Category Archives: Music

Lucas’ 1st-Grade Christmas Concert

Atticus and I went to Lucas’ first-grade Christmas concert this past Monday evening. They did a great job!

I actually took videos with my DroidX, but it’s so shaky that I got a bad case of motion sickness from trying to edit it. So I decided to extract the audio and post it instead. (I’m blaming it all on Attie, who was so excited about the songs that he was jumping up and down and all around and into me as I held the phone. ๐Ÿ˜‰

Lucas is the second row, third from the right in a burgundy shirt.

Up on the Housetop:
[audio:southside-1st-grade-xmas-concert/2010-12-06-southside-1st-grade-xmas-concert-up-on-the-housetop.mp3|loop=no]

Silent Night:
[audio:southside-1st-grade-xmas-concert/2010-12-06-southside-1st-grade-xmas-concert-silent-night.mp3|loop=no]

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer:
[audio:southside-1st-grade-xmas-concert/2010-12-06-southside-1st-grade-xmas-concert-rudolph.mp3|loop=no]

Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree:
[audio:southside-1st-grade-xmas-concert/2010-12-06-southside-1st-grade-xmas-concert-rockin-around-the-christmas-tree.mp3|loop=no]

O Come, All Ye Faithful:
[audio:southside-1st-grade-xmas-concert/2010-12-06-southside-1st-grade-xmas-concert-o-come-all-ye-faithful.mp3|loop=no]

Thanksgiving Music, part 2

Here’s the second clip of Kevin and Ryland’s bluegrass jam the other night: “Dig a Hole,” “Salty Dog Blues,” “Ballad of Jed Clampett,” and “Can I Sleep in Your Barn Tonight, Mister.” My brother Bobby’s behind the video recorder, and his wife Kim’s dad, Bruce Wiles, is the off-screen singer on that last song.

Work in Progress: ‘More of You’

One of the songs I’ve been working on over the last month or so finally took its first baby steps this week. The half-chorus I had now has its second part (I think):

More of you, less of me
That’s the way it ought to be.
Fill me Holy Spirit, let me be your light,
shining like a candle in this cold, dark night.

Atticus 2007
Atticus at about a year old, taking some baby steps ๐Ÿ™‚

Aww…

Really, though, they’re just like babies in many ways, “my” songs. ๐Ÿ˜€

I’m very attached to them, very sensitive about them, and very protective over them just like I am my babies.

And I’ve also come to know more and more that they aren’t my own production.

While my babies came to me via God and man, my songs are pure gifts from God (no matter how I’ve distorted them in the past by not acknowledging their origin or seeking to retain their original value).

I think the main inspiration for this piece of a song came from what our priest, Father Charles Breindel, said was his chosen Bible verse, John 3:30:

“He must increase; I must decrease.”

Kevin’s brought it up many times since, especially when I’ve been in a whiny mood. ๐Ÿ™‚

(And I promise to send the audio as soon as I figure out my WiFi issue… It’s really sweet, sweet like I used to avoid like crazy.)

UPDATE:
Wow. 2010. It’s been five years, but I’m adding a recording of this sweet little chorus.

I found this file when I was sending all of my Voice Record files to Dropbox, so I’d have room to record an interview for my grad class, so it’s probably not the one from way back then, but who knows. I’m not sure why Voice Record made it into a video (MP4); maybe I did something wrong. Regardless, it plays. ๐Ÿ˜‰

And…I haven’t made any further progress on it, but I still sing it a whole lot in the car (which is probably where all of the background noise in this recording is coming from).

The Atticus Song

NOTE: I’m still working on getting this uploaded from my new phone. I think I may have to resort to using a cord (of all things :P), since I can’t get the phone hooked into my WiFi (the PW that works with my laptop & iPod is wrong?), and the video is too large to send over the 3G network (according to the phone). Done! I used the cord. ๐Ÿ™

When Atticus wanted to know how to spell his name last year, I came up with his little song to help him remember it. I’ve tried many times to get a recording of it, but finally one day this week, he was in a mood to sing and to see himself on video. ๐Ÿ™‚

Our Entourage

Kevin (with Josephine and Mr. Trilby) outside Colony Records, NYC, July 2009

Kevin says his electric guitar (I mean, Josephine) is a member of the band. If he’s playing the acoustic, he announces (mostly to the walls) that we’re missing a member.

Now, he wants to make his hat (Mr. Trilby) our manager, and his turquoise ring (Mr. Blue) our security guy.

Me: Do I really have to be in a band with a bunch of inanimate objects?

Kevin: Like you’ve never done that before.

Ha! Yeah, well I didn’t ask who. But anyway.

See, it’s not that the hat (Mr. Trilby) and ring (Mr. Blue) haven’t been around. They both spent their lives pre-Kevin in Greenwich Village. We found the trilby at Native Leather on Bleecker Street a couple of years ago and the ring last month at The Silversmith on W. 4th.

Even so, do I want to be in a band with a hat and a ring? What’s next? Glasses? Marbles? The Jesus coin?

Well, to paraphrase Gigi’s comment to Gaston, Kevin, I’d rather be crazy with you than without you. ๐Ÿ™‚