The People's Fanfare for the New Kakistocracy (excerpt)

MeFi Music

40:50

“That's taxpayer’s money that is going to support research and development and pilot projects to develop a food system that is based on environmental destruction and greed and disregard for animals, fish, and any of the other marine mammals that might be around it.” - Andrianna Natsoulas Andrianna Natsoulas is the campaign director for Don't Cage Our Oceans, an organization that exists to keep our oceans free from industrial fish farms. Offshore finfish farming is the mass cultivation of finfish in marine waters, in underwater or floating net pens, pods, and cages. Offshore finfish farms are factory farms that harm public health, the environment, and local communities and economies that rely on the ocean and its resources. Don’t Cage Our Oceans are a coalition of diverse organizations working together to stop the development of offshore finfish farming in the United States through federal law, policies, and coalition building. And, although it is not yet happening, right now the US Administration and Congress are promoting this kind of farming, which would be nothing short of disastrous for the oceans, the planet and the people and animals who live here. dontcageouroceans.org…

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I am so sad, angry and confused by the recent US election result that I created this: a fitting fanfare from the people of the rest of the world. It is puerile and disgusting.
This is a ~30 second excerpt from the full work, which is almost two minutes long. It was compiled entirely using the command line tool sox, including the stereo spatial effects. Yes, it's farts. Lots of farts. It shows the appropriate level of respect.

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MeFi Music

The People's Fanfare for the New Kakistocracy (excerpt)

MeFi Music

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published hace un año

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45 episodios

#Music

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1
Dotted Lines

hace 7 días

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A weird shambolic mess of a song about so-called real life intruding on my attempts to appreciate the miracle of existence, the wonder and improbability of life including my own, the majestic splendor of the natural world, blah blah blah Finally got my recording setup isolated enough to where I can do irresponsible things with my vocal tracks without worrying that one of my condo neighbors will call 911. Lyrics: I know that what makes me me has been recycled a billion times And I know it's only separated by a dotted line And when I smell the lavender as I walk by It should remind me that there's really no such thing as I But it's kinda hard to believe it As long as there's a me to perceive it Yeah it's not enough to make it real I mean who else is gonna pay these bills I know that every time I breathe it's a miracle It takes a billion little engines in tandem to keep me alive And when I see a sparrow or a new green stem It should remind me that the very same is true of them But it'll never amaze me It's just that work has been so crazy I feed the crows and it bothers the neighbors Can't even live without selling my labor I traded wonder for comfort and it feels like the deal was raw sometimes And every morning I sit on a rock and I talk to a tree Real low so no one approach and notice me Desperately clawing back what I can from every crack in the unnatural grind I hope there's still something to find…

1
Hungry Eyes / I Want the End of the World

hace 14 días

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Little bit of angry background folk punk. Quick and dirty. Double feature, today. Mostly recorded while lying down and being sad. Lyrics in fold. From the redlines to the green mines, I think I've had enough of your kind. For all the merit that you'd find, needles hang with hungry eyes. The camels are swinging high. I want the end of the world. No, I don't want no one to get hurt. But, I want the last to be first like it says in the bible. Failing this, it would suffice for either the dead or the oceans to rise, the stars all to fall, the bombs all to drop, or whatever. Oh i want the end of the world. It's true. Yeah, don't you?…

