Holiday Baking Music

I'm gearing up for a full on baking extravaganza, and I like to listen to certain music while I'm rocking around the kitchen.  I thought I'd share.  The music, I mean.  Because I don't know how to upload baked goods.

How're you doing?

Yuletide Tunes - A Very Happy Solstice To All

Yule Sing Along Eventually

Leading Into Yule

I have been so busy...I can't even catch my breath!  Things are rough, here at the casa, but life goes on.  Yule is coming, and I thought I'd post some old videos I made and share a little music with ya.  Enjoy...or don't, your choice.  Whatever you celebrate, I hope it is marvelous.

Who Wants Music on Monday?

I'm taking the kids to the park and running a few errands, so here's a little musical interlude for ya.


A blast from the past:

This one always makes me smile:
 

Another bit of musical yore:


 I hope you have a tolerable Monday!

Clouds In My Coffee, Clouds In My Coffee

I was at this concert with my Dad.  On of my few memories of time we spent together.  I love this song.


Bonus points if you know who this song is about...

'Tis the Season

Gathering season is coming upon us in a hurry. My band has a couple of gigs lined up for April and June, so we'll be rehearsing on a weekly basis and hopefully not sucking. We wanted to make a new CD over the winter, but that didn't happen...sigh...

I will be glad to make some music again - I'm usually really ready for winter's respite, but once spring rolls around I'm glad to get musical again. As much as I am disheartened by the process, I am invigorated, and in the end it's really less about performing and more about getting into what is, for me, sacred space. I so rarely feel powerful in my life...heck, usually I feel powerless...but when I'm singing I feel strong. That's good stuff.

What gives you that sense of strength in your life?

Harmonic Convergience

When Someone and I were living far apart (he in Houston and I here in Redneck Central), we had standing date on Saturday nights to listen to Thistle and Shamrock together...he on his computer and I on mine, streaming from the same Houston radio station. We would settle into our respective listening posts, turn on the show, and one would call the other. We would listen together for the length of the program, not saying much but enjoying the music together.

Someone thought that it would be nice to listen tonight. We try to remember more often, but we've gotten a little distracted by life lately. We decided to cook dinner together and have a listen.

Someone has had a hankering for country chicken fried steak since he moved here, but there's a dearth of it in these parts. Whoda thunk it, this being Redneck Central?? Mum found out about his yen and found a recipe for us, and it's been sitting here waiting to be tried...so tonight, Someone had a go at it. I played a supporting roll, singing backup to his lead as it were, turning the potatoes he dug from the garden yesterday into mashed potatoes, steaming the green beans he picked and trimmed this afternoon, and whipping together a bit of gravy to accompany the lot.

We stood side by side at the stove, each moving in concert with the other, a dance.

How simple and grand a thing, to share a kitchen with another, preparing the meal we will soon share...

Here, then, is our dinner:

Can I begin to express how happy I am that we are not sitting far apart, listening to our computers and reaching through the aether to each other? No...I cannot...but there is one person, at least, who may feel likewise.

Thank you, love...

Some Folks Just Don't Have Anything Better to Do

Sigh.

My band is engaged to perform on Memorial Day, a new event at a new venue: Gryphon's Nest Campground in Baton Rouge. I haven't had occasion to speak to the owner/organizer - that lot has fallen to PJ (We take turns doing bookings so no one is overwhelmed with the responsibility).

Today I learned that the fellow in charge is under siege, both in the Mundane world and here in the Blue Nowhere. It seems that some folks in his area have taken exception to his holding an event, open to the public, that is pagan in nature.

These people have defamed his character, printed and spoken outright lies about this man, this event, and pagans in general.

Now, y'all know by now (I hope) that I am pagan. And y'all know by now (I hope) that I'm a basically decent person who does her best to be a good human. And y'all know (I hope) that I don't have any issue with Christianity as a spiritual way. I've seen and known a lot of good people who follow one church or another, a lot of kindness and compassion that have sprung from Christ's teachings.

I've also seen, and experienced a lot of ignorant hatred from people so blind they couldn't see my character, but only the pentacle I wear. I've been threatened, reviled, and called many interesting if unimaginative names because of my beliefs. It sucks, but if my belief in my spiritual way can't handle some name-calling, it's not much of a path, is it?

I wonder why the protesters, the people hacking websites and putting up their own misinformation, can't manage to feel the same way?

