Sometimes you just gotta write a fun song. You know — one of those songs that don’t make much sense or have a deep meaning. A song that has a good back beat or a groove and is fun to play and sing is always a good addition to any singer-songwriter’s set list.

This song was born out of the phrase: “The girls at the bar…”. I was thinking about the type of girl that comes into a bar after a day of work so she can flirt and dance and have some fun with her friends. But then also that same girl that is here night after night – gets a little dark if you think about it. These are the regulars, the ones who come in to escape the everyday grind and try to figure things out with their fellow drinkers/dancers.

And then there’s me. Where do I, the singer, fit in to all of this? I’m the guy in the corner or on a small stage singing to the lonely few. My little songs of desperation that are meant to lift the spirits of these people. Uh, right. They really just want some background sound to go along with the mood lighting. Then again, the regulars would know me (thank you Billy Joel) and they would glance up every once in a while to acknowledge a song they like.

All in all we would be in that place together sharing an experience. Trying to make sense of it night after night.

This is a first draft acoustic version. I intend to flesh it out with a band and some nifty guitar solos and a bass breakdown. But until then please let me know what you think!

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In Here

I’m sending this one out
To the girls at the bar
A simple song of love
Delivered straight from the heart
They hang out every night
Spending their hard earned wage
Laugh a little, dance a little
They never act their age
- But that’s OK – Yeah that’s alright

‘Cause in here we’re all just
Trying to forget the world outside
In here we’re all together
Trying to make sense of it all
Night after night

I’m sending this one out
To those lovers in the night
An easy backbeat groove
That makes it all feel right
They may not even know it
They may not even care
But it’s love that makes the world go ‘round
So pass some over here
- And turn it on – Yeah turn it up

Me? I’m playing to the lonely few
Playing songs of desperation
And this microphone smells like cigarettes and beer
I look out at the crowd
No one’s paying much attention
But the girls at the bar know that I’m here

I’m sending this one out
To the last ones through the door
15 minutes to closing time
And they’re asking for one more
Too early to go home
One more dance one more drink
The girls smile at me
‘Cause they know I’m gonna sing
- One more song – Nothing wrong

I put together a reel of a few songs to demo my country-rock and country chops for a possible publisher. How to choose, how to choose? Well I decided to put it in a format that sounds a little like a set I would do live. Start out loud, get softer, get silly, get serious, rock out to end.

The first excerpt is a bit of music I did as a lead-in for a web-show: “Choose Your Words” , next is a bluegrass style song: “Where You’re Supposed to Be”, a country duet: “What About Love?”, a silly love song w/ukulele: “Fall in Love Again”, another country duet off of my CD: “I Can’t Wait for Love”, the bridge and solo section from a rocker: “My Revolution”, and to end it the last verse and outro from the title track of my CD: “She”.

There’s some variety and it shows a broad enough range I think. We’ll see. Let me know what you think.

Peace -

~DG~

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Just to prove that I haven’t been slacking off totally this summer, here is a video from a house concert that I did in early August in Tallmadge, Ohio. What a great way to connect with people – in their own back yards! Everybody was listening (except the kids) and it was a beautiful day to play outside. I hope to come back!

Enjoy –
Darryl
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA4sK_EyELs[/youtube]

A colleague and I were sitting at a staff meeting at our school where we teach and as I listened to the negativity being tossed around something snapped in my brain and I turned to her and said – Let’s write a musical with the kids – and surprisingly she said – Yeah, let’s do something positive and fun -

We began our journey by soliciting poems from a general pool of students and then with a select group of student writers we wove those into a musical. My language arts colleague and I won an award from our school district that year for our initiative in working with kids and getting them to express themselves creatively. When we got the award (a small engraved cup) my son immediately took it and poured M&M’s into it and claimed it as his own.

So we’re at it again this year and this is what was dripping from my brain pan last week: how to arrange these rough songs that myself and three other 13 yr olds were hashing out. The kids came up with all of the lyrics with minor prompts from me, and the music evolved from us singing as we wrote lyrics. The melodies from these songs were all student driven, I just added the production and arrangement. The songs will be performed with a live band of 12 yr olds (and me) and these kids rock, so the live versions will sound pretty damned close to what you hear (minus me singing out of my key).

The story is called “In The Middle” and is about two sisters one of which is trying to fit in and still keep a relationship with her younger, nerdy sister (thus she’s “in the middle”. There’s also a side story about a transfer student from Ecuador (we have a large population of second language learners) who is being judged on his appearance and accent. All topics that middle school-ers are caught up in and have to deal with on a daily basis.

It’s amazing how creative kids are and if given the right environment how they can produce something as good as any adult. I loved talking about the creative process with the kids. We would often write something and get only so far with it and then I would say -Let’s put this to the side or even throw it out because it is not working- and they would get freaked out because they had worked on it so long and wanted to force it, but then they’d see a different way and we’d breeze on through. Sometimes we even came back to lyrics or ideas we has discarded because they worked elsewhere. Fun! The show goes up the first week of June, 2009. Let me know if you want tickets!!!

So here are some of the songs – again, I am singing for demo purposes.

Creatively -

~dg~

Music From “In The Middle” by students from Turn of River Middle School

“Waiting Song” – verse 2

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“Enrique’s Song”

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“Like I’m So Great”

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“Share The Stage”

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“In The Middle”

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After I saw how easy it was to make the Cupcake Blues video, I decided to try to tackle making a video/slide-show for Waitin’ On My Revolution from week 1. I like that song for some reason – granted it’s a bit cliché, but I think it rocks and it pokes the right people in the eye, so Mission Accomplished.

The thing that I did differently from the Cupcake Blues video was to download the video and then import it into my iMovie application. For some reason the Animoto site kept cutting off the end of the song and no matter what I did I could not get the site to recognize that I had more photos to render and a couple more seconds of audio to go. So I put a version I liked into iMovie and added a better quality audio track and then did some editing to the clip I had downloaded. I got rid of Animoto’s advertising (not nice on my part, but — hey) and added some MTV-like titles to the front and back.

Frustration sets in when I have to deal with technical problems. This has always been a bone of contention with me and my collaborative partner Sasha. We would do all of this creative stuff: improvising, writing music, arranging the parts – and then wham – we get hit with a technical issue that just bogs us down – my technical issue for this post was trying to get the video on my blog. I finally just uploaded it to YouTube (which I didn’t want to do) and embedded the file in the blog. But it took me about and hour and a half of technical hoo-ha to come to that conclusion. Anyway – it’s up.

By the way, I must warn you that the images are all stolen from the web, so if you are pure at heart, then you must turn your head so as not to view unlicensed material. If anyone were to ask me about the verity of this video, I would quickly take it down and cease and desist. But for now it’s my visual expression of the music and lyrics. I am not a filmmaker. ‘nuf said. Oh, also the Cheney picture is a shocker, but then looking at him always sent chills down my spine.

Let me know what you think – leave a comment!

Peace -

~dg~