to settle down for the journey. As the chorus of The Straight Story explains, "I don't care how long it takes. I don't mind how slow it seems. I'll get there."

Ohlenbusch sings all the parts and plays all of the instruments (with the exception of the drums on Amélie by Brian Marchese). The album was recorded, during a particularly harsh New England winter, entirely by Ohlenbusch in his small basement studio, buried under the snow, with just him and his instruments. Some songs feature just Ohlenbusch’s voice and his trusted dark red Guild acoustic guitar while others have full arrangements. Listen for melodicas, glockenspiel, warm synthesizers, electric guitars and basses, pianos, organs, and various little percussion instruments. The production, like the rest of the album is personal and intimate with Ohlenbusch's simple and natural voice conversationally riding on top of the carefully selected instruments.

Most noteworthy, perhaps, is how Ohlenbusch's well-crafted lyricism manages to cut to the heart of each film. Poltergeist: "Nobody's acting like they should in the blue-eyed houses of my neighborhood." Amelie: "My apartment might seem real tragic. I’m sitting here scheming secretly, part of me dreaming this magic might find its way back to me." or Superbad, who's song takes place during one escalator ride (a nod to Nicholsson Baker's novel "The Mezzanine"?): "It’s a thought that’s as jarring as the homeroom bells. The next time you see me, I might be someone else."

Though each song is about a movie, the listener need not be familiar with the films to enjoy the album. Ohlenbusch explains, "It was important to me that each of these songs stands on its own merit. For most of them, the listener might have never even known what the inspiration was had the songs not been titled the way that they are." For those that are familiar with the films, Ohlenbusch hopes to "convey the mood and spirit of the films how I experienced and remember them over time." This explains how a movie as goofy seeming as 1979's Meatballs starring Bill Murray could yield a chorus like "To casually and gracefully interact with others, to naturally and easily articulate my thoughts, this seemingly instinctual trait of human nature, confoundingly has evaded me for the better part of my life. Just to have a conversation, what would that be like?"

The Green River Festival - A Recap

2011-07-18T16:19:00.001-04:00

The Green River Festival or as I call it, National Get-A-Sunburn-Day, happened this past weekend and School for the Dead played on Saturday. We had an interesting line-up for this show. It was Brian, Max, Me, and Lesa Bezo.

We were scheduled to play at 6:00 on the Meltdown Stage (thanks to Bill Childs), but Lesa, Brian, and I opted to arrive much earlier so we could enjoy the festival. Rock-star parking brought us in close with a locker-on-wheels to store things like sunblock, water, a blanket, changes of clothes etc. We got to see Terry Adams and the New NRBQ who were quite good. Lesa and I could only handle seeing a few songs though because of the relentless sun on that hot, hot day. We watched for a bit and then strolled off to put our blanket down in the shade of THE tree on the hill overlooking frisbee players, and hot air balloons, and a little train ride for kids.

We ran into many, many people that we knew. Some I hadn't seen for years. I ate some excellent festival food. The vendors at this particular festival were heads above any other fair type things that I've been to. Wood-oven baked pizza, chicken veggie wraps, clam strips, and chicken satay. Brilliant.

After NRBnew, we were excited to see Kermit Ruffins who we know from watching the HBO series Treme. Kermit's first song was perfect, the rest of his set was strange covers of 1970's and 1980's lite rock radio hits. It was a bit of a bummer since we were hoping for some more traditional New Orleans music. But what do we know about anything? Nothing!

Burned out from the sun, we returned to our blanket which was no longer in the shade. Luckily we discovered another hillside with abundant shadows of trees. We flopped down there and stared up at the wispy clouds while being able to hear music coming from all three stages at the same time. It was actually nice to hear it like that. It had the kind of chaotic festival sound to it that made me crave french fries.

Two little girls parade their crafty crafts across the lower field of the festival.

We played our set in the little white tent at exactly 6:00 to a very hot and tired looking crowd. The sun came in at an angle and managed to cover half of the grass floor in the tent, so the majority of the crowd sat to my left in the shade as I sang. Others stood just outside the tent. A trio of young and tanned hippies danced joyously to Thinking of a Time and Super Hero. I was ecstatic.

Lesa sang harmonies on all the songs and played guitar on the last two (Periscope and Omnivore). She did a great job and receive many compliments on her boots and cool shirt. We played a very energetic and somewhat rocking set. I'd heard a lot of music that day and we were the first rock that I knew of. It's not like we are Motorhead or anything but I felt like we sent out some nice angst across the vast colorful fields of grass and beach blankets.

We sold a few CDs after our set and I talked to a few nice people with sweat dripping into my eyes. My sweat, not theirs. I think.

After we cooled down a bit in the shade we got some dinner and then weaved our way to the front of the big stage to see Toots and the Maytals. They pulled a we-have-a-secret-opener-in-the-beginning-of-our-set on the audience but eventually Toots came out and he killed in his leather vest and pants. He was very powerful and full of energy. Unfortunately, we were getting crushed by very aggressive reggae fans. The standing/dancing crowd was pretty thick and a whole lot of unfortunate folks held firm to their blankets and chairs and coolers and umbrellas in the midst of it. One older woman near me sat in a lawn chair with a whole lot of other chairs and coolers and folderal, people were struggling to get past or to find a place to stand and she just sat there ignoring it all and working on what appeared to be a crossword puzzle. She was a confused time traveler, perhaps, intent on doing what SHE WAS DOING despite its effect on all those around her. "Who put this concert here?!"

We watched some of the great set but eventually got elbowed out by one too many sweat drenched tie-dyed shirt. Anyway they were starting to light up all the hot air balloons on the other side of the field. We broke free of the crowd and the cooler night air greeted us. We weaved through the blankets and made our way down into the pitch-black otherworldliness of the balloon field. It was beautiful and dreamy.

Then we went home and watched Later with Jools Holland.

A perfect day.

The lighting of the hot air balloons. Awesome.

Singer/songwriter

2011-07-18T14:47:00.003-04:00

Those that like Elliott Smithy singer/songwriters, you might like the music of one of my former students and musical collaborators. He has just released his third album and I have to admit I'd like this even if I didn't know the kid personally. Produced by TW Walsh.

Cameron Stenger

Short story

2011-07-15T09:56:00.005-04:00

A few days ago, I found out that a piece I submitted to a periodical has been chosen for publication (the $250 will be much appreciated!) It's an article about my experience working with students on modernizing Shakespeare in some of my literature classes. I'll share it when it is officially published next January but for now, I'd like to share a short story that I also submitted that didn't get selected but that I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Shakespeare & Poems in Portuguese

Peering through the screen door at John, I explain, “I’m headed back to campus- I just thought I’d swing by…”
Ushering me into the hallway with a clap on my shoulder, John interrupts, “Come in, come in…”
“…I just thought I’d swing by to see if you needed a ride.”
While rubbing Biscuit vigorously on the top of her head as she bounds in and around my stride, whipping her tail excitedly against my jeans, John responds, “Thanks, mang, but Sylvia has roped me into going to her eighth grade open house tonight so I won’t be heading back to the dorm for a few hours.”
“Huh. I thought those engagements were normally intended for the parents,” I whisper, while casting a glance towards a napping Mr. Fialho reclining supine in his easy chair, a Portuguese community newspaper spread across his chest rising and falling with each breath.
“They only have translators for Spanish,” John explains, whisking me into a chair in the kitchen and offering me a snack.
While trying to decide between the box of donuts, plated pile of chocolate chip cookies, and bowl of oranges, I overhear Mrs. Fialho asking John and Sylvia, who are already putting on their coats, “Because my English is so bad, Sylvia, you are… are shamed of your mama?” She attempts to continue but is interrupted by the answer, “Don’t worry about it, Ma” and the dispute is settled as if the outcome depended not on the words spoken but the way in which they were. Mrs. Fialho’s stammering has no chance against Sylvia’s confidently spoken flow of English.
After zipping up her jacket and flinging a tiny matching purse over her shoulder, Sylvia lightly kisses her mother on the cheek, “Love you, Ma” and Mrs. Fialho replies, “I luff you too, Sylvia” above the din of youngest sibling David and several cousins in a nearby bedroom erupting at the consequence of some event occurring on the Nintendo game being played. She starts to add, “And take careful, John, when you are driving,” but the two have left by the time she manages to finish the sentence. Finally, she hurries to the door and yells something in Portuguese to the two before they get in the car.
Just as I start chomping on a honey-glazed donut, John and Sylvia’s brother, Louie, who’s a year or so younger than John and me, plops down in the adjacent chair, smirking. With the dark shoulder-length curls that defy his father’s idea of a real man’s hairstyle and his smooth flow of slang that defies complete comprehension by his mother, Louie looks like he’s just barely tolerated in the household.
“Whassup, Rock Star?” he asks as he lunges for a donut. But before I get a chance to answer, Mrs. Fialho shuffles back into the kitchen and squeezes in between Louie and me, apparently having no idea how uncomfortably close I find this. She brushes her hands on her apron, and with a disarming smile, grabs my cheeks and rubs them with her slightly damp hands. “Tony, such a doll! How you like de food, yes? Such luffly boy, such beautiful blue ice and blond hair. Going to be star just like my Louie, wit your kitars, oh yes.”
I return her smile, but shove the donut back in my mouth to cover it up, self-conscious about how patronizing it may have appeared, as if somehow I should get some sort of credit for paying attention to Mrs. Fialho, whose own kids don’t pay her much at all. Suddenly, Louie takes this opportunity to sigh heavily, then squeeze a duck squawk sound out of the side of his mouth. It’s bizarre, Mrs. Fialho standing still in front of me with her huge smile and bright eyes magnified by the powerful lenses in her glasses and Louie behind her, his eyes wide open, cocking his head from left to right a la Harpo Marx, silently mocking his mother’s good-natured hospitality.
“Sometimes when I eat my lunch at work, I write de…” Mrs. Fialho begins in English, then asks Louie in Portuguese the translation for a word. Louie looks to me, with his mouthful of donut, and mumbles, “Yeah, yeah, the poems, Ma.” When she doesn’t seem to have picked up the word from his garbled utterance, he impatiently barks, “Poems, Ma!” and adds “What the hell, yo?” all the while smirking as he looks at me.
“You know poems, yes, Tony?”
My silent nod is steamrolled by Louie’s exclamation, “Of course he knows what poetry is, Ma!” He caps this with another squawk, this time a slower, lower-pitched one that runs into Mrs. Fialho’s next painfully delivered sentence.
“Dese poems I am writing at my lunchbreak, dey are all in Portuguese. Maybe I can say into English.” With a snap of her fingers, she exclaims “I get dese poems, to try to read into English for you!” and exits the kitchen.
Louie sighs heavily, loudly, and asks again, “So how’s the band anyway, yo?”
I gaze over to see if Mrs. Fialho has returned from the other room yet before I answer. “Yeah, it’s cool, it’s been going pretty well.”
“Dese poems not so easy to say into English for me but I try.”
Squinting through her glasses at the words written on ripped slices of cardboard, she begins. “Wit your long hair (I try to keep my chuckle inaudible as her accent renders the phrase ‘long hair’ to sound much more like ‘lawn care’) and bright red kitar, you are a star…My Louie, I see you on de TV but you… you… can’t, Louie, you can’t see me, inside, when you are inside de TV and I am outside…I can’t say into English. Maybe I try anudder one.”
Louie groans again, shifting in his chair, then lets his tongue slide out over his bottom lip, as the poetry reading resumes.
“OK, I try dis one now. Louie, you are my star. You sing and play your kitar and de house has all such beautiful music. I make your food while you practice and fill you up when de lunch is ready. Maybe you can be star for everyone if God will help fill you up too. OK, maybe I try another.”
“That’s enough, Ma. He doesn’t want to hear anymore.”
That’s not actually true, however. After hearing the last one translated very well, I begin to understand what the first one was about and I’m curious to hear another. It hardly matters, however. Even if Louie was right in assuming I wasn’t interested, she launches into the next one.
“I work in de factory every day. I have my friends here and I like de…” She peers over the chunk of cardboard. “What is de word for de man who gives you work?”
Discarding ‘employer’, ‘manager’ and ‘foreman’ from the thesaurus residing in my native English-speaking head, I offer “Boss?”
“Yes, yes, my boss, Mister Kozub. OK, I start over. I work in de factory every day. I have my friends here and I like my boss. But my Louie will not work in de factory. He play his kitar. He make his mama proud of him when he sing such beautiful music. Now he can play his kitar for his work. Louie my star make happy everybody like he make happy his mama.”
Without a word of intermission, she shuffles the cardboard pieces and starts another. “I write my poems for Louie. I want him to become star. Maybe someday he can play such beautiful music and sing my poem for him. This would be a dream is now true for his mama.”

