“Christmas Day” -so far, C.T. w. John Clark on bass and Rikki Bates on drums, recorded at Trout Towers by Chris Blood
This one got written last week -wrote the lyrics, such as they are, while driving up for a Cavalcade rehearsal in Boston the night before the Johnny D’s show, and debuted it at the cape Cavalcade show Sunday. This one might end up changing quite a bit -might try a new lyric, and will likely add some instrumentation -but thought I’d just slap this rough version up here for a few days while it’s still holiday time (please don’t hold it against me!)
“Everybody Christmastime” – the Catbirds Minus One at the Boston Christmas Cavalcade, recorded live at Johnny D’s, Dec. 15th, 2011, by The Valet.
I really shouldn’t be putting this up, either, as Steve “Woo Woo” Wood wasn’t even in attendance, and this recording is essence of Horrend-o-phonic (i’e. sounds like utter garbage); the right thing to do is wait until next year when we can combine the board recording w this one, but until we get around to it, this one sure has the right spirit, and in addition is grungy beyond belief… plus, we’ve just been having a great time with this song, which is a cover of a song put out by a group called the Tra La Las a year or two ago.
Both Cavalcades were amazing this year, and we got a ton of great stuff recorded, and thus way too much to listen to and prepare for release, and I’m so far behind on xmas family stuff as usual, won’t really be able to dive in for quite a while, so this is just the tiniest little nugget until we have some time for mining (a lot of time…!) Besides, this seems like one of those things that might actually sound better horrible…
“All I Wanna Know Is”- the Catbirds trio, live on WEXT in Troy NY from August 2011.
Like it says; neither Dinty nor Sal could make this one, and, y’know, the show must go on… This one was at about 1 in the afternoon, too -no wonder I sound angry! The song is a preview from our forthcoming album.
“Thanksgiving In Stoughton” by the Incredible Casuals (from Inedible Casserole #5, “It’s Christmas Time”; also available on “The Tarquin Records All-Star Holiday Extravaganza”) -a timeless classic, first (and last) recorded in 1983. Perhaps someday the rest of this song will be written… not bloody likely, tho…
“Patches” -the Chandler Travis Philharmonic joined by Jeremy Willis and The Willies (Oakley Munson & Kenan Gündüz of The Witnesses and Kristen Munchheimer) at Rosy’s Jazz Hall in New Orleans, Nov. 5th, 2011, recorded in glorious Horrend-O-phonic stereo by The Valet
This gig, at the wedding of my niece Lucy Willis and her fab fiance Julian Brizzi, was the whole reason we did the tour, and was a Compleat Blast! This particular song was a surprise from my nephew for his sister (for some reason, when Jeremy gets drunk, sometimes he ends up singing this old Clarence Carter song… it’s hard to explain)…
Chandler Travis Philharmonic with Jeremy Willis and the Willies - Patches[ 3:30 ]Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (86)
“Phil Budne’s Birthday”- the Chandler Travis Philharmonic, recorded at Phil Budne’s birthday party at the Knights of Columbus in Arlington, MA, Oct. 22 2011 by The Valet- this is the second time in the last couple of months I’ve inadvertently ended up writing something to celebrate an occasion the night before…. obviously, very rough, because the band first heard it minutes before the gig, but kinda fun… Phil had given us an unusually astute and lengthy list of requests (included below), and there was no way we were going to be able to do them all, so I guess this was my way of apologizing.
