Cheevyjames’ Musical Roundhouse

This morning while going to work one of my favorite songs popped up on the iPod - David Garza’s “My Sister”. I’ve loved this song ever since I first heard it. If pressured to pick one, I’d say that this is my favorite song he’s written.

Naturally it’s best if you hear the song for yourself, but I just thought I’d post the words because I really like them.

*******

My Sister

19 years old, she leaves her family
Says she needs to find her identity
Nothing’s in the way, not even finances
Before she gets too old she wants to take her chances

20 years old, she dates a big jock
She screams at everybody cause she don’t know how to talk
Color contacts can’t hide her brown eyes
Tight bicycle shorts can’t hide her fat thighs

She can’t decide where to go
She can’t decide who to be
She can’t decide who to trust
That’s why she never trusts me

21 years old, and she is with child
Her man skips town and the bills are getting piled
She doesn’t want anything out of proportion
She doesn’t tell a soul about her abortion

22 years old, her man gets a porsche
And when she wasn’t looking her parents got divorced
Her mother wasn’t bad, her father wasn’t either
They had their little moments, I guess you had to be there

What’s to become of my sister?

23 years old, she drops out of school
Her heart is like a big car, runs out of fuel
Now she wants a kid, and so she gets married
Her wedding’s like a funeral, everything is buried

24 years old, she settles out of court
Her ex doesn’t pay any child support
She smokes a lot, drinks a lot, tries to kill the pain
of watching her marriage go down the drain

She can’t decide where to go
She can’t decide who to be
She can’t decide who to trust
That’s why she never trusts me

25 years old, she calls me up again
We talk about our childhood way back when
Our mom wasn’t so bad, our father wasn’t either
They had their lovely moments, I guess you had to be there

What’s to become of my sister?

She can’t decide where to go
She can’t decide who to be
She can’t decide who to trust
That’s why she never trusts me

© 1991 thousand roses songs ltd.

Current Location: work

Current Mood: chill

Current Music: radioparadise.com

Ah, the weekend’s over so it’s back to work.

Last week I bought the new Phish DVD, Live in Brooklyn. So far I’ve only watched Set 1, along with the extras & Easter Eggs. So far, I really like it. Maybe I don’t know anything, but I always enjoy the stuff they did post-hiatus. It seems like most supposed “fans” think they were horrible after the hiatus. Well, I definitely like the new DVD (recorded June 2004) so far and I don’t get why anyone would think otherwise. I actually enjoy this more than the Live in Vegas DVD and definitely more than the IT DVD. We’ll see how the 2nd set is.

Last night I curled up with the latest Netflix to watch Peter Gabriel’s Secret World Live. I’ve had the album for a long time now so I was excited to see the visuals. On the whole I liked it, but I definitely have a problem with it. No, not a problem with the music itself, as the band sounds great throughout the whole thing. All of them are just phenomenal. My beef is with the show itself. Yes, it’s a very detailed and BIG theatrical show. My problem is that it seems like the band (esp. PG) is so interested in the “performance” that they forget they’re actually playing to a large crowd of people. Except for PG’s small bits of talking to the audience in Italian before a few songs, he never acknowledges that they’re even there. The whole thing just seems so choreographed, like they rehearsed it so much that they’re going through the motions. Of course they’re smiling and jumping/dancing around constantly, but it all feels like a play…and the audience just happens to be in the same room with them. Yeah, it’s kind of a cold performance. Doesn’t seem like any real emotion is there. No, that’s harsh. No real interaction with the audience. That’s better.

The stage design was really cool, and I do like the theatrical aspect of it, I just thought they possibly went too far. The video editing, a bit too inconsistent for me. I appreciate the “artiness” of it all, but on some songs they used a single video technique and never strayed from it until the next song, which would be solely another technique. For instance, one song (can’t remember which one) was only closeups of the faces of PG and the band. Just for one song. I’m sure it “meant something”, but it was annoying. Or on Digging in the Dirt where PG wore a head-camera and it was on super extreme close-up of his eye, or mouth, or nose the entire song. I understand it’s supposed to make you feel uncomfortable, but that was so much overkill.

Also, it seemed like the audio was a bit too perfect. It really seemed like there were a lot of fix-ups in the studio after it was recorded. So, parts I really liked, but parts really disappointed me. Oh well, the band, esp. Tony Levin kicked ass and Paula Cole just rips it up on those songs. I really don’t care for her own music, but she sounded awesome singing with PG. About half way through I figured out the real problem - it seemed like one long music video, and not actually a “concert”.