Yawning, drowsy from the downswing of the sugar rush brought on by the honey-glazed donuts I ingested an hour ago, I reach over to the coffee table to pick up my keys and notice they’re lying on top of a piece of paper that turns out to be a brief composition Sylvia wrote on Shakespeare.
The paper has all the trappings of an eighth-grader’s homework assignment, with impeccable penmanship in red ink at the bottom that reads, “This is good research, Sylvia, but in writing a biography on an author such as Shakespeare, try to concentrate on some of the more important works he wrote and don’t forget to discuss why readers and playgoers still find his work relevant. For example, What would people today think of two thirteen year-olds such as Romeo & Juliet getting married? etc.”
Curious, I begin to read Sylvia’s composition from the beginning. It consists of Shakespeare’s life story starting with the names of his parents and then Shakespeare’s birth date and early life. It goes on to tell about how he met his wife, when he married her and says a little about their life in Stratford, England. Next, Sylvia lists the names, births and deaths of his children and although the information is scant, Sylvia informs readers of what is known of the lives of his children.
At that moment, Mrs. Fialho sits down in the adjacent chair and exhales heavily while smoothing out her apron. I immediately lurch upwards on the sofa, wondering whether it’s rude of me to be practically prone on her couch reading her daughter’s homework.
“Sylvia is good English writer, yes? She make her mama so proud. Just like John, so de same, good students, get good grades. And Louie play such beautiful music, like you. I love for you to bring your kitar and you and Louie play on de porch. And David, still young boy. Mama always like de youngest specially.” She yawns softly and continues. “Father can’t speak into English good. Maybe better than me…” she adds, although I know this is nowhere near the truth.
“How you like Sylvia’s English…write…into English writing? Is hard to learn English. I know. She speak so fast, I can never hear. She talk on de telephone to her friends when we make dinner. Sylvia good inside de kitchen like her mama.” As she says this, she smiles and I nod and smile myself, silently as always, afraid to intimidate her with my fluent English.
“Yes, Sylvia watch David and Pedro and Josue, her…her…children of my sister…when Maria, my sister is working. So she’s such good girl, I let her go wit her friends sometime and not wash dishes after eat.”
Casting a glance towards the still slumbering Mr. Fialho on the other side of the room, she whispers, “Her father not like I let her go wit friends but he not know. Different here, not like in Portugal.”
I nod again.
“Sometimes maybe I like better here too.”

Guitar Strings Looking Like You Hear Them

2011-07-14T17:22:00.001-04:00

School for the Dead at the Green River Fest - Saturday

2011-07-14T11:49:00.000-04:00

School for the Dead (with special guest Lesa Bezo) will be performing at 6:00 on the Meltdown Stage at The Green River Festival on Saturday.

We'll be there hanging out all day, too. Maybe we'll see you?

No Stage, No Mic, No Problem

2011-07-12T18:24:00.002-04:00

Brian and Henning on the Radio

2011-07-12T12:07:00.000-04:00

Tuesday July 12, Brian and Henning will be playing an acoustic set of songs at The Tuesday Market in Northampton, MA at 4:00. There will be an interview and song aired later at 5:00 on WRSI. You can tune in at 93.9 FM or listen online. See if you can hear the sweat falling from our brows.

SFTD Recording Journal (Part 2)

2011-07-11T10:30:00.001-04:00

On Sunday July 10, 2011 (Debby Harry's birthday), Brian pulled into my driveway at 9:00. As I was bringing my guitar out to the car, I saw him get out and raise the hood. "The check engine light just came on" he said as I walked over to the car, where we saw smoke coming off of the engine.

Since we are both pretty clueless in the ways of cars, we decided it'd probably be best if we didn't take the smoking car up into the nowheres of New Hampshire for the day's recording session.

Lesa was kind enough to lend us her car and we got on the road later than planned but with the knowledge that Tony would arrive before us, and since the day was about recording his guitar parts, things could begin anyway.

The ride was pleasant on a beautiful summer Sunday morning and we listened to Brian's first podcast ever. I learned a bit about Ringo Starr, it was a birthday tribute to him. I recommend a listen.

When we got to Brown Bag Studios (we drove right past it again and had to bang a louie to get back) we stepped out into the silent New Hampshire forest and heard a faint echoing of music. As we approached the building, it was clearly Tony playing guitar. But what song was it? We couldn't figure it out at first. It sounded really cool though, whatever he was playing.

We stood outside the door waiting for a break in sound so we didn't interrupt a good take and after a bit determined it was "Saving Your Life Is Going To Be Real Interesting".

Inside, we found Frank and Tony and the dog and the cat all sitting in the comfortable studio with swirling guitar sounds streaming from the speakers.

Tony was playing a beautiful green Fender something-or-other. Brian and I slumped down on the sofa and watched as Tony and Frank went through song after song. Effects pedals were switched in and out, amp settings were changed, microphones were moved, and through it all Frank and Tony sat stoically, intensely focused on their work.

Brian and I would pipe in with suggestions here and there. Tony played an interesting and hooky finger-picked part for "Saving Your Life" and then moved on to the goofy "Turn It Down" where he had us all laughing during the most absurd guitar solo during the ending. I love when a bit of music can make me laugh. His solo was perfectly bad.

Next up was "I Don't Know About Anyone Else But" where a bit of tremolo was added and I again, had the privilege of hearing clearly the parts that Tony had been playing live. For a few minutes, Tony took a break while I added my part to that song. He was allowed a glass of water but then he went right back into recording.

We dove into "Jake and Kim Broke Up (Leave Me Out Of It)" and Tony got to pull out some of his surf guitar chops. I can't tell you how nice it is to hear these songs coming to life.

"Somebody Else's Problem" was next. It's the green fender on the hooks and the wood G&L on the verses. The Mary-Tyler-Moore solo, gets doubled an octave lower by tuning some strings way down. Frank's got some great ideas, yo.

While Tony has the guitar tuned down, he jumps into his droning open-tuned part for "I Wasn't Looking For This." It was a completely unexpected part, but it grew on me in about half a second.

And that was that. The day's work was done. The songs were coming alive. It was really nice to hear them. We hadn't heard anything since we did the drums and bass. Everything sounded great. They had the right amount of energy. They had the right sound.

As Brian and I drove home, we spoke about how focused Tony was. He never got flustered or distracted. he just patiently moved from one song to the next. His wonderful parts were so different than what I would have added and therefore perfect. Frank was just as tuned-in as Tony, with his intense listening sometimes yielding musical suggestions or ideas for changing things sonically. He's got a great ear for tempo and tuning but he's also always listening for the right musical intensity as well

It's a great feeling to be working on my songs with people who I trust entirely.

Here's Tony playing solo #1 on "Jake and Kim Broke Up (Leave Me Out Of It)"

End of year albums list

2011-07-08T10:28:00.003-04:00

The music list for this year is comprised of the artists/albums that I found myself playing repeatedly for periods of time.

Bats “Daddy’s Highway”: Bouncy, simple guitar-based pop from 1987 that would satisfy anyone who likes bands like The Go-Betweens or even like Crowded House. Except with a very awkward lead vocalist who doesn’t always hit all the right notes. Still, I’m too charmed to care.

Stephin Merritt: Magnetic Fields “Distortion,” “Realism,” “Holiday,” “Get Lost,” both albums by The Sixths and Future Bible Heroes: Following my 2009 discovery of the masterpiece “69 Love Songs,” I’ve continued to be smitten by the songwriting of Stephin Merritt. His way with melodies you have to hear for yourself but below are a handful of couplets and verses from songs I discovered this year that floor me.

From “You Must Be Out Of Your Mind”:
“I want you crawling back to me/ Down on your knees, yeah/ Like an appendectomy/ Sans anesthesia.” Not only do I love the fact that a lyricist would use the phrase “sans anesthesia” (very poetic and original) but used in context here, very snarky and witty and acerbic. And a singalongable melody, too.

From “I’m A Vampire”:
“Survived the inquisition/ Been a harlot, been a queen/ I’ve lived for seven hundred years/ And I still look seventeen.” With vampires prevalent in present-day pop culture, this song should be a massive hit. It’s funny and catchy but also boasts techno instrumentation and a cool lead vocal by Claudia Gonson.

From “Drive On, Driver”:
“So take me to the airport/ I need to be extremely far away/ So I can forget about her/ I might forget about her someday/ Drive on, driver.” And while Claudia Gonson can do detached/ironic/witty well as heard in “Vampire,” she also can break your heart when given a simple, effectively sad lyric like the bridge in this song. (By the way, Merritt and his various singers gender-bend everything- you have men singing to men, women to women, and both versions of straight as well).

From “Strange Powers”:
“On a ferris wheel looking out on Coney Island/ Under more starts than there are prostitutes in Thailand/ Our hair in the air, our lips blue from cotton candy/ When we kiss, it feels like a flying saucer landing.” When he’s on, Merritt does it all- his songs are clever, original, catchy, witty, romantic, poetic, colorful, and compelling lyrically and melodically.

Cameron Stenger: “Fool’s Day,” “Where You Are,” & tracks from forthcoming third disc: Cameron is a former student from the school I still teach at. Six years ago, when he was a 10th grader, we played in a heavy rock instrumental group where Cam and I collaborated on composing songs that strung together riffs that probably resembled bands like Tool more than anything else. Not being a fan of that music in general myself, I decided to introduce Cam to some other kinds of music and once he picked up on Nick Drake and Elliott Smith in particular, his aesthetics took a drastic left turn. He picked up an acoustic, grew a beard, started writing lyrics and began showing off a decent singing voice. And he didn’t need me anymore. “Fool’s Day” is a 10-track disc that combines a handful of tunes written in his newly embraced singer/songwriter style and were recorded at Henning’s studio, a few tracks recorded on ProTools in his dorm room that rely on ambient textures as well as chord changes/ melodies and also contains an instrumental collaboration with me where we stepped away from the heavy rock riffs and instead came up with a delicious soundscape of two heavily reverbed guitars singing to each other in droney riffs and sumptuous melodic snippets. “Where You Are” finds Cameron staying consistently in his singer/songwriter style and although his singing is much more assured, and he’s found a way to make it so that his great ear for atmospheric production serves the songs more than constructs them, I prefer the first album mostly just because I personally favor eclecticism and variety over 12 songs that basically share a similar mood. Nevertheless, the tracks Cam has shared with me that will show up on his next album demonstrate that this third one has it all: sterling production supporting solid songs with meaningful lyrics, Cam’s gift for melodies & chords plus vocal performances that show that in a previous era, A&R people would be drooling over this unsigned talent.

