This is one of the new songs for the new album. We've been kicking this one around now for a bit. Gregg has this really tasty guitar part that I rip off in the acoustic version here. This is a song about Austin, Tx (kinda) Am I also writing about myself and my obsession with the C&W snappy shirts? Yeah, maybe a little. My favorite line is "spinning Cash at the Mean-Eyed Cat" which doesn't make any sense unless you've been the Mean-Eyed Cat bar in Austin. The place is all Johnny Cash and great bands and we seem to always end up at that bar. (Shout out to Trisha, Nancy Jo, Gavin & Shawna!)
This song is by Chris Whitley and it's called "Big Sky Country". I've always loved this song and me and my buddy Doug Schmude were talking this week about Chris Whitley (he's a fan too) and I was thinking about back when Tracy and I were in the band Hawkeye and how we opened for Chris at the Roxy. This got me trying to figure out how to play this song - which I'll have you know is not easy, he has some strange phrasing and chords. I was able to find out that when Chris played it he used an open G tuning but most videos show him not really playing the song, so I adapted it to an Open Eb tuning that works for me. My voice cracks here and there - I was fighting off coughing through most of the song - but it's real dammit! Not like the autotuning going on at the Super Bowl today! Ha!!
Hope you like it.
I now know how to play exactly 1 song on the Uke - and it's a Jonas Brothers song! Who are the Jonas Brothers? They are the new Hanson. Who were the new Osmonds, who were the new Jackson 5, who were the new Everly Brothers (and so on and so on) But unlike the rest - the BrosJonas have the backing of Disney. I'm expecting this video will be pulled off of YouTube shortly for my copyright infringement. The house of mouse has no sense of humor of these things.
Oh, and - this song is so adorable though! My friend Emma from the Potential Lunatics turned me on to this song and really it's been stuck in my head for a week now. The JonasBros do ruin it with their version by trying to go all alt rock at the end and the end up sounding like a crappy Nickelback (which is really saying something!).
This is a song by Jim Bryson called "Somewhere Else". This song kicks my ass every time I hear it. Probably more than any other song ever, I wish I wrote this one. I had fun playing this and making noise with different stuff, looping pedals and my kickboard and hand shaker. Ha!! Probably should have concentrated more on the singing!!
"Looking at the world through a windshield"
This week's is a cover song from way back in the 1968. I don't know if it was a hit but I stumbled upon it somehow and we've been having a blast playing it at our acoustic shows. I love the theme of traveling and I think this one would fit well on an album that included "The Truckin' Song"** Please tell us what you think!