Phil’s list starts with an explanation of his scoring system:
Here is a list of songs I’d like to hear. I put stars at the front of the names to roughly indicate the level of hope that you would play them:
****Eje Ka Jo
****Fluffy
****Fruit Bat Fun
****Meat Chant
***Bob Whats’is Name
***Dr Kildare
***Fruiterama
***Graciously
***Honeydripper
***Midmorning in Moscow & **Midnight in Moscow
***Money Won’t Buy You Happiness
***Nature Boy
***Neverland
***Not Unhappy
***Roses in Picardy
***Sha La La
***Skylark
***Softly in the Night
***Somerville
***Step it Up
***Yo Tomo Mi Mano
**Air, Running Backwards
**Anne
**Call Me
**Chandler Travis, King of the World
**Dance Goddammit
**Did You Ever Know or *Taoist Vacation
**Faithless Love
**French Toast Man
**Get Right Back
**Grand Route St John
**Hymmin
**I Want to Walk You Home
**I’ve Been Hurt
**Must Be Love
**My Father Met My Mother in NY
**My Old Man
**Not My Fault
**Pajama Pants Baby or *Turning the Page or *You Speak My Language [Dinty]
**Razorclams and Watercress
**Sometimes I’m Happy
**Stay Like That
**Talk to My Baby
**That’s What She Said
**This Is Home
**Time Marches On
**Tomatohead Blues
**Up To Your Neck
**What’ll it Be
**You And Me, Pushing Up Daisies
**You Killed My Love
*Calling Me Back Home
*Charley’s Prelude
*Complicated Life
*Crab Napkin
*Everything Can Go Wrong So Easily
*Got to Let Go Sometime
*Hermetic Zeal
*Milk Truck
*Moody’s Mood for Love
*Say When
*She Knows How
*Supermarket Employee
*Vasco de Gama
*Village of the Darned
*When I Grow Up
*Wireless
Below are highlights from the “SoundOut Consumer Insight Report” on the Chandler Travis Philharmonic’s recording of “Anne” (This was a you-get-the-first-one-free situation, presented by the always heinous Sonicbids organization, the folks who made it possible for artists to pay people to reject them who used to do it for free); for no particular reason, I submitted a song called “Anne” (off our latest debacle, “The Chandler Travis Philharmonic Blows”)…
For you to use as a reference and play along at home/work, here is a live recording of “Anne”, recorded by the Valet at one of our summer homes, Bubala’s By the Bay in Provincetown, MA. This one is from way back on September 7, 2006 and features Tim Dickey on mandolin, Berke McKelvey on soprano sax, Keith Spring on keyboards, Whitey Houston on bass, and Rikki Bates on djembe.
Chandler Travis Philharmonette - Anne (Live at Bubala's, September 7, 2006)[ 2:18 ]Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (50)
According to the SoundOut Consumer Insight Report, we rated:
45 (out of 100) for market potential (tho somehow, we’re in the “above average” category -one of 5 categories. Wonderfully enough, the lowest category is “average”; we just missed “good”- damn!
5.9 (out of 10) for “track rating”
a “passion rating”(!!) of 66 (out of 100).
They also volunteered that generally, males liked it better than females (70% vs 40% -the story of my life), and younger people better than older ones (esp. 16 to 24 year olds -god only knows what the hell is up there).
Here’s some of the more striking comments (sorry for all this, but too funny not to share!):
”the tone this singer has is a cross between dylan and jazz.The vocals cram a lot in in the verses. A very bad melody.Th epercussion has a very celtic feel.”
“good start of the song the truth would definitely like, but the coordination that used both the acoustic guitar as I liked the drums, and bass that sounds great”
“ok to follow, it just wasnt a performance of huge entertaining value.”
“didn’t sounded bad… sounded a bit monotonous after a while, however it was a nicely executated song”
“I feel there is potential in the artist vocally, these vocals weren’t stretched at all though and quite a boring song was produced, up the pace at times, stretch the voice, grab the audience, dated instrumentals which i’m sure was meant but not for modern music”
“the brute is done well”
“Out of nowhere it’s a trumpet! Don’t know if this is a comedy act or an actual song. Gave me a chuckle.”
“quite a nice mellow track, that musically reminded me of eels.”
“This song is very cinamatic and interesting. Male singer has a good voice and it’s interesting. Male singer has a little weak voice.”
“i love this song very much its very grapohical and makes you feel so good i love it so much and the drums and strings are so tuned for the song”
“the singing should have been rectified”
[Apparently this next guy hated it so much it made him turn french (or something)]:
“voice and lyrics have no sens common men stop it please. yo mon gars te vrm une grosse pourriture ge arrete la music et le domaine musical c pourri comme music :O.“
“Okayi didnt really think this song was all that great. I dont want to say it was good when it really wasnt. I didnt enjoy it and i thought the music was just.i dont really know how to explain it. maybe a faster tempo would help it out a little.”