Yo La Tengo “Painful,” “Fakebook”: Just as with Stephin Merritt, I’ve continued my affinity for Yo La Tengo from last year. “Fakebook” I’ve known for many years and still spin often whereas I just bought “Painful” recently and find they can hit this button in the pleasure center of my brain. For me, guitars/bass/drums can be so intoxicating sometimes, like food or sex or drugs.

The Impressions “Anthology”: I only listened to Disc 2 once all the way through- I can’t seem to get into those long-winded 70’s r&b jams of Curtis Mayfield but the 30 or so tracks that make up Disc One and cover the best sides of The Impressions from the 60s keep the hits coming and my attention span much prefers track times of 2:27 and 3:01 any day. This is where you’ll find the absolutely gorgeous “People Get Ready” and the fantastically catchy “You Must Believe Me,” “Gypsy Woman,” “Woman’s Got Soul,” etc. but some of those early tunes like “Grow Closer Together,” “Never Let Me Go” and “Little Young Lover” are not to be missed, either. Great tunes aside, the group is famous for their recognizable three-part harmony blend but there’s also Mayfield’s spare but fluid, expressive guitar playing anchoring their trademark sound.

The Turtles "Battle of the Bands": OK, this is a pretty goofy record and many of my musical friends might laugh at me for digging it but hey, it does feature two of the Turtles’ biggest and best hits in “Elenore” and “You Showed Me.” A few caveats: closer “Earth Song” may boast a simply gorgeous melody and supple twi-lit production but okay, the lyrics are a tad cringe-worthy, “Surfer Dan” features some tasty guitar licks (the group began their career as a surf-rock outfit called The Crossfires) and I like the late 60’s twist on the free-spirited no-home-address-I-go-where-the-waves-are surfer dude ethos allowing the title character to elude “Uncle Sam” and the draft but I suppose the track is somewhat marred by some silly, shrill vocalizing. Meanwhile, “Buzzsaw” blows your ass out with its fuzz bass and then jacks up the frat-rock intensity with a wailing organ solo but in the end, it is just a tossed-off instrumental. On the other hand, slight psychedelicity aside, “The Last Thing I Remember” yields a (ahem) memorable melody and the groovy “Oh Daddy” sounds like one of those fine riff-based ditties Boyce & Hart used to crank out for Turtles peers The Monkees. The overall concept of the album means that a few of the tracks are novelties: “Too Much Heartsick Feeling” is fine as a country tune but it’s camped up a tad too much to be respectful to either the tune or the genre, and “Food” is “Smile”-era Beach Boys silliness with its recitation of a recipe to make pot brownies (ooh, how scandalous for 1968!). Nevertheless, I never tire of the one and a half minutes of guilty pleasure “Chief Kamanawanalea” (read that word slowly to get the goofy wordplay housed within) and apparently I’m not alone in that, as De La Soul made the most of the track’s relentless beat on their debut album. I dunno. My guess is if you like 60s pop in general, you’re going to be susceptible to the record’s charms (I’m talking to you, Jason Bourgeois); failing that, don’t give it a second thought (I’m talking now to you, Ari).

Gene Clark “Roadmaster,” “White Light,” “Dillard & Clark,” “No Other”: Following last year’s poring through the Byrds catalog, I realized that I’d never fully immersed myself in Gene Clark’s career apart from his first disc with the Gosdin Brothers. And at this moment, I feel like abandoning this blog and cueing up “With Tomorrow” and just submitting myself to the gorgeousity of its serene melody. The first six tracks off “Roadmaster” would do just as nicely. Speaking of which, it was a holy grail of sorts finding “One In A Hundred” from that album, as it featured Gene and a reunited original Byrds lineup playing a track that could’ve easily been a single from 1965. A perfect Gene song, crystalline McGuinn 12-string Rickenbacker, exquisite David Crosby harmony- it’s all there.

Shoes “Black Vinyl Shoes,” “Present Tense,” “Tongue Twister,” “Boomerang,” “Silhouette”: I’ve always liked The Shoes- for example, that “Present Tense”/ “Tongue Twister” two-fer CD was a frequent spin back in the summer of 2007 when I needed rock-to-sleep music for infant Owen. But when I bought my grandmother’s car this last winter and was relegated to slooshying tunes on a car stereo with only a tape deck, I found myself grabbing random cassettes from downstairs that I’d never fully absorbed and “Shoes Best” (bought at For the Record in Amherst as a cut-out for $1.99 about fifteen years ago) was one of the first I gave a spin to (“Will You Spin For Me?”). So for about the next two months, I just kept it in the deck for that seven-minute-long trip to school everyday and gorged upon the many delectable items therein. Became a fan, really, and then started obtaining other albums of theirs, even communicating with Jeff Murphy via email a few times this last spring.
There’s a lot to like about this band. Sure, the catchy power-pop is what reeled me in but the more I learned about them, the more there was to appreciate. I love that the band is made up of two brothers and one buddy who have been musical partners and good friends for nearly forty years regardless of the status of their success (or lack thereof) at any given point and that each member writes and sings an equal amount of songs per album. Unlike, say, Badfinger, where Pete Ham was clearly the most talented songwriter, the democracy in The Shoes works since John, Jeff, and Gary are all equally adept at crafting great melodies and strangely, they all possess similar vocal timbres. In fact, before reading about them, I’d always assumed they only had one lead singer. Beyond that, the band was one of the first truly successful DIY outfits, recording their first three albums on a 4-track in their living room and then building their own studio out in Illinois for many of the others.
Although their first four videos were in rotation in the very early days of MTV, they never really caught on beyond cult status. And when you watch this first video, you’ll know why. The song, “Too Late,” is a perfect power-pop gem but http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifleadhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif singer Gary Klebe looks uncomfortable on camera and his bandmates, despite the then-de-rigeur long locks, add little visually. In other words, heavy MTV exposure at that time wasn’t primarily about great songs, it was about image and The Shoes were no Duran Duran or Culture Club or even Stray Cats or Madness for that matter.

Too Late

And now here’s a tune written and sung by Jeff Murphy:

Tomorrow Night

And just to be democratic as The Shoes themselves would appreciate, here’s a John Murphy track called “Your Very Eyes.” Although there’s one more MTV video of John’s “Cruel You,” which possesses a nice chugging groove to it, John was the one who usually wrote the killer ballads for the band, or at least had the softest, most McCartney-esque touch in the group so I opted for this album track instead:

Your Very Eyes

Bruce Springsteen “Tunnel of Love”: I can’t say Bruce is normally a favorite of mine but this album eschews the epics and workingman’s tales for a thematic take on Springsteen’s failing first marriage, and apart from one clunker, he brought the tunes. You all know “Brilliant Disguise” and the title track and perhaps “Tougher Than The Rest” but “All That Heaven Will Allow” and “When You’re Alone” show that Bruce can pen a hooky melody when he needs to. I wish he’d do it more but it’s not really what he’s known for and that’s fair enough.

Mash-ups: This fall, with the aid of youtube, I found myself falling hard for the charms of mash-ups. I think Ken Maiuri was the first to introduce mash-ups to me about ten years ago, with that great Christina Aguilera/ Strokes track and then I discovered one of my favorites not long after, the Stooges/Salt & Pepa track that is one of the most viscerally pleasing records I’ve ever heard- somehow all vestiges of pop are excised in favor of pure aggression and sexual energy through music. Anyway, youtube is a wonderland of mashup madness, with new faves being the Byrds/Beatles’ “Turn Turn Turn/Nowhere Man,” the one that blends Elvis Costello’s “Watching The Detectives,” Lionel Richie’s “Hello,” The Police’s “Wrapped Around Your Finger,” Peggy Lee’s “Fever,” The Hollies’ “Bus Stop,” Bob Marley’s “Exodus,” Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven” and perhaps even others buried in there. Sometimes the DJs create videos as well so that you get this party vibe to the Blondie/Paul McCartney/Jennifer Lopez mashup where everybody’s singing and dancing as if they were all in on it together. Although there’s a video for one of my favorite musical mashups (Madonna/The Who “Like A Virgin”/”Baba O’Riley”), the video-masher missed a great chance to sync lyric to image perfectly when they use footage of Pete Townsend shoving his guitar neck into a busted amplifier speaker but not during Madonna’s repeated uttering of “feels so good inside.” I dunno- maybe my mind’s still in the gutter after having just recalled that Stooges/ Salt & Pepa track.

Patsy Cline “20 Golden Greats”?: I have no idea whether that’s the real title or not but as I mentioned, when I purchased my grandmother’s car, I had to resort to listening to cassettes in it. Gram left a few for me and I’ve always liked Cline so this went down easy for a few spins until “Shoes Best” took over.

Another Picture From Pop on the Lawn 2011

2011-07-08T09:15:00.000-04:00

photo by: Chris Collingwood

Pop On The Lawn - A Recap.

2011-07-01T15:20:00.000-04:00

Last night was the third annual Pop On The Lawn in Florence, MA. Once again, School for the Dead, The Fawns, and Group DeVille shared the gazebo in front of the Florence Civic Center. The weather was perfect and people flocked out in numbers to enjoy the evening. The little park smelled like popcorn and insect repellent. Blankets were strewn about. Folding chairs creaked and clanged. Little kids ran around in circles, or danced, or built little nests out of the grass.

Our School for the Dead set was a bit of an adventure. We played some of the new songs, including "Bad Day Done", which we'd never all played together before. It came out pretty good. Tony and I had a little struggle with our guitars, for some reason they just sounded exactly alike. Maybe it had something to do with the acoustics or having a ceiling but no walls. On stage, as we played, it felt messy and somewhat piercing, but I'm told it sounded good on the grass.

I guess it did since a bunch of people picked up CDs at the end of the show. Thanks, everyone!

Pop On The Lawn - A Free Outdoor, Summer, Concert.

2011-06-28T14:07:00.000-04:00

Phone Friendly Rockumentary

2011-06-22T14:51:00.002-04:00

The Living Rockumentary has always translated fairly well to mobile browsing, but now it's even better. Join us on your fancy phone and you'll see what I mean.

SFTD Recording Journal (Part 1)

2011-06-20T12:16:00.000-04:00

On Saturday June 18, 2011 School for the Dead began recording their third full length album. There is no working title yet for this record. There are currently 14 songs intended for recording. They are:

Waiting For Life
Saving Your Life Is Going To Be Real Interesting
I Don't Know About Anyone Else, But
Somebody Elses Problem
Jake and Kim Broke Up (Leave Me Out Of It)
The Infinite Kitchen
The Wrong Way Out Of Town
I Wasn't Looking For This
She Does, She Does
The People You See Regularly Never Grow Old
Levitation
The Rumour Mill
Bad Day Done
Turn It Down!

