President Obama Needs to Sing One of My Songs

We should start a movement or something.

A day after President Obama sang a bit of Al Green's classic "Let's Stay Together" from the podium at a January 19th fundraising event in Harlem, videos of the crooner-in-chief went viral on YouTube, racking up millions of views. But it wasn't just Obama's version of the song that the web's music fans sought out: according to Nielsen (via Billboard), digital download sales for Green's version of the song jumped up 490% in the period ending on January 22nd.

With 16,000 downloads, the song had its most successful online sales week since Nielsen began keeping track of web transactions in 2003. It's good news for Green's wallet, just as the President's cover was music to his ears.

I'm thinking "Relish."
 

Obama would nail that song...

The Electric Bonsai Band

Good gads, I was just on Twitter when Will Wheaton - yes, the kid in Star Trek: The Next Generation, who is a funny and sharp dude - made a comment about becoming his father. That blasted me back to seeing The Electric Bonsai Band - not electric, not a band - in, where? Portland, Oregon? so many years ago, maybe even the 80s. My god he was good. Fast, smart, scary smart, and just as funny as hell.

I am so happy to have found him (Andrew Ratshin) on Napster. Please go, listen. "I am My Dad" is so good - although it is much better live.

Ratshin also played in Uncle Bonsai.

Kevin Spacey and I

Just marking the day when I got my name in an Aussie paper, in this case the Manly Daily, for the first time. (Down in the left hand corner under "Acoustic." Click to enlarge.)

Vanity post now over.

Folksingers

I picture a prehistoric human, ostracized by his tribe and left to wander the old world alone.

After some years he comes across a river, and sees a huge fish in the water. He throws himself in and catches it, and carries it to the shore. He sets the fish on a rock and sits beside it.

"You will be my friend," he says, beaming. He sings the fish songs he has made up, songs about birds, about stars, about the family he misses so much. The fish dies.

The lonely wanderer knows nothing about fish.

Playing "The Shack" on Saturday, September 3

The Shack is a very cool Northern Beaches venue. You're even encouraged to bring your own snacks and a bottle or two:

The bio:

Little Thom sings wickedly funny songs about medical procedures, bikinis, an obscene dog, whiskey, and whether or not life is really all it's cracked up to be. And some other stuff. He has written hundreds of songs in his three-decade-long career, and has released three recordings, the latest of which, Bottomfeeders, contains no hits whatsoever, including the tender, "I Can't Wait (To Do a Tracheotomy)."

Email From a Fan in Thailand

Just noticed an email in ye olde email receptacle. I thought it was spam, naturally, but turns out it wasn't:

Dear Little Thom,

Hi. This is Kiattisak from Thailand. I found one of your songs 'Inside Joke' from a podcast of The Word Nerds, and liked it very much. I bought the song from iTunes Store last year, so it's been a while but I can sing along only roughly. May I ask you for its lyrics, please?

Best Wishes,
Kiattisak

Kiattisak is in Thailand, singing along, if unintelligibly at the moment, with one of my songs, possibly right now. Take that, Bob Dylan!

Oh, wait...

Thank you Kiattisak. (And yes, I sent him the lyrics.)

The Basement Gig

I played The Basement last night, opening solo set before three local bands. It was all very exciting, and it got my stomach bouncing a few times in the days leading up to the show, but, well, I was great. What can I say? I mean, for me, it's all about getting people wrapped up in a story or a laugh...before they notice how badly I play the guitar and sing. And that ain't easy! But I did it last night, from right out of the gate, and it was a damn good feeling. They liked me. They really liked me.

The Basement is truly a nice place. It's located in Circular Quay, very close the the famous Harbour Bride and Sydney Opera House. For all the hype about it, and everyone I've talked to has heard of the club - it has a bit of legendary status here - it is a very warm and altogether unintimidating room. It seats around 120, at tables, with service, and claims room for another 150 standing, but it's hard to picture than many people in this little space. The stage is small, only a foot high, tables surround it very intimately - you could easily be sitting at a table and be only six feet or so from a performer - there is wood everywhere, there is nowhere in the place where you couldn't see, and feel basically pretty close to, the stage, so, again, it's just a hell of a nice place. It is billed primarily as a jazz club, but they go way outside of that. Just a few of the acts that have played there:

Bill Evans
Dizzy Gillespie
Herbie Hancock
Johnny Rawls
Muddy Waters
Kinky Friedman
Prince
Ralph McTell
Taj Mahal
Bruce Cockburn
Daniel Lanois
Todd Rungren
Niel Diamond
Loudon Wainwright III

I mean, come on. Herbie Freaking Hancock played here! And Niel Diamond! And Prince! Holy crap! And my own personal hero - Loudon! And now me! Holy even more crap!

And they recorded last night's show, so fingers crossed that that comes out alright.

I took some photos. And the vivacious and whimsical Christine, who came to the show even though she has a bronchial crapitis thing going on - thank you, sweetness - took some photos, too, and some video as well.

This is the green room, as it were. It's full of gear, and the walls and ceiling are lined with posters and signatures and graffiti. (Click to enlarge):

A couple posters from the walls of the club:

And, finally, the star:

 Old friend Denise, new friend Chris, and a well deserved drink for the star. Ahem.