And then we come to Iron Maiden.

My friend Don got me a copy of a Maiden show from last year that was broadcast on TV all throughout Scandinavia. Excellent, perfect quality and it was the whole performance, unedited so that was great. It was such a great show! I missed their tour last year (no stops in Texas) so it was great to see the “Early Days” setlist (only songs from the first 4 albums). Excellent show and excellent DVD. Not really ‘official’, but what the hell. I’m sure a lot of people recorded it off the TV. Thanks Don!

And today, the band premiered their new single and video. I really like the song and the video’s pretty cool too. Their last album left a bad taste in my mouth, even though there are some incredible songs on there. I’m really, really looking forward to the new album now. More so than I was yesterday (which was a lot). Ah, Davey just has a kick ass solo in the new song. I love it.

There ya go, a video run-down. Whee! Unless something goes wierd, I’ll have an update on my website later today. Rock on.

Current Location: work

Current Mood: happy

Current Music: Don de Leaumont - It Weighs a Ton

I had another nightmare last night about working in radio. This happens every so often to me, for some dumb reason. Background: I worked at an AM talk radio station for 2 years after I graduated college. I was a nighttime news reporter and board-op. I’m coming up on 6 years of being out of the buisness, and yet I still have nightmares about it.

Last night’s feature dealt with a usual occurance in my dreams: that I, for some unknown reason, am called upon to read a news broadcast. So, last night I have to do this for some reason (out of nowhere) and I look up at the clock and I see that it’s like :58 past the hour, which means I have to be on the air at :59:50 and do a bumper for 10 seconds before the national news goes on and I have a few minutes to get my newscast ready. I look up and see the clock then I notice I have only like half of a microphone. By the time :59:50 rolls around I still have nothing so I just put on a promo or something and then let the news play for the full 4:30…it’s only supposed to be 2 minutes of national news before going to me, but at the 2 minute mark I have *nothing* ready so I let it keep playing. I noticed that another mic to my right is intact, but for some reason I have to take it apart and put it where *my* mic is…and I’m there struggling to put this thing together and somehow I do it, but now it’s absolutely time for me to start reading the news and I have NOTHING. So I grab the first piece of paper I see and it’s the commercial that just played a minute ago. I stumble, HORRIBLY, through reading it and I’m just freakin’ scared as hell because I’m messing up so bad and I don’t have a newscast. After I butcher that commercial, someone sees this and decides to just turn on their mic and read a news story. This saves me some time, but goes by in about 5 seconds and then it’s on me again. I still have nothing and I’m just kind of going “ummm, uhhh” and stuff like that (I think I even cussed on the air under my breath a few times) and then I notice that FINALLY it’s time for the syndicated show to start and so I just go into that.

It may not mean anything to most people, but if you’ve ever worked in radio it’s probably a pretty scary thought. I *hate* getting these Radio Nightmares. One, because they suck and it makes me feel extremely unprepared in something I was pretty good at doing, and also because I don’t work in that business anymore and I probably never will. 6 years…why do I still dream about that crap?

So, on the good front about my voice, last night during band practice I actually started to sing! SING! We worked out a couple of good harmonies for a couple of lines in Surrounded By Trees, one being an actual harmony and one just an octave lower to what Jenn does. Still, I was hitting the notes mostly right on (esp. once I got it) and I, shock shock, sounded good too! Jenn was surprised I could jump up a 4th and be spot on right from the beginning. The only times I had trouble was going down a whole step or half step. Hitting the low Ab was most difficult for me since it’s right about at the end of my low range. I figured out last year that I can pull off 3 octaves and that’s not too bad.

But anyway, I’m happy I was contributing vocally to the band and Jenn’s actually really confident in my voice which makes me feel so much better about it. I need to work a bit more on the music part of Surrounded (and 10K) and then I can add my vocals to it before we try to do Jenn’s again. It wasn’t happening last night, but that’s mostly my fault since the music isn’t *quite* right yet.

We did go through the pictures from the photo session a few weeks back and there are some pretty good ones in there. A few, but still. We might go back to that place and do another session…although we’ll make sure it’s NOT when we’re being rained on.

The first song is up at the Protean Mean myspace site. More to come as soon as it’s done. Whee!

Current Location: work

Current Mood: musical

Current Music: Dream Theater - Perfect Strangers + others on the iPod