Day 1 (June 18, 2011) - Paul McCartney's Birthday
Brian and I drove in one car while Max drove in another. The destination was Brown Bag Studio, amidst the trees of New Hampshire. The ride takes between an hour-and-a-half and two hours depending on how lost you get. Brian and I arrived at the studio at 10:30 AM. It was a beautiful morning in the woods as we pulled down the long driveway. The place is quiet and secluded. There is a ghost dog on the street.

This is the first School for the Dead album to be recorded somewhere other than Rub Wrongways Studios. We'll be working with Frank Padellero. I've appreciated his work for years, not only his recording and producing talents but also his songwriting and arranging skills. It's exciting. We're excited.

Brian and I skip up the steps and knock on the door. A smiling Frank answers and two young birds come streaming out of a nest above the door behind him. My first thought, as I'm ducking in fear, is that bats just came out of his mouth. We all look up to the empty nest as the angry birds flap around our heads. Welcome.

Inside, we get a quick tour and Brian begins to set up his drums. Max arrives not long after and as Brian works on his kit, we sit in the control room on a curvy orange sofa and go over a few songs. I on my acoustic guitar, Max on his unplugged bass. Needing to decide which songs to start with, we make a list and then, using a complex formula, determine which songs are the hardest and which are the easiest.

When the drums are set up with microphones and the bass is all hooked in, we spend the next several hours recording songs. Max and Brian, of course, play brilliantly, and it's a joy to hear their parts so clearly coming out of the studio speakers as I strum and sing the songs. They play and play, song after song in a sealed off room, unaware of the passing thunderstorm. Their emotive playing fills the room that I sit in with Frank as the world's quietest dog and most skittish cat wander in and out, as if appraising our progress.

At 6:30, spent, exhausted, and ravished, we stop for dinner. Frank makes home-made pizzas as we learn from his wonderful wife that during the thunderstorm, as we recorded, a bear came into the yard and attacked a bird feeder.

The Red Sox are on the TV as we devour the delicious pizza. Frank is good at everything he does. I'm convinced.

After dinner, we go back into the studio and record the rest of the songs. Except for two. "The People You See Regularly Never Grow Old" and "Levitation" will have to wait for the next day. Since Max needs to go home, while Brian and I can stay, we decide we'll just record the drums for those two songs the next day and Max will have to add his bass later.

We say good bye to Max, Frank gives him directions for the dark ride home, and we sit around and talk until about midnight, when we all retire. Brian and I each have our own room in the artist guest sweet. Comfortable digs lead to a surprising solid night of sleep for me.

Day 2 (June 19, 2011) - Nick Drake's BirthdayI awake at a little before 8:00 and spend the next hour sitting out on the screened porch watching the birds of New Hampshire swoop and hearing the sounds of chickens and turkeys from a neighboring yard. Dagmar, the cat, joins me for a while. I think she was hoping I would feed her. Sorry, cat.

Frank appears and says, "Hi Henning. You want some waffles?".

Who would say no to that? Next thing you know, we are all sitting around the dining room table eating excellent home-made poppy-seed waffles and bacon. I feel spoiled.

At 10:30 we head back into the studio where we record those two songs. They go nicely and I believe the fact that we approached them after resting really helped. My phone flashes on and I get a text from Max saying he's on his way back. As we wait for him, Brian adds a nice cymbal wash to "I Wasn't Looking For This". His mallets are broken so Frank quickly makes some of materials lying around in his studio. MacGuiver.

Brian also overdubs a single high hat click on "Waiting For Life" - it's my favorite part of the song.

Max arrives not much later with his son, Miles, in tow. Miles and I sit on the sofa and eat snacks while Max plays flawlessly on the last two songs.

How about a round of applause for Max and Brian laying down their parts to 14 songs in less than a session and a half.

Max and Miles take off in search of a swimming-hole and I record my acoustic guitar parts for "I Don't Know About Anyone Else But" and "I Wasn't Looking For This".

At around 4:00, Brian and I pack up, say goodbye, and start the journey home.

It was a very productive weekend, I have complete faith in Frank, and I have a renewed excitement about the songs and the record. Next step? I don't know. Maybe guitars with Tony or keyboards with Ken or vocals with me. We'll figure it out soon.

School for the Dead Back To Studio

2011-06-17T14:58:00.002-04:00

Ssssssh. Don't tell anyone but we are heading into the studio tomorrow, to start a new album.

End-of-year list Number One

2011-06-15T12:38:00.002-04:00

The end of the school year means it’s list time for me. I do these mainly for myself but since I contribute so infrequently to the Rockumentary nowadays, I’d like to share the list with all seven of our readers (I’m looking at you, Danny Dog).
The reading list leaves out articles altogether and mercifully, the 700 million spins through the likes of Wet Pet, Dry Pet, Your Pet, My Pet and Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? Many of the texts listed below are read with classes and if the title has (RR) after it, that means a re-reading of something, usually for the purpose of a class. The list also only includes things read cover-to-cover (in some cases, that’s quite a chore) so although I spent a lot of time with that 1,000 Paintings to See Before You Die book and Tina Fey’s Bossypants, for instance, I just jumped around in them. I don’t like to bother with any kind of grading system but one criterion I use is that I’ll only include a title on the individual short story list if it’s any good.

Fiction:
Breakfast At Tiffany’s Truman Capote (RR)
Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
Cathedral
Elephant Raymond Carver: Obviously I got on a Carver kick this last autumn but short story reading fits my current lifestyle of supercrazybusy so it was a good time to immerse myself in the oeuvre of this master of the form. You know, “master” is fine but maybe the more appropriate term is “magician.” Reading his work makes you alternately feel like writing one’s own short stories and giving up the idea altogether.
Like Water for Chocolate Laura Esquivel
The Prophet Kahlil Gibran
The Committee Sun’Allah Ibrahim
Dubliners
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce (RR)
The Beggar Naguib Mahfouz
Hunger Strike Colum McCann: Upon the recommendation of Connolly Ryan, I was seeking something by Cormac McCarthy in our curriculum center and bumped into this author I’d never heard of- this novel turned out to be pretty good, but better still were the two short stories of his listed below. McCann’s main topic of concern in these stories is the conflict between the Irish and British and/or Catholic and Protestant, but the stories are more about the personal effects of those political clashes. Glad I found them.
Child of God
The Road Cormac McCarthy: While these two titles have marked McCarthy as perhaps my favorite current author, I’m going to withhold comments until I’ve completed “Blood Meridian,” his masterpiece according to many of his fans (including Connolly).
The Bluest Eye Toni Morrison: It’s been a long time since I read any of Morrison’s work but almost immediately her voice sounded familiar, especially in how she manages to balance the horrific with the beautiful, making a father who rapes his own daughter still a sympathetic character or starting a chapter by describing the beauty of the onset of spring through the image of forsythia bushes, only to lead the reader into understanding how the budding branches in their elasticity make for particularly resilient and painful switches for angry mothers to whip their misbehaving children with.
The Catcher in the Rye (RR) (RR)
Franny & Zooey (RR)
Raise High The Roofbeam, Carpenters J.D. Salinger (RR)
The Uncollected Works of J.D. Salinger 200-odd pages of Salinger fan heaven. This is a collection I downloaded of the two dozen short stories Salinger published in his lifetime but refused to anthologize for whatever reason. Most of them pre-date “Catcher” and while the majority of them are the work of an author still finding his voice, there are at least six or so that are superb. “The Long Debut of Lois Taggett” is easily one of the most cynical, negative pieces Salinger ever wrote (and I’ve read everything of his that can be read now- see below for more details); it’s colorful and witty and enthralling nonetheless. “Wien, Wien (A Girl I Knew)” is one of Salinger’s funniest in its first half, finding a young soldier who only speaks a little German struggling to communicate with an Austrian girl who only speaks a little English, while the two of them are obviously smitten with each other. The ending is tragic and sudden, however, just like war itself, I suppose. The simplicity of the tale would mark it as somewhat inconsequential in the canon, except for the fact that it’s allegedly very close to autobiographical. A fan should appreciate the early stabs at Holden Caulfield stories (including one horrible piece that’s in third person- that omniscient voice is so, so off-putting for Holden, like hot fudge on a T-Bone steak) and some of the war-based stories are really good and should’ve been anthologized (especially “Last Day of the Last Furlough” and “This Sandwich Has No Mayonnaise,” which are as good as anything in “Nine Stories”).
Ethan Frome Edith Wharton (RR)
Griffin & Sabine Nick Bantock: I feel ashamed even listing it. I kept thinking as I was reading it- it’s going to get better, right? Is something cool going to happen soon? Maybe the ending will be awesome. Nope, nope, and nope.

Drama:
Oedipus The King
Antigone Sophocles
Lysistrata Aristophanes: If you’re not familiar with it, this is way funnier and lewder than you’d expect for an ancient classic.
Romeo & Juliet William Shakespeare (RR)
The Cherry Orchard Anton Chekhov
Hedda Gabler Henrik Ibsen: Even with all the drama I’ve been plowing through the last few years, Ibsen’s still my favorite. The tension he creates among the characters makes it almost like masochism to read.
Pygmalion George Bernard Shaw (RR)
J.B. Archibald Macleish
Look Back in Anger John Osborne
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead Tom Stoppard
This Is How It Goes
The Distance From Here
In the Company of Men
Your Friends & Neighbors
Autobahn Neil Labute

Memoir:
One Train Later Andy Summers
Broken Music Sting
Strange Things Happen Stewart Copeland: Getting to meet Stewart Copeland this fall, I was excited to read this autobiography of course, along with those of his former bandmates. You kinda have to read all three to get the full picture of The Police, a band I was a huge fan of for a few years in the 1980s. This is not only due to the differing perspectives but also because Sting goes into great detail about the early days of punky pre-success struggle while Andy (who joined later) covers their golden era in full (1977-1985) and Copeland largely ignores The Police’s heyday to focus on his post-Police career but then a good third of the book delves into a very detailed glimpsed of their 2007 reunion tour. Stylistically, Sting’s is- no surprise- the most well-written and self-involved, Summers’ the fairest, most good-humored and musically focused of the three, while Copeland’s is, like his drumming, all over the place, and features his distinctly droll voice.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass
Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s John Elder Robison
ADHD & Me: Lighting Fires at the Kitchen Table Blake E.S. Taylor (RR)

Non-Fiction:
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us Daniel H. Pink
Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation Steven Johnson
Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise & The Brain John J. Ratey, MD &
Eric Hagerman: Our school has recently partnered with Dr. Ratey to implement a long-term study on how regular exercise impacts learning. This was a difficult read for me since it is heavy on science and short on anecdote but each chapter unveiled yet another revelation, such as the 85 year old nun who was still teaching, doing various vocabulary and logic puzzle tests and carrying on a normal social life because her (ahem) religious exercise routine helped to constantly generate new brain cells despite the fact that when doctors looked at her brain post-mortem, they were shocked to see that nearly half her brain was severely damaged due to Alzheimer’s.
Classical Music for Dummies David Pogue & Scott Speck: I always wondered about these books and having plowed through this one, I can’t say that they’re all that helpful. If this one served as an example for the series, I find that rather than truly useful, they strive mostly to be humorous and after a while, the corny humor wears thin and all you’re left with are superficial descriptions, facile factoids and blurbs. On the other hand, it’s good cereal eating reading, like an issue of Entertainment Weekly.
J.D. Salinger: A Life Kenneth Slawenski: While reading or re-reading everything of Salinger’s these last two years, it made sense to take in a biography. Slawenski is not a great writer by any means (the amount of times he describes his biographical subject as being “entrapped” in or by something or someone is painful!) and Salinger has to be one of the most difficult figures to write a biography on but Slawenski is so smitten with Salinger that the sense of excitement he brings to the subject is palpable. Obviously, I’m an ardent fan as well so I devoured this 400-odd page sucker in about a week, sneaking in reading whenever I could.
Eyes of the Heart: Seeking a Path for the Poor in the Age of Globalization Jean-Bertrand Aristide
The Most Evil Men and Women in History Miranda Twiss
Food Rules Michael Pollan
Haunted U.S.A. Charles Wetzel