Two songs. The first. "The Bass Player." For my old friend Marty Ruddy.



The second comes with a warning: Kids, this song is for adults. And not even for all of them. So don't listen to it. Or you'll get me in trouble.



Big thanks to Sydney song and gig giant Russell Neal for setting up the show (and for use of his guitar! the electronics on mine crapped out), and thanks to everyone at The Basement (especailly engineer Chris for the help), and to the three bands: Kooyeh; The Raw Tide (can't find a website!); and Bones and All—who were really fantastic.

Playing The Basement in July

I've gotten word that I'll be playing at the legendary Sydney club The Basement on Thursday, July 14—Bastille Day. There are four acts on the bill—Kooyeh, The Raw Tide, Bones And All—along with myself.

A review of The Basement here.

Update: They've updated to include this particular show - and didn't include my name in the ad. Oh well.

RIP Michael Meldrum

An old friend in Buffalo, New York, has left us.

A collection of tributes can be found here.

[Buffalo News File Photo]

Elvis Costello Plays for Canucks Fans

Too good. Elvis Freaking Costello played "Pump it Up" with a local Vancouver band at the rink where the Canucks are playing tonight. (Elvis' wife, Diana Krall, is from Nanaimo, on Vancouver Island, where, incidently, I played a folk festival in the early 1990s.) Check it out:



Since my Sabres are gone - Go Canucks!

Music

I went to a songwriter's competition at the Mona Vale Hotel last night with old Oregon friend, current Sydney Northern Beaches friend, Jeff Stanley. There were seven performers, four move on to the semi-finals. Jeff and I were of those four.

Over a handful of weeks in the last few months Jeff and I went to a smilar competition at the Dee Why RSL. Jeff took second (or co-won, really, as he moves on to the final at one of Sydney's best known clubs, The Basement, on May 3); I finished next and won a "paid gig" at The Basement. In the future.

I was kinda hoping the move to Australia would wake my atrophying music back up. Hmmph. Maybe it is.

"Ooh ooh Child..."

I was playing with some very simple chord changes on my guitar the other day: C-G, 3 times, then to Em, repeat the whole thing, then to F, resolve on C. The Cs start with a hammer-on of the two highest fingered notes (C and E), and the G comes in on an up-strum. Nothing new or spectacular here, just sounded nice and I felt like strumming.

Last night I woke up, I'm guessing around 4:30 AM. I started playing those changes in my head: C-G; two times, Em… Then I thought, What if I didn't repeat the C-G? I'm always doing these simple repeats of two chords. So I start playing it in my head again: C-G, Em, then I go to Bm, which I knew on the way there was just stupid. So I kinda go to clean up that mess, when after a few seconds I notice that some other part of my mind has picked up the song and continued, but in a different direction. I heard it do this: C-G with the hammmer-on on the C, two times, then it went somewhere else I didn't recognize—was that an A?—then it came back to the C-G, with these words now singing: "Ooh-ooh child, things are gonna get easier, ooh-ooh child things'll get brighter…"

Weird. Just weird.

I just found this. It's very cool.

Unknown 1963 Dylan Concert Becoming CD in April

Wow. This could be a beauty.

A previously unknown live recording of a 21-year-old Bob Dylan taped at the Brandeis First Annual Folk Festival in Waltham, Massachusetts, on May 10, 1963, Bob Dylan In Concert - Brandeis University 1963 captures the rollicking wit, deadpan delivery and driving intensity of the young artist's on-stage persona in an assortment of end-of-the-world songs -- none of them commercially available at the time -- performed in front of an appreciative audience two weeks prior to the release of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (May 27, 1963). 

The Bob Dylan In Concert - Brandeis University 1963 concert tape was discovered recently in the archives of the noted music writer and Rolling Stone co-founder Ralph J. Gleason, where it sat on a shelf for more than forty years. "It had been forgotten, until it was found last year in the clearing of the house after my mother died," said Toby Gleason, Ralph's son. "It's a seven inch reel-to-reel that sounds like it was taped from the mixing desk."

ABC Digital Dig Music: Joni Mitchell

I've got digital TV for the first time in my life. Lots to see - but very glitchy.  Perhaps just my system.

A cool thing is that they have digital radio channels. Just four or five, but one is ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company) Dig Music. They're playing Joni Mitchell's "Chinese Cafe/Unchained Melody" right now. I approve.

Now playing  Pink Floyd "Keep Tallking." Too much.

Royalties

I've been getting a bunch of mechanical royalty payments from Rhapsody lately. The latest: $0.00168121. Look out whale-penis-leather seats!

Al Grierson

I can't help but think about my old friend Al Grierson these days. Al dragged my protesting ass to the best folk festival in the country, the Kerrville Folk Festival, in 1995, and quite literally changed my life. I will always be very grateful for that. Al lost his life in a flash flood in Texas in 2000. He was a damn good person, and I miss him.

Here's to you, Al, and to the girls.


More here.


And here's a song Jack Hardy wrote to Al.