If you don't already have plans for Memorial Day and you'd like to help show support for spiritual freedom, music, and community, come on out and join us for the weekend; with any luck, the worst thing we'll have to fend off is a Louisiana skeeter!

Who Wants Music On Monday?

Well...I do. So there.


Whew...makes my hands tired just watching.

Time for a rest...


And finally, something I might have done, had I continued my classical training...although I sincerely doubt I would have done it half as well.

It seems effortless, the way they send their voices floating out so gracefully. Don't let their relaxed air fool you - that's work! I tried to sing along, but I'm an alto, and a low one at that...many of my high notes were best left unvoiced, and the cats were quite concerned for my well-being - the sounds emanating from me must have reminded them of something in pain!!

What have you been listening to lately?

We Be Jammin'

I enjoy a fairly wide variety of music. I cut my teeth on classical music - symphonies, chamber music, and the like. I listened to Big-Band with my grandfather and loved it. I wore out Mum's Carpenters, Fleetwood Mac, The Who, Queen, and Beatles records, among others. We had the entire score of Star Wars on vinyl, and I loved to play that and Holst's The Planets back to back and compare them. I would sing my way through a day, other people's songs and songs I made up on the spot.

My entire day is set to music...the score runs through my head and sometimes erupts from me in fits and starts, snatches of song rolling through the house and bouncing from the walls and windows.

It would seem the Evil Genius has inherited my predilection for song. He loves to sing along with the radio, with my band when we perform, and in his room when he's plying he'll sing a mish-mosh of songs we've heard on the radio, movie music (he knows Darth Vader's music, for cryin' out loud), and tunes from the video games he's played (I know, I know). I love listening to him, especially when he doesn't know I'm listening.

Last night, we were driving to a friend's house, listening to a playlist I threw together on the iPod. Several songs came up that the boy knows, some better than others, and we sang along with gusto. I love looking into the rear-view mirror and seeing his head tilted back, hearing him belt out the big notes (sometimes a little off-key)(OK, most of the time a little off-key), grinning and bopping his little head to the beat.

We started with:

(From the movie Toys, and for some reason this is one of Bird's favorite songs from the CD. It's a little scary, how well he knows it)

Followed by:

(lately, this song has been on my mind - sometimes I am tempted to throw the kid, some clothes, and a case of water into the van and hit the road. I could make it to where I want to be in 14 hours if we don't stop...if we drove all night...)(yeah, SO not going to happen, though...this house won't clean itself, and in the battle of head versus heart...head is holding sway...for now...)(Oh, and Cyndi? When I grow up, I want to hit the big notes like you...woof, what an amazing, powerful talent! I could be Cyndi Lauper's and Annie Lennox's love child...)(I could also be tired to the point of ridiculous, right now)(But who wouldn't want to have talent like those two??)

And then this:

(Yes, I know it's a travesty...but it's also my favorite rendition of the song. I first heard it on Red, Hot, and Blue)

There were more, but I figure it'd be nice if it took less than an hour to load this page...so I'll spare you. What have you been listening to, lately?

A Musical Interlude

T has the Evil Genius with him for a couple of days and I'm home on my own, so I'm spending today relaxing in the tub with a book and a glass of wine cleaning the boy's room. I intend to photograph it because no one will ever believe the prodigious job it is without evidence!

Meanwhile, here's a trio of very different musical pieces for your amusement while I spend six hours or so battling chaos with a dust rag, a trash bag, and sheer determination.

Time to give my inner redneck a little play ( I like to listen to this one when I'm feeling ornery)(whadaya mean, I must listen to it all the time??)...


A little musical fun...



And an old friend of Mum's (Harry Sheppard)(I didn't see him when I was in Houston - guess I'll have to go back)...

A Musical Interlude

This one's for Cygnus, because something he wrote reminded me of a song...

Tom Rush, The Dreamer - I first heard this on a compilation CD called The Vineyard Sound, Volume One, a collection of songs by artists on, from, or who love Martha's Vineyard (almost as much as I do).



Sweet life's a sparrow lost at sea...in dark of night with far to go...dreams are ships that sail away...and the dreamer's only cargo...only cargo...only cargo...

Tuesday Afternoon

This song has been stuck in my head for two days. Read on and find out why.

Busy, busy, busy...I knew when I co-founded the band that there would (hopefully) be some travelling involved with this music business. With any luck, a lot of travelling - travel means there are gigs, gigs mean people want to see us...and hopefully pay us. Yeah, yeah, hope springs eternal...