Individual short stories of merit (titles not already included in the Fiction section above)
“A Nice Place” Matthew Brown
“Emperor of the Air” Ethan Canin
“House of Flowers” Truman Capote
“Call If You Need Me”
“The Hair”
“The Lie” Raymond Carver
“The Bet”
“A Day in the Country” Anton Chekhov
“A Rose for Emily” William Faulkner
“A Very Short Story” Ernest Hemingway
“Paste” Henry James
“The Model” Bernard Malamud
“A Dill Pickle” Katherine Mansfield
“The Necklace” Guy de Maupassant
“Everything In This Country Must”
“Wood” Colum McCann
“Blackberries” Leslie Norris
“A Good Man is Hard To Find” Flannery O’Connor
“Prisons” Marissa Perez
“Between 4 and 12” Jack Ritchie
“Just Before the War With The Eskimos” (RR)
“A Perfect Day For Bananafish” (RR)
“Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut” (RR)
“For Esme With Love & Squalor” (RR)
“Down At The Dinghy” (RR)
“Teddy” (RR)
“The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls”
“The Last and Best of the Peter Pans”
“Two Lonely Men”
“The Magic Foxhole” J.D. Salinger (These last four stories are legendary in the Salinger canon because they can only be read if one travels to the Princeton University Firestone Library and applies to become a member of the Special Collections Reading Guild or whatever it’s called. I convinced the wife to plan our family vacation in April in and around Princeton so I could do this. (We ended up staying a week in Southern New Jersey and nearby Philadelphia so it worked out well- in fact, the day I spent reading these, Shelly took the kids to a massive several-acre outdoor sculpture garden that was one of the best stops on the trip). Anyway, after applying for your I.D., you are read a statement by the Estate of Jerome David Salinger that explains that no copies can be made of the documents, no items can be brought into the reading room and all materials except the photocopies of the texts must be handled by the librarians. And even though you’re just holding photocopies, you still have to wash your hands before entering the Reading Room. I liked pretending that I was performing my ablutions. The deal is that these stories were submitted to Story Magazine back in the 1940s but were rejected and then never considered by Salinger for use anywhere else. But when the archives of Story Magazine were sold to Princeton decades ago, it included these typed manuscripts by “Jerry Salinger.” Whatever the case may be, if you are a fan of Salinger, you really should check these out. “Two Lonely Men” is way overlong but includes that most uncharacteristic element of J.D.’s writing, a twist ending. “Bowling Balls” and “Peter Pans” are Caulfield family stories, both told by oldest brother Vincent (another J.D. alter ego like Buddy Glass or Babe Gladwaller), the latter featuring a fascinating mother-son dialogue while “Ocean” focuses on the death of youngest brother Kenneth and although a few details (like a girl who keeps her kings in the back row and a baseball glove covered in poems scribbled in green ink) were eventually plucked for “Catcher,” it stands on its own as an early masterpiece. My favorite of all was “The Magic Foxhole,” an utterly compelling war-based piece that is Salinger’s own take on his having experienced the landing at D-Day. It begins with a solider describing his U-Boat approaching the beach, which is littered with the remains of an obliterated force of American soldiers and upon which nothing is moving save one lone chaplain desperately searching for his spectacles in the sand, until he also is killed. A pretty devastating way to begin a story and as heavily symbolic as that is, it still works beautifully. It also explains why no publisher in their right mind would’ve touched publishing such a piece in 1944! Anyway, the main story concerns a soldier who goes temporarily insane fighting on the beach, hallucinating the image of a futuristic solder from World War III fighting on the same beach- eventually, he realizes that it’s his own son and he tries in vain to kill him in some attempt to prevent future wars. Either way, the harsh, realistic description of the setting and events in the story make this harrowing piece one of the finest war-bases stories I’ve ever encountered, like a kind of darker companion piece to “Esme.”
“A Plague of Tics” (RR)
“I Like Guys”
“Next of Kin” David Sedaris
“Walter Briggs” John Updike
“Fetch!” Robb White (RR)
“The Use of Force” William Carlos Williams
“Say Yes” Tobias Wolff

Stormy Weather

2011-06-02T13:01:00.000-04:00

Thanks for all your concern, gentle readers. We are located in Northampton, Massachusetts which is 15 minutes north of Springfield where a tornado touched down yesterday afternoon. Here in Northampton the weather was intense and scary but there were no tornadoes that I know of. At one point, in the building that I was in, a security guard came around and told everyone that there had been reports of tornadoes in Northampton and that anyone who wanted to could go to the basement level.

The internet and the iphone were buzzing with activity. Facebook, was a scrolling series of warnings and alerts. The weather websites were flashing. Text messages were coming in. But my favorite radio station that I listen to most days just went on like normal. There was no Public Broadcast Alarm or anything. If it wasn't for the internet I'd have had no idea that this insane destruction was happening just a few miles away. I watched the tornado form almost live through the skycam from the local tv stations on their websites. I felt like I was watching a disaster movie as the twister swept across Memorial Bridge, churning up the Connecticut River.

Meanwhile, I was in contact with Lesa who was in Springfield at the time. The monster passed not far from the building she was in and her phone access died almost immediately. Too many people were making calls. We were able to keep in contact thanks to instant messages on the computer.

How did people know what was happening in the old days?

It was 4:30 here and the center of Northampton was as dark as midnight. Ten minutes later, I set out to walk home as the sun cut through the low clouds that were moving in many levels in all directions. The walk was quiet and strange. The light outside was foreign and seemingly artificial. I glanced up again at the dark dramatic clouds and I saw a blue heron silently flying overhead. Was it feeling an oncoming attack? Had it blown here from down south? It's giant wings seemed to be moving in slow motion as it passed.

Later as I approached my house, a single rabbit walked gingerly across the road into my yard. "Animals know things" I thought.

At the house, I checked the backyard. Everything was in place. No branches were down, the patio furniture hadn't moved. The bird feeders hadn't blown away. I'd read reports from friends of large hail at their homes, not more than a mile away, but I saw no sign of any of that at our place.

Inside, I flipped on the TV and and spent the next four hours watching the news and instant messaging with Lesa. Her building was spared but she was staying there because traffic would be certainly stand-still in all the chaos. Besides, the radar map clearly showed more giant masses of dark red heading in her direction. I flipped between news channels and settled on WWLP 22. They seemed to be concerned with presenting the oncoming weather more than the others who seemed more focused on showing the damage in Springfield. There will be plenty of time to learn about that, I thought, but right now I want to know if any more severe weather is on its way.

Outside, the sky turned dark yellow and the trees and grass seemed to all start glowing. I took a picture and posted it on Facebook and then I saw about ten more identical pictures from friends. People kept saying "that's a tornado sky!" but the meteorologist on the TV explained the yellow was really simply because the sun had gone below the horizon. Suddenly the TV switched to their skycam over Northampton, less than a mile from my sofa and the sky there was black, Intense thunderstorms were moving through. At my place, the wind whipped up once or twice and a few raindrops fell. From the front yard, I could see the edge of the storm just passing over me.

Lesa instant messaged me that it was dark as night and there was relentless lightning where she was. A woman who had left her building returned after being gone for two and a half hours. She was not able to get home.

I glanced out the window and two sparrows alighted on the bird feeder and just like that, the clouds blew over and the wind stopped. The temperature had dropped, the humidity was erased, and I got a message from Lesa that she was on her way to her car and heading home.

It was a harrowing and intense evening and I personally wasn't at any point really in the thick of any danger. I can't even imagine what it must have been like to those in the path of the tornado.

I'm so happy to live in a time when we can all connect and find out instant information so easily. Of course, you need electricity for that, but even in a black-out I'd have access with my phone, at least until the battery died. I was able to check up on friends south of me and to also answer friends who were checking up on me and Lesa. I was able to follow the path of the storms on the TV and on my computer and on my phone. It's magic.

.Henning and Ken on WRSI - Listen Now,

2011-05-26T16:28:00.000-04:00

Remember back when School for the Dead turned ten? We did a few radio appearances in celebration of that momentous day. One of them from WRSI is available for listening.

We played a couple of songs and talked a bit to Joan Holliday. You can hear it all right here: WRSI - Riversound Cafe.

Scroll down a bit and you'll see this picture. It will guide you to the podcast.

Enjoy.

Thoughts From May 2011

2011-05-20T12:24:00.002-04:00

Does it seem like School for the Dead is not doing as much as we used to? Hmm. That's my fault. I'm not writing here as much as I used to. Twitter and Facebook have kind of taken over. The short bursts of information that often result in immediate responses by readers are very alluring compared to this Living Rockumentary's often longer pieces that usually garner no comments. I've been spoiled by those outlets.

Last night, though, during my weekly trivia tournament, a conversation turned to our show long ago at the Valley Grand Band Slam weekend in Springfield, MA. I didn't remember much from that night, but I pulled out my trusted future-machine and within seconds I pulled up a nice long description of the event from one of our old gig diaries. Concerts nowadays are much less likely to have that kind of detail preserved. Though, pictures these days are certainly more prevalent. It's a trade-off I guess.

I am aware that people have this Rockumentary listed in their feeds and readers. Every time that I post something, the hits go up. If I post something and link to it on Facebook and Twitter, they go up even more. But, do I really need to know that people are reading in order for me to write? I didn't used to. I used to write here for myself as a way of documenting the goings on of my life. Way back when we started, we ALL used to write here. Jump down to our archives there and check out the first year. You'll see daily posts from all five of us. I knew that couldn't last forever. In fact, it lasted for longer than I ever expected. When I first introduced the idea of this blog, I didn't even know if anyone in the band would be into it or not. Well, I figured Brian would, since we already had been doing the gig diary for years before. Turns out they all played along.

Anyway, maybe you are reading, maybe not. Should that effect me? I make music whether I know anyone will hear it or not. I always have. I certainly do get motivated to make more when I know people will hear it. I get a real thrill every time someone purchases one of our albums or downloads a song or watches a video or, even better, mentions a tune or a particular lyric. I've always maintained that if I had an audience for sure, like if I had a following the size of, say, Robyn Hitchcock's or Freedy Johnston's, that I would be inclined to write more music and release more music more quickly. I'll make music regardless but knowing that someone will seek it out and really listen, well that would make a big difference wouldn't it? Yes it would.

But, either way, School for the Dead is doing quite a bit, in fact. We've been having pretty intensive weekly practices in which the band is learning a collection of new songs. In a few weeks we'll be taking a road trip out of state and heading into a studio to begin work on a new record. It's very exciting for me to be recording somewhere other than the Rub Wrongways Studio. I'm looking forward to being a musician more so than a recording engineer. We're working hard on trying to get these songs down as confidently as possible before recording. It's difficult to all get together to practice. Everyone has very busy schedules. But, we've managed to practice piece-meal and the new songs are starting to form into something really nice. It'll be our best record yet, I'm sure of it.