1
Tomorrow Is A Highway

hace 22 días

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My a cappella cover of a 1949 folk song ("Tomorrow Is A Highway" -- words by Lee Hays, music by Pete Seeger) that I love. In 2017 I wrote about this song : I've been listening over and over to "Tomorrow Is A Highway". It's got some lovely stark lines, like "leave this evil year behind." Time and space have unified; it doesn't say that we'll walk into the future, but rather, that the future is this journey, and there are only two time durations in this song, days and years -- tomorrow is a highway upon which we'll travel to a better year. And it's sort of a mix of prescriptive and descriptive, prophetically defining us as the people who are making this tomorrow. This song does not explicitly say "this might happen" or "we should hope for this to happen"; instead it combines "this will happen" and "let's make it happen". It's less a song of hope, and more a song of faith and promise and invitation. It can be hard to let go of hope, and it can be hard to let go of dread..... I can't seem to find my copy of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed at the moment -- did I lend it to you? In it, Shevek thinks a few times about how our conception of time and promises and intentions work together -- a coherent future doesn't just happen, it's intentional human actions that make a "road" and breaking promises denies and breaks that "road" connecting past, present, and future. I have been feeling as though nothing is solid under my feet..... for the sake of my own forward motion I shall work as though the next stretch of the road exists too -- perhaps every step is in some measure a leap of faith. The lyrics: Tomorrow is a highway broad and fair, And we are the many who'll travel there. Tomorrow is a highway broad and fair, And we are the workers who'll build it there; And we will build it there. Come, let us build a way for all mankind, A way to leave this evil year behind, To travel onward to a better year Where love is, and there will be no fear, Where love is and no fear. Now is the shadowed year when evil men, When men of evil thunder war again. Shall tyrants once again be free to tread, Above our most brave and honored dead? Our brave and honored dead. O, comrades, come and travel on with me, We'll go to our new year of liberty. Come, walk upright, along the people's way, From darkness, unto the people's day. From dark, to sunlit day. Tomorrow is a highway broad and fair And hate and greed shall never travel there But only they who've learned the peaceful way Of brotherhood, to greet the coming day. We hail the coming day. (I seriously was not thinking of the "What's the one subsite you've never posted to?" MetaTalk when I first decided this morning to record and post this, but in retrospect, now I have collected the set!)…

1
The sun has got to shine through all this rain

hace 29 días

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When joy is so close to the surface, when love is right there sitting too, the road to love another is so short, the path of the heart so true. I lost a friend this week. In reflecting on this rare joy they possessed and where that came from, this song fell out of me. The recording is just getting the song down, and clearly has some rough spots, but I would love suggestions for when I properly record it.…

1
I Thought You Knew

hace 30 días

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Here's another song from the new Coffee Sergeants album Racing Shadows. The drums, bass & guitars are live, take 2 or 3, no edits. Keys and vocals overdubbed the next day. I wrote & forgot this bass line a couple times, and was fortunate to find the skeleton in a 10-second voice memo on my phone. Carey brought it to rehearsal on guitar and we beat on it a couple times, then set it aside for a couple months. When it came time to make the album, he sent out a demo, I scoured my phone, and built this bass track from that bit I found. It's so refreshing to be playing bass for someone who lets me be a professional. After we ran down the final version, I asked him what he thought and he just said "sounds great." The highest compliment anyone has ever paid me as a bassist happened 3 times from different peoiple on the same night when we debuted the album: "You sound just like Colin Moulding." I think I'm wearing that influence on my sleeve here. Album available at Bandcamp via Flak Records. Also Apple Music, Spotify, etc.…

1
Grandhorse

hace un año

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Soothin' synths

1
Wanda's Vision

hace un año

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"Everyone is watching Wandavision but only the wise are listening to Wanda's Vision" - Waikiki Wanda

1
Selling Tickets

hace un año

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Winter brings that torpor. Here's a slackrock song. Oldish song. Very old riff in the bridge Bouncy, tho. Where's the song that could feed you like bread? It's the hungry tunes that always end up stuck in your head. Going broke? What you're saying to me: selling tickets to a show that you don't want to see. There's an easy way out that you don't even want to try, and I don't know why. Where's that verse that's as warm as a bed, that you could wrap around yourself or at least trade in for rent? Has the season got you feeling so soft: selling tickets to a ride that you wanna get off? Well, it's a living. I guess you give in so slow that you'd hardly know. Then you try to sell out and you can't give it away.…

1
Don't Look Back in Anger - Voice Memo Oasis Cover

hace un año

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One of my favorite Oasis songs. Just a quick little cover using my iPhone's voice memo app and the built-in microphone. The only processing I did on this file was to trim off the setup noises at the beginning, and then I converted it to .mp3. All this is to say I'm quite aware of the many, many imperfections in this recording :) ... but somehow I still enjoyed listening back to it, and maybe someone else will too!…

1
Everything's Gonna Be Better On Day One

hace un año

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A writer for Rolling Stone once described Devo as sounding like "fascist clowns". This is kind of like that.