This year, for various reasons (not all band-related), I seem to have been away quite a bit. Sometimes for fun - helping K at the Ren Fest (fun, but work nonetheless), sometimes performing, and sometimes to pimp the band and try to fish for more gigs outside our usual performance zone...we'd like to get out of the Southeast and expand our audience.

On Tuesday afternoon, I am leaving on another trip...this one for me. I am going to Texas. Yes, you read that right, Texas. For fun. In July. Shut up.

I'm meetin' somebody, an Internet friend. Please spare me the warnings and advice on how much Mace to carry and the various and interesting places I can conceal a Tazer - this isn't my first rodeo. I am leaving information with Mum - where I'll be, how to contact me and the person I'm meeting, where my friend lives, their preferred method of dismembering a body...er...I mean...umm...yeah, anyway... - so someone will know where I should be, and when, and if I don't come home and don't call to say I've decided to move to Houston (Which, really? Me? In frickin' Texas?? Really??? C'mon, y'all...seriously...), she will have some idea where to send the CSI first.

I am staying at one of those motels that has a kitchen in each room, in part because I'm cheap and so was the room (as an aside...good grief, Houston, what on earth is so amazing about your motel rooms that they cost around or above one-hundred dollars a night? Because for that much dosh a day, I expect some serious cabana-boy action, or an in-room masseuse, or maybe a daily foot rub), and in part because I like the idea that I won't need to eat cheap fast food or fritter away my budget on dining out, and in part because I just plain love to cook, even if all I have to work with are two burners and a microwave.

Someone warned me about staying in that kind of place - something about how prostitutes like to work out of them. And? This one looks good - I wouldn't blame a gal or a fella for wanting to have a nice office.

I should have Internet access...maybe...I hope...but I plan to pre-blog anyway, just in case. Yeah, I know, like you care.

The drive out is a two-stage prospect, but the drive home on the fourteenth will be one long haul. I have plenty of tunes and am a dab hand at locating Starbucks wherever they've hidden themselves, so I'll be fine.

Meanwhile - have you ever gone off on an adventure? Maybe to meet an e-buddy for the first time? Tell me about it in the comments, or post a blog and link it. Share the love, y'all!

Audio Crush

While at Wisteria in Ohio last week, I had occasion to see a new band. Well...new to me, anyway. They are my new musical crush.

I give you The Ragbirds (these videos in no way do the band justice, but in the spirit of "Half a loaf being better than none at all", I'm posting them anyway):






Their website: TheRagbirds.com

Their MySpace: The Ragbirds

Both the website and the MySPace play their music from their albums, if you want a better listen. On MySpace I particularly adore Tarantella, Brave New beat, and How Can I Say.

Who are you listening to, lately?

When You Come Back Down

I know I've posted this song before...but it bears repeating...

In any Language

Thank to M (Gypsy Guru) for sending me the lyrics to this song, which led me to seek out a YouTube video, because I wanted to hear the beautiful words...

L'amoureuse

Mad About...

...heh...well, when it comes to crazy, I believe we've got the variety plate covered.

I adore this song...



Heading home...long weekend, long week coming...but life is beautiful, the Music is pulling me this way and that, and I feel a Song a-comin'. I hope it's a good one.

Music That Speaks

I know you know a song or three that speaks, either to or for you.

Yeah, me too.

I first heard this song on the Batman Forever sound track (by Eddi Reader), and found it lovely and poignant.

What songs give voice to your inner workings?

Aunt D and the Big "C"

I posted a while ago about my Aunt D. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It's not operable, and it's fatal.

Or is it?

Her cancer marker has shrunk. That's a good thing, as I understand it. In January, she will have some sort of test - if the magic number revealed by this test is 37 or lower, she is in remission. That's an even better thing.

So many people are sick, suffering, fighting on a cellular level for life. Maybe you have someone in your life with the gnawing demon inside them. I hope they win. Will you hope my Aunt D wins, too? If ever there was such a thing as magic, and if ever one could use this magic, I would make such a spell...one to set Aunt D's test score at zero, to vanquish the growing health-horror of cancer to the deepest, darkest reaches of the halls of disease, locked behind iron-bound oak doors that can never be opened again so that no one ever has to know they carry their own death in them, and it's devouring them millimeters at a time.

I don't pray, at least not in the way most people think of prayer. I do sing...and my songs are my prayers, my spells, the deepest root of the tree of me. You'd better believe that from now until the test results are in, I will be shaking the rafters for Aunt D, and for anyone else in her boat.

Sing with me, please?