At the same time, I've finished a new solo album. Max and I are currently putting together the artwork for it, which is a fun and creative adventure on its own. We've gone on a few funny photo-shoots and spent some hours in front of the designing machine. I'm quite excited about this new record, too. It's a concept album of sorts. I'll get you the details soon. I just want to introduce it to the world the right way. I want it all in place.

At the same time, Lesa and I have been working on a set of songs to be performed as a duo. We did one show a week or so ago and it went ok. It's been nice to spend a few evenings turning off the TV and picking up the instruments and working out a new approach to old songs and to learn some new duets. Guitars must always be within arms reach, friends. You have to make it as easy as possible to turn a fleeting moment of inspiration or motivation into a session of creativity.

At the same time, I've been having on-and-off again recording sessions with Mark Mulcahy. These are full days of nothing but fun creativity. Various musicians are invited in and we try to bring a song to life. I'll not divulge much on this. It's not my place to do so. But, I look forward to our next session.

At the same time, I am about to embark on scoring some music for an independent documentary. All the paper work has been sorted out and work should begin within the next few weeks. I'll save the details for the future when I have more to say about the process. But, it looks like it'll be another fun adventure for me and my instruments.

Unfortunately, this past week, the sound card for my recording hardware seems to have died. I'm still working on seeing if it is fixable, but I may have to finally give up on my, until recently, trusted Echo Layla 24. There's an expense and problem that I hadn't budgeted for, money-wise and time-wise.

Still, I'm not worried. It's just a thing. I'll need to get something new maybe. Big deal. I'll need to learn how to use it and how to set it up. Big deal. It's worth it, if it means I can keep creating music.

I've got a few other projects up my sleeves, folks. Things I'm pondering. Ideas I'm simmering. I'll keep you posted. Thank you for reading, if you exist. Or hell, even if you don't.

Reverse Frogger

2011-05-16T11:39:00.000-04:00

Played a game of reverse frogger the other night. We were driving through some small roads in Vermont. The evening had been rainy but it had stopped. I guess the roads must have been warm and inviting for the frogs. There were dozens and dozens of them sitting there in our headlights or hopping around every corner. At one point I stopped entirely and had to slowly swerve through a large group of them. As we drove, my eyes became intensely fixed on the road ahead. I felt like I had telephoto vision. When frogs would appear before us, I swear I could see the looks on their faces with their big bugged-out eyes trying to make sense of the hugeness of the car.

It was a slow ride, not quiet white-knuckled, but certainly sadly cute.

The Scarlet Tanager

2011-05-11T10:09:00.000-04:00

Saw this little guy the other day.
At first I thought it was a piece of plastic in the tree because it was so bright.
I sneaked down to the corner of the yard with my camera and took pictures.
This is a Scarlet Tanager.

Lesa and Henning's Debut Duet Show

2011-05-06T08:00:00.000-04:00

We won't be like this picture...
I won't be pretending to play the drums. We won't have any drums

Haven't written here for a little while. Sorry.

Lesa and I have been trying to put together a set for our upcoming first ever duet show. This Saturday we'll be opening up the night for Group DeVille at the awesome Montague Bookmill. We've got four songs to play that are specifically written for duets. We'll probably do a couple of Fawns songs in a new pared down way and we expect a couple of covers as well. By who? Hmm...should it be a surprise? Would you be surprised if they were by Harry Nilsson and The Police? I would.

We'll be starting off the night right at 8:00.

Of course, as always, I recommend you come up early and enjoy a nice laid back and tasty dinner at The Lady Killegrew. That's what we'll be doing for sure. After eating, we'll load in our guitars, banjo, melodica, glockenspiel and harmonies. We won't be like this picture...I won't be pretending to play the drums. We won't have any drums. Sorry, drum lovers (Drovers).

School for the Dead Tenth Anniversary Special - Crowd-Fueled Madlib

2011-05-05T11:45:00.001-04:00

Lesa and Henning Duet Show

2011-04-27T19:12:00.001-04:00

Onion link

2011-04-26T10:00:00.003-04:00

There are some pretty good laughs in the current issue of the Onion (I especially liked the Mitt Romney & Arby's/depression articles) but the one linked to below struck a chord with me in particular- those that know me will understand completely when you read the "solution" in the very last sentence:

Culture

Gig Diary: SFTD Tenth Anniversary Special

2011-04-19T14:29:00.000-04:00

I haven't written a gig diary in a long, long time. I guess, since this was our Tenth Anniversary Special and since we used to always all write gig dairies for each of our shows, it might be fitting for me to try again.

I arrived with Lesa and our friend Debbie at The Bookmill at 5:30. It was drizzling slightly, but the air felt clean and crisp. I don't know why that seems to be the case there. Is it that different than the air in my tiny city of Northampton? Does it have something to do with the rushing river and waterfall behind the building? Maybe it's just my imagination.

Since this was Record Store Day, we decided to poke into Turn It Up! Inside, we found Ken and Mary. I sat in the listening station's chair while the others flipped through records and CDs. A lot of my record store experience involves me sitting or standing and waiting for others to flip through the merchandise. I went often into Boston shops with my brothers and I enjoyed looking at album covers but I never bought anything. I pretty much would only look at the Yes and Pink Floyd sections. Anyway, after the shopping, we stepped into the warm Lady Killigrew and got ourselves some dinner.

I found a big table inside where we could all fit and we were soon joined by Max and family and then Jason Bourgeois and Ryan Quinn who had been so kind as to lend us their P.A. for the show. They didn't just lend it to us, they trekked it to Montague and loaded it in and out. Troopers.

Dinner was nice and relaxed. I really enjoy arriving at gigs with plenty of time to just relax beforehand instead of having to just rush around and suddenly start performing.

At 7:00 we were able to set up and when I went up to the performance space I found Brian and Beth loading in the drums. Soon Tony arrived and we all set up the stage as some audience members started trickling in.

Max and staff members from The Bookmill brought out and set up as many folding chairs as possible to go along with the sofas and big comfy chairs. By the time our opener, Andrew Emmons, started to play, the place was at standing-room only. Andrew put on a great 30 minute set of very smartly written songs.

School for the Dead started to play at about 8:45 and we didn't stop until 10:20 or so. The room was very warm and we couldn't open the windows because they were still sealed up for the winter. We made our way through seventeen of our songs with a little break in the middle consisting of Tony playing a solo "Record Store Girl" and then the band (without me) playing the Monkees' "Sunny Girlfriend", with Brian on lead vocals.

Throughout the set, I demanded words from the audience for our MadLib and we had also passed out Instant Surveys. We collected the Instant Surveys about four songs from the end of the show. The questions were "Ten years ago I ________________________" and "Ten years from now I ___________________________". We read them off during the breakdown or "Soup of the Moment", like you do, and they turned out to be the best set of responses that we had ever gotten. It was a success. Maybe all the books surrounding the room made people extra creative.

At the end of our show (note: we did not finish with Omnivore), the band supplied some slick back-ground music and I read the MadLib. Another success. The crowd populated the thing with great words. I hope to have video of it shortly for you to see.

What else noteworthy happened? We debuted "The Rumor Mill" and it went quite well. I don't know what else. Writing these things is hard, I see now why I stopped.

Thank you very much to everyone who came to the show and for those of you who picked up our albums. I had an excellent time, I hope you did as well. Thank you.

A Nice Picture of our Tenth Anniversary Special

2011-04-18T08:32:00.000-04:00

School for the Dead's
Tenth Anniversary Special
photo by Dennis Crommett.

Brian - On Our Ten Years

2011-04-18T08:14:00.001-04:00

Hop on over to Brian's place to read about Our Tenth Year Anniversary Special and his adventure spinning vinyl on the radio Saturday: Where's That Sound Coming From?: Yesterday Was National Record Store Day...And a 10...:

School for the Dead in the News: Valley Advocate Part 2

2011-04-13T11:49:00.000-04:00

More news about School for the Dead's Tenth Anniversary in The Valley Advocate. Thanks to Gary Carra.

"In other news, School for the Dead (schoolforthedead.com) "headmaster"/mastermind Henning Ohlenbusch says that the venue he has selected to commemorate his band's decade of existence literally speaks volumes about what they hope to accomplish.

"We are known to put on energetic, loud and intense concerts at times, but at the Montague Bookmill, we'll play the level we practice at," Ohlenbusch says of his auspicious April 16 engagement. "We'll play so each note of each instrument can be heard, as can every word of every song ,so that we can freely communicate with the audience."

Kicking off the festivities this Saturday will be Hampshire College-based Andrew Emmons. Though best known for his work with the band Homer and Langley, the multi-instrumentalist is presently focused on his new solo effort, Homebones, due out this summer."

School for the Dead in the News: Valley Advocate

2011-04-12T16:12:00.000-04:00

There's a nice article in the Valley Advocate this week about School for the Dead turning ten. You can read it here if you'd like: Art In Paradise: Ten Years of Dead

School for the Dead's Tenth Anniversary Video

2011-04-10T11:16:00.000-04:00

I made this pretty funny video with a new App at YouTube. I just picked a bunch of random pictures from flickr, uploaded a song from iTunes, and pasted the text from a press release. There was no preview or anything so I just went with it blind and this is what appeared:

A Shout for Sheehan Benefit Concert

2011-04-09T13:12:00.000-04:00

Tonight there's a big benefit show at The Elevens in Northampton, MA

Jason Bourgeois says: Chances are that if you live in the Valley and also happen to be a musician, you know Mark Sheehan pretty well. If you've been going to local shows in recent years, it is likely you have gone to a show that Mark has organized. If you know Mark Sheehan on a personal level, it’s quite possible that he’s shown you inappropriate photos via his telephone… sorry that list bit was from my monologue for the Mark Sheehan Celebrity Comic Roast. Date and time TBA.

About five years ago, Mark was the ID checker at the Basement and slowly worked his way up to booking acts on Saturday nights. These weekly concerts, which quickly became the meeting grounds for musicians in what some considered a burgeoning local scene, garnered some electrifying performances. He later moved his talents to the Elevens (in which he still hosts the friendly “Happy Valley Showdown” battle of the bands series) and also began a very popular Thursday music night at the Sierra Grille with the slogan “re-animate the Bay State”.

Mr. Sheehan has opened the doors for countless groups and solo acts with original material. Many can attest that he granted their inexperienced band their very first gig. He’s always booked music that he loves and has not been necessarily concerned with what’s a guaranteed draw. What we have is a man with an enormous heart and one of the few people I’ve met in my life who possesses a bottomless supply enthusiasm.

Mark was recently in a serious car accident that will leave him out of work for an indefinite amount of time. Various musicians and colleagues that he’s supported over the years are currently rallying to put on a special fundraiser this Saturday April 9th at the Elevens (located at 140 Pleasant St. in Northampton) called "A Shout For Sheehan". The admission charge is $5 (or more), doors are at 8:00 with music starting at 9:00 and with a line-up featuring (and subject to some fluctuation):

Paper Piano
Erik Allan
Ribboncandy
The Lay Jains
Fancy Trash
Whistle Jacket
Sore Eros
Crescent Hill
Fawns, School for the Dead & Sitting Next To Brian
Claudia Malibu
Spouse

Also starring deejay Amanda Freeman
And Hosted by Xtian Perfection

Hope to see you there and please pass this on.