1
Into The Sky

hace un año

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Title track from an instrumental album I just finished. Details inside. This song features TC on guitar and Sharon Raquel does the voice over. This album was a collab with Dream Theory . The ambitious concept of a "magic carpet ride to different places around the globe" turned into being just about the magic carpet, or flight itself. He wrote about half the songs. On the album, you'll hear some pieces in 5/4, cello, french horn, string quartet, tubular bells, clarinet and other classical samples mixed with lots of synth sounds; also a few pieces in 5/4, modal scales, a phrase played forward and backward - in short, a sonic voyage. Into The Sky - full album. (free streaming/download - Merry Christmas!)…

1
The New Folk Hero

hace un año

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Well, there's a new folk hero out there, as discussed elsewhere . I couldn't resist recording a little demo based on the essay I woke up and wrote in that thread yesterday. I've seen a few songs out there already with titles like "Deny, Defend, Depose," but I haven't seen a folk song yet. This seems like classic folk-song subject matter: murder ballads, corridos, that kinda thing. If/when it's released for real, ideally with some more interesting instrumentation, I'd do it under the moniker of my new folk/Americana band, Whispering Lake. The New Folk Hero Key of G/A [VERSE 1] G D Bm C I always figured if I don't like the life I'm living G Bm Em C I might as well give something else a shot G D But put a man in a lot of pain Bm C And he might just find a way G Bm Em C To take a shot at someone else [CHORUS 1] G A C So here's your new folk hero G A C Smart enough to plan it out but not to escape G Em A We're all one accident away from feeling the kinda pain C D G That spurred on the new folk hero G Em C D [VERSE 2] G D Bm C It's a testament to fortitude, or maybe decorum G Bm Em C That we don't just burn it all down G D 'Cause anyone could reach this place— Bm C We're scared to see the pretty face G Bm Em C Of a man the health-care system ground down [CHORUS 2] G A C So here's your new folk hero G A C Smart enough to plan it out but not to escape G Em A We're all one accident away from feeling the kinda pain C D G That spurred on the new folk hero G Em C D [VERSE 3] G D Bm C It's probably no coincidence our new folk hero thought of this G Bm Em C When the future looks so bleak G D Replace a man's spine with screws Bm C And he'll have nothing left to lose G Bm Em C You take away his hopes and dreams [CHORUS 3] G A C So here's your new folk hero G A C Smart enough to plan it out but not to escape G Em A We're all one accident away from feeling the kinda pain C D G That spurred on the new folk hero G Em C D [BRIDGE] A C People tend to get upset G A When they realize this crushing debt C D Em Is all just part of the plan A C Behind the scenes, all the while G A The system's built to keep us servile C D Em Make us cave to their demands A C The system's built to ruin us G A And throw us under the bus C D A C Deny...defend...depose [CHORUS 4] G A C Here comes your new folk hero G A C Smart enough to plan it out but not to escape G Em A We're all one accident away from feeling the kinda pain C D G That spurred on the new folk hero Em [CHORUS 5] G A C So here's your new folk hero G A C Smart enough to plan it out but not to escape G Em A We're all one accident away from feeling the kinda pain C D G Em That spurred on the new folk hero C D G That spurred on the new folk hero…

1
Bruce went to CBGBs (to see Suicide)

hace un año

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I just learned that Bruce Springsteen was a huge fan of the synth-punk band Suicide in the late 1970s and used to rock out right up at the stage at their shows in NYC. I decided to do my first weekend recording bender in a while in an effort to assimilate that unlikely factoid. It was a blast to try to figure out how to approximate Suicide's weirdo distorted farfisa-meets-rhythm ace sound. I think I woke up the neighbors as far as two blocks down when I did that scream at the end.…

1
Nerds by The Great Disappointment

hace un año

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This song came from a thought that had been kicking around my head for several years, but then turned into a song all at once when I stumbled across the bassline. "When I was a kid I thought the nerds would take over and things would get better. That was half right."

1
Angel of Love, by The Great Disappointment

hace un año