Pudgetunes

A self-explanatory song, recorded a year after it was written.

I wrote this song for the Tax Day Tea Parties. I performed it at the Olympia Tea Party in front of 5,000 people. It pretty much speaks for itself.

This is a song about former Police Chief Fred Walser, who had the Best Week Ever! He filed to run for State Senate, and then a few days later he pled guilty, and was sentenced to a year in jail, for lying to investigators.

The song is not autobiographical. It is sung from the perspective of someone who -- unlike myself -- is perfectly pleased to have a governor who will not only care for his every need, but also make all of his everyday decisions for him. He doesn't have to think for himself, because Christine is his Everything. The song is exactly four minutes long, one minute for each year she will have been in office when she leaves.

A.A. Milne wrote the poem that comprises the verses of this song. I added the chorus. It's a song dedicated to Stephen Colbert and his ever-vigilant efforts toward warning the public about Bear Safety. Friends and relatives helped out with the vocals and claps. I played the cowbell and bongos. The Variax bass provided the upright bass sounds, and for reasons of proper balance I played the acoustic guitar part on the Variax guitar. There's almost no effects, not even EQ, used except for on the lead vocal and low background vocal at the end, and a reverb over the whole thing. The guitar part is from a song I wrote 15 years ago that I long forgot, and it somehow made its way into this piece.

I've heard a lot of people compare George Bush to Hitler and Big Brother and say that the U.S. is one of the least free countries in the world. If that were true, you'd think people would be afraid to, you know, say so. Or that if they did say so, something bad would happen to them. This song is a gentle reminder that people who talk about Bushitler are totally bay. The song was recorded "live" with just me, my guitar, and my harp, and two mics. I record most songs one part at a time, but I like to do the folk arrangements this way.

This is a cover of a Tom Petty song, that I sing as a lullabye.

Similar to the cover I did of the Disney song "Small World," this is a cover of the Disney song "Under the Sea," from The Little Mermaid. I don't know why, but I think these songs are a lot more depressing than the original music portrays, and my versions attempt to reflect that. This song borrows heavily in style from Thom Yorke of Radiohead. It's just one vocal, acoustic guitar, and a Rhodes Suitcase MkI emulator. This was part of a contest I did with some friends of mine, where each of us did our own covers of the same song.

One morning I woke up and this song was in my head. At least the main vocal hook was. The first verse came shortly after, in the shower. I'm think the song's pretty good, and the recording ain't bad. The song is a bit of an homage to Tom Petty, but probably sounds most like his cover of The Byrds' "I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better When You're Gone," right down to the Rickenbacker 12-string through a vintage Vox AC-30 (all courtesy Variax/PODxt, of course). Even the guitar solo is meant to be an homage to Petty's Heartbreakers guitarist, Mike Campbell. Enjoy. Merry Christmas!

I came up with this riff a few years ago, and the lyrics came later. It's about doing a lot of things in your life that are, simply, a waste of time. Simple song. Kinda fun to play if I'm ... in the mood. And I love the riff. This is the first song I recorded with the Variax. It's hard to say too much about how cool this guitar is to record with. Tons of great tone with no hum. I've added download links for the Variax and PODxt files. The Variax file is simply the default Lester-3 uptuned a half step.

This song is not autobiographical. It just struck me as a funny and, perhaps, interesting idea for a song. And I think it turned out quite well. I couldn't quite figure the music out for this, for some time. It was always a country song from the beginning, but I don't really listen to country music much, and I couldn't quite get the proper feel for it, until one day it hit me: Johnny Cash. It was an absolutely perfect fit, with the vocals and the music and the attitude. I used the Tweed B-Man amp on the PODxt for both the guitar and bass (there weren't many choices back when Johnny was first starting out!), and used my Epistrat with the Fender Fat 50's pickups, which together gave it a nice authentic sound: you can almost see Carl Perkins playing behind Johnny. Or not. The drums were a sample loop from the GarageBand Rhythm Section Jam Pack. I thought about buying the Pack until I noticed some terribly nasty hum on this loop, but I was able to EQ most of it away (the drums were too bright anyway).

It seems like no matter what we try, we can't start World War Three. What's up with that? This song was written and recorded during the first several days of the outbreak of violence between Israel and Hezbollah. Recorded using Logic. For some reason I thought an 80s-ish vibe seemed appropriate, hence the delay, driving bass, and so on.

This was first recorded in 2004, but in 2006 I remixed it in Logic, jazzed up the organ, reamped the electric guitars and bass with the PODxt, and cleaned up the beginning and end. This is a song I wrote in college, while driving along I-5 in SocCal along the Grapevine. It's about how you know a lot less about anything than you care to admit. I do too, so don't take it as an insult. (In fact, I am so clueless, the first version of this that I put up excluded the final verse. The newer version adds just a little bit of vocals, and is modified primarily with copy/paste. It's also remixed quite a bit.) It was recorded in GarageBand. Drums and organ are MIDI, and it uses the Epistrat, bass, and Martin. It was first performed 10 years ago with Whirlygig, a band I was in with Porthos and Hobbes.

Burger King has an utterly ridiculous ad campaign with the creepiest character on TV since Brian Dennehy played clown serial killer John Wayne Gacy in "To Catch a Killer." For the Super Bowl, they unveiled some elaborate song-and-dance number and put the music online. I made it sound spookier to let other people know what I hear in my head when this music is matched up with that character.

I wrote this song many years ago, and performed it exactly once: at my wedding, 10 years ago today. I've recorded it to mark the occasion. Like other songs I've done, this one is big on the theme of how we can't know it all, and notes how that's a really good thing. It was recorded with Logic, using only acoustic instruments: three guitar parts, and a cello, which I've not played in over 15 years.

This song is another cover by Randy Stonehill, from his 1980 album The Sky Is Falling, and has always been one of my favorite songs. It's also a bit of a departure for me: longer, more parts, more effects, more intricate, and so on; I spent a lot more time on this than any of my previous songs -- just over a year -- and far more than any of the other covers, which were each done in a day. This title of the song is a reference to 1 Corinthians 13:12, "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." It's a bit of a statement about how we can't know it all, not unlike the theme of You're Clueless. It was recorded with Logic, using the Washburn and Martin, drum loops, and the B3 organ synth in Logic. I love that synth.

I found some old versions of the Britney Spears song "Oops, I Did It Again," one by Louis Armstrong and some Big Band thing. In that spirit, I also "found" an old version of the song by Bob Dylan, although he apparently thought the word "oops" was beneath him. Recorded with GarageBand.

This is a remix of the Nine Inch Nails song. I added cowbell to it. And added a new album cover to go with it.

A love song, this time about a sort of forbidden love. I was inspired by all the self-important "bloggers" out there. You know who you are. Well, probably not, but I know who you are. Another in a series of covers of songs by people named Randy, this is from Randy Stonehill's 1981 album Between the Glory and the Flame. Of course, I updated the lyrics slightly. Recorded with GarageBand.

Another older song I wrote, just in time for Valentine's Day. It's a song about the man we've come to take for granted, who helps us in our time of need. I recorded this one live, both vocal and guitar at the same time, as I finally got my second mic. And done with GarageBand 2, testing out the multitrack recording and other new features.