School for the Dead on Valley Free Radio Tonight. 7:00 - 8:00 PM

2011-04-08T15:52:00.000-04:00

School for the Dead will be stopping by the studio at Valley Free Radio in Florence, MA this evening from 7:00 to 8:00 to talk about our tenth year anniversary and to play a few songs. You can listen on the radio if you are in the Northampton, MA area at 103.3 FM or online at Valley Free Radio.

School for the Dead's Tenth Anniversary Special

2011-04-04T18:52:00.002-04:00

April Fools. And then some.

2011-03-21T18:12:00.002-04:00

We are hosting the Official April Fools Day Concert.

First Flower 2011

2011-03-20T16:40:00.000-04:00

Well our annual first-flower came up later than usual this year To tell you the truth, I'm surprised it came up at all. It just didn't seem possible. But, sure, enough, there it is and it's on the first day of spring at that. Well done, little yellow flower.

First opened on March 20, 2011:

First opened on March 8, 2010:

First opened on March 14, 2009:

First opened on March 24, 2008:

In the Buffalo Surround

2011-03-18T13:20:00.000-04:00

Here's a nice review of In the Buffalo Surround by our good friend, Dennis Crommett. If you haven't picked up a copy, I highly recommend it.

Boston Globe article

Dennis Crommett Website

The Tobolowsky Files - David Byrne and True Stories etc.

2011-03-16T17:07:00.000-04:00

The Tobolowsky Files is a nice podcast by character actor Stephen Tobolowsky. I've only listened to two so far but I really enjoyed this one about his meeting David Byrne and how he came to work on the film True Stories.

Here is the mp3.
Here is the official website.
Here is the itunes link:

Where's That Sound Coming From?: XTC were the best live band from 1979-82 and that'...

2011-03-14T15:07:00.000-04:00

Where's That Sound Coming From?: XTC were the best live band from 1979-82 and that'...: "At the bottom of this blog will be a link to a (very enjoyable) 20-song file of live XTC songs I've lovingly compiled from various online s..."

Coincidences

2011-03-09T11:59:00.000-05:00

I have to write this down. Something strange is happening today.

While I was walking past lawns that until a few days ago had been covered in snow for months, a Nick Drake song started to play on my shuffling music machine. It fit the mood perfectly and I started to think about what other music I had that was similar to Nice Drake. Dennis Crommett popped into my head, but as the NIck Drake neared its end, I thought, the mood is probably about to change It'll probably play a Buzzocks song or some weird Laurie Anderson thing. But, you know it, the next thing that came up was Dennis Crommett.

After Dennis? Laurie Anderson.

Then a few minutes later, I was inside and I got an email from Jason Bourgeois pointing me to an article about the new R.E.M. album. I opened the article and just as I started to read it, the radio played an R.E.M. song.

Then I went over to Facebook and saw a post by friend Mark Schwaber about Marketa Irglova from the film "Once". As soon as I saw that post the Radio started to play a song from that Once movie. Then I started to write this little piece about the weirdness of all the music coincidences. Then, when I was about two sentences in I realized that it wasn't a song from the Once duet after all. It was a Mumford and Sons song.

Nevermind.

Get Yer Tickets Now! School for the Dead and Chandler Travis Philharmonic

2011-03-08T10:00:00.000-05:00

School for the Dead is returning to the Iron Horse stage, this Sunday! It's been five years since our last band show there. In 2006 we played with Naked Eyes (There's Always Something There To Remind Me). That night ended up not be very well attended due to a combination of other events that were happening at the same time and, really, Naked Eyes?

This show will be different. The Chandler Travis Philharmonic puts on a great, crazy show. The concert is nice and early at 7:00 and it's priced well.

If you are thinking of going, we've got a special deal on tickets. From us they are $10 even, you don't have to pay any courtesy fees. I think you save about $2.50 per ticket.

I only have fifteen at this lower price, though, so think quick, I guess.

You can order them here through PayPal or if you can send me an email at henning (at) schoolforthedead.com and we can work something out.

Or if you are a real trouble maker, you can spend a few hours using the picture of the tickets above to create your own counterfeit versions. Make sure you find the right paper and add the perforations. Also, I'd advise using different ticket numbers than these since these will already be accounted for. Or you could risk it.

Anyway, we really hope you can make it. It's always a great pleasure for us to be able to play on the Iron Horse Stage with their excellent sound system.

To learn more about Chandler Travis Philharmonic you can go to their website here.

Here's a brief synopsis:

Chandler Travis has had a long and checkered career in the world of show biz, beginning in in the seventies with Steve Shook as Travis & Shook whose comedic pop landed them on the Tonight Show, the Midnight Special, and Dick Cavett. They toured with George Carlin for many years. Then there's Cape Cod based Incredible Casuals, who toured consistently all over the world, and are still at it. In 1988, Chandler began moonlighting as a solo performer, presenting the unlikely mixture of oddball humor and incisive songwriting that continue to be his trademark Late in 1996 Travis found himself fronting a nine-piece band, the modestly monikered Chandler Travis Philharmonic -probably the world’s only alternative dixieland / omnipop band.

Bad News From Spouse

2011-03-07T12:07:00.000-05:00

Just received this upsetting newsletter from one of my all time favorite bands and good friends, Spouse.

Dear friends, fans, family members, and supporters,

Everyday, just about everyone on this planet makes a choice. Sometimes that choice is a simple one, like deciding what to eat for lunch, or what to wear to work. Sometimes that choice is more difficult, like deciding whether to make a big purchase or adopt a new pet. Occasionally, you wake up and have to decide whether to keep going in the same direction, or change course.

Since my return home from our most recent tour of the Midwest this past November, I’ve been consumed by a similar decision, and ultimately, I’ve made my choice. As of May, Spouse will be taking an indefinite hiatus. I’ll be concentrating my time and energy a little more on releasing some new solo material, which I will invite you all to check out when the time comes. But for now, I’d like to announce a few of our final shows.

On March 26^th, Spouse will be performing Downstairs at the Middle East in Cambridge, MA, opening for our good friends, The Grownup Noise who will be celebrating the release of their new album, “This Time with Feeling”. We will be playing 2^nd of 4 bands. The Kingsley Flood, and Joe Fletcher & The Wrong Reasons are also a part of this bill. Tickets are a mere $10, and they can be purchased here.

On April 10^th, Spouse will be performing an abbreviated set as part of a benefit for Safe Passage at John M. Greene Hall on the Smith College Campus in Northampton, MA. The show starts at 4pm, and will feature the Young @ Heart Chorus and Lux Deluxe. It should be a real treat! Tickets are $25 in advance and $35 at the door. They can be purchased here.

On April 30^th, Spouse will be joined by Spottiswoode & His Enemies at Empire in Portland, ME. This will be a fantastic night of music as our guests always bring their A Game, and they’re easily one of the most entertaining and enjoyable bands around.

Additionally, I’ll be performing some solo shows, premiering some new music:

03/25 @ Blue, Portland, ME w/ Elizabeth Lorrey
04/22 @ Slainte, Portland, ME w/ The Grownup Noise & guests (I play 1^st of 3)
05/21 @ Dark Dining Room, (House Concert, in the Western Mass area, email me for info)
06/03 @ Bishop’s Lounge, Northampton, MA w/ Adam Sweeny & guests (I play 1^st of 3)
07/27 @ Bangor Public Library, Bangor, ME – free show

Thanks very much for your time and your support,

Perfect March 1st Music

2011-03-01T11:29:00.000-05:00

I suggest Spanish For Hitchhiking's The Starling for starting off your March in the right way.

Where's That Sound Coming From?: Lord Nesmith or Papa Russ?

2011-02-28T15:44:00.001-05:00

Where's That Sound Coming From?: Lord Nesmith or Papa Russ?: "Ten years ago, I was surfing the internets, looking up any recent news about The Monkees or Michael Nesmith, when I came across a post on a ..."

Where's That Sound Coming From? by Brian Marchese

2011-02-27T13:41:00.000-05:00

Brian has started his own new blog called Where's That Sound Coming From?.

You may remember his detailed posts about his own takes on rock and roll from the past. He takes them to a new level here, not only writing his thoughts, but posting videos and photos and things you probably wouldn't find on your own.

I'll likely be linking to many of his posts here but you should probably just go ahead and follow his blog, or put it in your reader, or feeds, or bookmarks, or whatever it is you do with things that you want to remember to check out all the time.

A Video

2011-02-27T12:45:00.000-05:00

The Rub Wrongways Caravan of Stars at The Sierra Grille - Northampton, MA

2011-02-22T18:14:00.001-05:00

The Caravan pulls in at the Sierra Grille - Northampton, MA - February 24, 2011.

Max's snapshot

2011-02-16T15:02:00.002-05:00

Looks like my colleagues who run the learningdiversity.org website that I sometimes write pieces for have chosen Max's photograph of me for the bio page. By the way, my bio itself needs to be updated; we write our own so I have no one but myself to blame. I'll get to it soon...

learningdiversity

Nervous About This Friday's Big Show

2011-02-15T12:16:00.000-05:00

Hello,

This here is a little reminder about the big show this Friday at The Elevens in Northampton, MA. I hope you can make it.

I'm getting nervous about the show. When I booked it, I thought, yeah, this will be cool! Let's see what Mitch Easter us up to nowadays. Sure he produced some of my all-time favorite albums and he had a nice run with Let's Active back in the day (and the Sneakers before that). But what's he up to now? I'm very curious. As a bonus, our good friend and ex-Northamptonite, Amanda Lindsey is playing in Mitch's band. Haven't see her perform since Model Rocket back at The Baystate.

It seemed like School for the Dead would be a good fit and Boy Genius (who is touring with the Mitch Easter Band) are friends, too. I've played with them in NYC and New Haven, for example.

And Ribboncandy! Forget about it! It's always awesome to hear Ribboncandy!

It's got the making of a great, great straight-up power-pop-jangle-pop-indie-rock night. So why am I nervous?

I'm nervous because there are currently only 23 people who have RSVP'd to the event here on Facebook and my experience tells me that usually only about a third of those they say they are coming actually show up. I'm nervous because I told the Mitch Easter Band that I could put on a good show for them up here in Northampton.

To tell you the truth, I get nervous about attendance before every show we play. It'd be nice if I could just be a musician and performer, but I have to try and figure out all this other stuff, too, like how to get people to come to shows. Once they are there I know they'll have a good time. That part's easy. The hard part is convincing them to come and seeing to it that they actually do.

What would you do to rally up a crowd?

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If you have a Faebook account, check out this event page. We've posted some videos so you can hear and see some of the bands. Leave a comment, spread the word, share the event. Tell your friends. I think Friday could be one of those perfect rock-show nights.

Thank you,
Henning

Let's Active - Every Word Means No

2011-02-12T15:58:00.000-05:00

Mitch Easter's old band, Let's Active.

Comes see what he's up to now on Friday at The Elevens in Northampton, with School for the Dead, Boy Genius, and Ribboncandy. Doors at 9:00.

One Man's Penny is Another Man's Fortune

2011-02-10T15:31:00.001-05:00

Today, I was thinking about how the value of money is different for each person. While things that people buy stay the same in actual dollar value, their costs change according to each person's earnings. Meaning, a gallon of gas to the average Joe costs a lot more than it does for a wealthy person.

The Federal minimum wage is currently $7.25/hr. If you have a job, figure out how your hourly earnings compare with this. Say for instance, that you make $14.50/hr. Now go about your day but anytime that you have to buy anything, multiply the cost by two. Want to go to a movie? $20.00. Want a five dollar footlong? $10.00. Pay a $1500.00 mortgage? Now it's $3,000. Gallon of gas? $6.00

If you make $21.75/hr, multiply everything by three. Movie? $30.00. Five dollar footlong? $15.00. Mortgage $4,500. Gas? $9.00.