“Bible refences is a BOG NOOO! So, not good at all.”
My response: the report was accompanied by lots of scientific-looking bars and graphs… this is the greatest! -now I gotta get SoundOut Consumer Insight Reports on all my songs!!! At last, a reason to keep writing! Highly recommended!
If you care to subject yourself to the hideousness which apparently is the officially released version of “Anne”, you can buy it directly from us at our new catalog page here. “Out of nowhere, it’s a trumpet!”
“Al’s Gettin’ Hitched (Wedding Samba)” -Chandler demo w. an excerpt of the Chandler Travis 5-O playing at an actual wedding (we’d rather not name names here, but the live excerpt was of course recorded by The Valet)
I got this melody stuck in my head recently, and started idly toying with a lyric on my way to (playing at) a wedding we did a week or so ago, and this is the eventual result. Pretty silly, in part perhaps because it was written while driving. Actually, I’m thinking very seriously of recording an entire album while driving, have in fact already started doing that, but this wasn’t actually recorded while driving, just written.
And for you kids at home, the Chandler Travis Five-O doesn’t condone driving and recording for anyone else, just me. (Do as I say, not as I do).
Also, because I don’t really know the bride and groom well enough to write anything about them, I was just making stuff up. So i guess the moral of the the story is, be careful who you hire to play at your wedding.
PSA: drowning advisory – recorded live onboard the Viking Princess, August 18th, 2011, by the Valet. Peter Whitlock, the owner and operator of the Viking Princess (the fabulous little craft that the Three-O plays on every Tuesday in P’town), starts each voyage with instructions about life jackets and exits and snacks and all that, which I followed up on this particular occasion with comments about how to drown stylishly, which I’m sure was a great source of comfort to all concerned.
“Ronald” – the Chandler Travis Three-O w. special guest Ken Field, live at the Harvest Gallery Wine Bar, August 5th, 2011. Recorded by The Valet. A small band version of a song from the CTP’s “Tarnation & Alastair Sim” (aka “Kitty”); this one can be tough sometimes (typically, we don’t play it often enough to really have it down), but it was fun to have Ken along, nice to hear it with two saxes -I figure we got lucky!
“Why You Gotta Be That Way?” – Chandler home demo, July, 2011 – hoping to get the Casuals or the Catbirds or somebody to do this little cranky rocker (any takers out there?); if not, it may become a Three-O song for a bit, as we sort of need another baritone guitar song anyway (sort of)… should be easy to get a much better version soon from someone, at which point this demo will go poof! (You’ve been warned… or is it re-assured?) The lyric is based on a song my nephew Jeffrey Williams was working on while he was visiting a few weeks ago for his cool Brooklyn band, Cathy, that included a line something like “You never let me wear my wig on TV”… guess I was feeling a little suggestible…
I try to reach you at work, u don’t return my calls
Why you gotta be that wa-ay?
You threw my old comic books out in the hall
WYGTBTW, WYGTBTW
We try to have a conversation but we don’t get far
You forgot to put the gas in the getaway car
Tried to look the other way and I tried to make amends
But you tore me a new one in front of my friends
I confessed to some ambivalence on makin’ u my spouse
Right around the time you set fire to the house
I’ve always been an optimist over all
But when I copied down your number in the bathroom stall
I should’ve known we were headed for a fall
I remember when I thought you were the bomb
But I had to kinda wonder when u smothered my old mom
I know the course of true love never runs smooth
But I probably should’ve held out for feet instead of hooves
You think I really like being disemboweled?
And then u clean up all the blood with my nice embroidered towels
[Chandler Travis Philharmonic] exist somewhere on the continuum among middle period Kinks, any-period NRBQ, maybe a pinch of Sufjan Stevens, and every Grammy winner in every category in the history of the world. — Paul Rapp, Metroland (Albany, NY)
“Al’s Gettin’ Hitched (Wedding Samba)” -Chandler demo w. an excerpt of the Chandler Travis 5-O playing at an actual wedding (we’d rather not name names here, but the live excerpt was of course recorded by The Valet)