It's an interesting perspective.

Likewise, if you currently are making minimum wage, you can figure out other wage rates and divide those to see things from someone else's perspective. If you know someone who makes five times more than you then to them a five dollar footlong costs one of your dollars. See?

Now let's take someone who makes $250,000 per year. That was the cut-off for proposed taxation changes, yes? Well, a full-time minimum wage worker makes $16,640 per year. Roughly 15 times less.

So to "Joe Joe 250 Grand" a five dollar footlong costs 33 cents in "Louise Minimum Wage" dollars. A gallon of gas? 20 cents. Pretty nice.

Let's look at some extremes:

President Barak Obama: $5,505,509 in 2009 (330 times minimum wage)
Five dollar footlong = $0.015 in minimum wage money.
Gallon of gas = $0.009 in minimum wage money.

Glenn Beck: $32,000,000 in 2009 (1923 times minimum wage)
Five dollar footlong = $0.0026 in minimum wage money.
Gallon of gas = $0.0015 in minimum wage money.

Oprah Winfrey: $315,000,000 in 2009 (18,930 times minimum wage)
Five dollar footlong = $0.00026 in minimum wage money.
Gallon of gas = $0.00015 in minimum wage money.
$1500 Mortgage = $.079 in minimum wage money.
$300,000 House = $15.84 in minimum wage money.

Wouldn't it be easy to get around if a gallon of gas cost for a tenthousandth of a penny?
And a car cost a dollar fifty?

Mitch Easter, School for the Dead, Boy Genius, Ribboncandy - Feb 18

2011-02-08T13:16:00.002-05:00

New song

2011-02-07T19:18:00.002-05:00

I've uploaded a new song called "Ready Or Not" onto my myspace music page. It's a demo recording of me singing and playing a song I wrote with one of my students. He came up with the music and I penned the lyrics and shaped the melody to his chords.

Ready Or Not

Happy Groundhog's Day - Squirrels Dig It

2011-02-02T12:01:00.002-05:00

It stopped snowing long enough for this squirrel to dig in and find a peanut.

Snow Picture Book

2011-02-01T14:09:00.002-05:00

It was easier than usual to hear the music in my headphones this morning. The new snow was carpeting the roads and making the cars silent as they slowly passed by. My shuffling music machine picked Picture Book by the Kinks and I dug it. When I got inside, I flipped on the radio and they played Picture Book. I dug it again.

The Latest School for the Dead Newsletter

2011-01-31T16:26:00.000-05:00

Hello hello hello hello,

It's been so long since I've written. My apologies. My fingers were snowed in.

This is the year 2011. What do we have in store for you? Plenty! But I'll narrow it down to four things.

** 1. Our new album is imminent. Demos of all the songs have been distributed amongst the band. A plan for recording has been formed, including trying a somewhat live technique. I'm looking toward the sounds of my favorite albums by people like R.E.M. and The Replacements, hoping to capture not just the songs but a mood and a sense of a band having fun making music. It's time that music became more human again, don't you think? Enough with the auto-tune, and samples, and gazillion overdubs. Who cares. Not every song has to sound like it's the last song ever on earth, Arcade Fire. (Disclaimer: I quite like the new Arcade Fire album). The point is, let's just stop and take a breath, huh? We're making songs, not pop-up ads, not everything has to be the latest and greatest and loudest and newest. I don't want to be in-your-face anymore than you want me there.

That's the pep-rally speech I'll give the band before recording. Then they will all laugh in my face and we'll take a waffle break.

** 2. Big shows! Starting with:

Friday, February 18th at The Elevens in Northampton, MA. We haven't played there forever. It's our triumphant return and look at the bill:
The Mitch Easter Band (Yes, Mitch Easter of Let's Active and hey-I-produced-some-of-the-best-albums-ever fame.)
School for the Dead
Boy Genius
Ribboncandy
Starts at 10:00 - Doors at 9:00 - 21+

Thursday, February 24th at The Sierra Grille in Northampton.
The Rub Wrongways Caravan of Stars returns...NOW! With more stars!
10:00 - 21+ - with Whistle Jacket and Young & Old.

Friday April 1 at The Basement in Northampton, MA.
The Official School for the Dead April Fool's Party.
Details to follow at our websites or at http://www.iheg.com

Saturday April 16th at The Montague Bookmill in Montague, MA (Music you don't need in a place you can't find.)
THE SCHOOL FOR THE DEAD TENTH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL!
Details to follow at our website or at http://www.montaguebookmill.com
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** 3. Look out for a new solo album from me, Henning. It's a concept album of sorts, and it's almost done. I don't want to divulge too much yet. But I think you'll like it.
----------------

** 4. Cool new shirts. Max has got something up his sleeves and that something also has sleeves. Stay tuned.
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That's enough info for now right? I'll stop, I'll stop. Can you tell I'm excited?

Keep up to date with us at:
http://www.schoolforthedead.com
http://twitter.com/rubwrongways
http://www.new.facebook.com/schoolforthedead
http://www.rubwrongways.com
http://schoolforthedead.bandcamp.com

Thank you,
Henning
School for the Dead

Happy 1st Birthday to the Third SNTB kid.

2011-01-27T13:37:00.002-05:00

From a guilty dad:

Happy First Birthday, Wrong Tree E.P.! I'm sorry that upon your release I more or less neglected you and tended to other stuff. You deserved better. Perhaps you and the other two kids will be re-released by Rhino long after I'm dead.

In the meantime, the dozens who did buy it can feel way ahead of the curve. Or maybe some folks will wanna buy it here or download it here for $5.

Jake Shimabukuro performing Bohemian Rhapsody in Hiroshima, Japan

2011-01-26T22:19:00.000-05:00

The other day I was feeling like I was getting pretty good at the ukulele. Then I saw this.

This is what I woke up to yesterday.

2011-01-25T14:24:00.002-05:00

Then I went for a walk.

Let's Hear It For The Squirrel

2011-01-21T16:07:00.000-05:00

Rick from Group DeVille pointed out to me that today is National Squirrel Appreciation Day.

If you've been following this Rockumentary, you are probably aware that I am a fan of squirrels. In fact, I can honestly say that I appreciate the squirrel everyday. Here's one of our backyard pals now:

School for the Dead and Kevin O'Rourke Where The Hell Is Bill

2011-01-20T12:28:00.000-05:00

This is nine years ago.

Sesame Street - Bein' Green (1969)

2011-01-14T16:05:00.000-05:00

Good old Kermit.

Doesn't Know How To Play The Drums or Piano

2011-01-14T15:37:00.000-05:00

People do things,.

2011-01-13T13:47:00.001-05:00

Here's an update to that last post. I am writing this via text messaging on my phone. Maybe this means I'll post here more often.

Facebook and Twitter are Stealing My Attention

2011-01-13T13:29:00.000-05:00

Maybe you've noticed that things don't seem to get updated as much here as they used to. I'm afraid to say that Facebook and twitter have kind of stolen some of my attention away.

It used to be that, if I had a little fleeting thought, I'd post it here. Now I tend to head to one of those other places. A lot of this has to do with having a smart phone. It's so easy to update those places on the phone.

I've been trying to figure out a way to have my Facebook status updates and things appear here automatically, but everything I try looks pretty ugly and is clunky at best.

I'll keep working on it. It's important to me that The Living Rockumentary remains vital. It is FOUR posts away from our 5,000th post! We started this thing before we had Facebook or Twitter or Myspace or Flickr or any of those.

Stick with us, I'll make it work out. I'll keep posting here and also you can follow at:

Facebook (School for the Dead), Facebook (me), and Twitter

The Fawns, School for the Dead, The Gay Potatoes First Night Concerts a Recap

2011-01-03T15:54:00.000-05:00

New Year's Eve is always an exhausting day/night for me. This is not a complaint. I bring this on myself and I do so knowingly and purposefully.

The music began at seven o'clock. The Fawns were back at Lyman Hall again. Each year, for a lot of years now, we've played this venue as part of Northampton's First Night Celebration. There are performances and exhibits all around town. People buy special buttons and they can go to any of the events. We had a show at 7:00 and a show at 8:00. As Lesa and I walked into town (our equipment had mostly been brought in earlier) the fireworks were going off. The explosions were directly beyond our destination, so our fifteen minute walk brought us closer and closer to the spectacle. As we strolled, we passed several other groups of people gazing up at the sky, finding spots between the trees. It was exciting.

The Fawns at First Night 2011
(photo by Ivan Oransky)

We loaded our stuff in and set up quickly in front of a growing crowd of revelers and before we knew it, we began our show. These First Night gigs are always unusual and a bit surreal. The audience is different than our norm. It is comprised of people who don't often go out to see bands play. It is comprised of people of all ages and from all walks of life. The venue is also quite different than our usual haunts. Lyman Hall is part of a large church in town. The inside feels like the inside of a gingerbread house.

We played our shows and found a pretty good connection with the audiences. These were our most crowded First Night shows to date. There were not enough seats for everyone. Nobody seemed to mind, everyone seemed to be in a good mood. Yay, First Night.

After the Fawns set, we lugged our stuff to the next building over where we had a later-night School for the Dead show scheduled. We were playing at The Basement with special guests The Gay Potatoes (me, Brian, Philip Price, and Chris Collingwood). We arrived with all of our stuff ready to load in, but of course, the place was dark and locked. It was like an exact repeat of our Halloween show at the same venue. We waited outside in the cold for about half an hour until we were let in. Once inside, we quickly set everything up as people started filing in.

The Basement is a small venue, but I didn't have any idea what to expect for a crowd, there were so many other things happening that night. It was a wonderful surprise that by the time we were about to start, the room was packed just about as full as it can get. I felt bad for the crowd, since I know how uncomfortable it can be there, but overall I saw mostly happy, eager, and enthusiastic faces.

School for the Dead played a pretty solid, yet strange selection of songs for our first set. The atmosphere was all positive in the room and it was great to be playing as the full five piece again.

The Gay Potatoes De-Naming Ceremony
(photo by Ivan Oransky)

When our first set was done, The Gay Potatoes took the stage and we played, musically, our best show to date. We did the same nine songs that we played when we used to play shows seven or eight years ago. At the end of the set we had our Official De-Naming Ceremony where we denamed ourselves. This was symbolically exhibited by slicing a potato in half. We are no longer called that name. We currently have no name.

The band that used to be called The Gay Potatoes finished playing at almost midnight. The room cleared significantly as folks left to go join the throngs in the center of town to watch the ball do it's thing.

School for the Dead began our second set soon after midnight with an unexpected version of Everybody Loves Martha by request. Our second set was exhausted and crazy and musically it was all over the place, but mood-wise it seemed to fit the chaotic mess that New Year's Eves usually bring.

The audience was wonderful. Happy New Year, everyone.

School for the Dead's Free New Year Party with The Gay Potatoes!

2010-12-27T12:11:00.003-05:00

The Unfortunate Annual Tradition

2010-12-22T12:15:00.002-05:00

Sometimes my finger hesitates at the "enter" button on my keyboard. Some things that I post, I stop and say, "wait. really?!". This is one of those things. I hesitated last year and I'm hesitating this year. It's an annual tradition.

Enjoy the holidays, friend.