Song Talk with Morry Campbell

Back to the music

...which is why I started this blog in the first place. So here's a little progress report. I'm recording some new music, and the first one is finished. Or nearly finished. Or at least there's a good "rough mix." So very soon, I'll be posting it. It's a tribute to my dad, so it's a little on the sappy side, but hey, it's my dad.

Tea Party: The Video

Okay, so a good friend of mine suggested I put the Tea Party mini-dance number to a video, so here it is. Thanks to Mr. Keith Olbermann for the quote and the vocal. So, without further ado, Here's the Tea Party Ramble, with vocals by yours truly, and Keith Olbermann. NOTE: If you're sympathetic to the Tea Party and their goings-on, you may want to skip this one...

A tribute to Keith Olbermann--and a musical tidbit

I don't know about you, but I'm saddened by the loss of Keith Olbermann from the airwaves. Whatever your political leanings, you must admit that Keith was a force to be reckoned with, an important counter voice to the behemoth that is the Right Wing Media machine. We had Keith, they have Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, Beck - basically anything on Fox "News." So yes, Keith was sometimes "over the top," but I think he probably felt he had to be to counter all the "over-the-topness"  happening on the other side. And I notice none of the Right's most over-the-toppers have been let go by Fox. They seem to like that kind of rhetoric over there.

Anyway, I've been working on some vocoder stuff (a kind of synthesizer that uses a vocal to color the sound), and I decided I would use something Keith said in his last show to use in a vocoder song. The phrase that jumped out at me was this: "Get your dirty government hands off my government-issued Medicare."  Keith started a segment with these words, to point out the cognitive dissonance between what the Tea Partiers were saying about the healthcare bill (government-run healthcare is bad), with what they were saying about the government-run healthcare program we know as "Medicare." (Keep your dirty government hands off my Medicare!)

So I lifted that phrase from the show and ran it through the vocoder, added a beat, wrote a little verse, and voila! A little mini-dance hit. And my songwriting comrades liked it so much, I'll be developing it into a full-length dance song. I hope you enjoy it too.

This is in honor of Keith Olbermann. Keith, we will miss you terribly. You were an outspoken ally in a world that has gone slightly mad. Keep the faith, thanks for the vocal, and I hope to see you back on the air somewhere soon.

Click here to listen to the Tea Party Rumble.

Click here for a great article comparing Keith with Fox News commentators.

Have a Roger Kuhn Christmas!

Every year around Christmas time I find myself wondering what new Christmas music is going to come out so I don't have to listen to the same old songs over and over again. Luckily for you and me, my good friend Roger Kuhn has finished his own holiday CD, Every Year Around Xmas Time. Full disclosure, I recorded and/or produced or co-produced four of the 7 cuts on the CD. But setting that aside, Roger has written 7 original Christmas/Holiday songs, and every one of them is an enjoyable listen.

 Roger's take on the holidays is at once rooted deeply in tradition of what has come before him (Under the Mistletoe, Xmas Joys), while at the same time pushing the boundaries of what we expect to hear on a holiday album (December, Oh What a World).

My favorite cut on the CD changes as I listen, but my favorite cut right now is the deeply moving Oh What A World, which chronicles the story of a homeless gay boy beaten to death on Christmas Eve (sadly based on true events).

I'm singling out one song in a whole collection of terrific songs. You can download Roger's Holiday album through iTunes by clicking on this link.

Also contributing to the musical and production talent on the CD are James Erickson (December), Robert Urban (Every Year Around Xmas Time, Under the Mistletoe, Xmas Joys), and my good friend and masterful musician Dan Manjovi (I Heard There Was A Star).

New way in for songwriting

I'm working my way through the amazing Steve H.'s Logic Tips and Tricks from the MacProVideo website. Designed a very cool pad, and now, I'm trying to write a song around that sound. I'll post the results. But it seems like a valuable new way to write a song. I'll see if it pans out...

You are NOT the majority

Okay, I'm sick to death of hearing from tea partiers and other far-right conservatives that they represent the majority. I'm especially getting tired of the erroneous, historically inaccurate comparison between current tea partiers and the good folks who executed the original Boston Tea Party. The historical folks were protesting taxation without representation. Tea partiers: you have representation. You presumably voted. And you lost. Basic math: if you as a block of voters cast your ballot and you LOSE the election, this means that fewer people voted for your candidate than voted for the other candidate. This means that you are NOT a majority, and you do not speak for the majority of Americans. It is bizarre to still claim that yours are the values of the majority.

If you rally your troops and manage to topple the democratic majority in the fall, then congratulations. More power to you. But I'm saying this one more time. You are not currently the majority. You have representation. You are not being persecuted.

Out of the sleep closet

In the interest of giving more attention to a medical problem that's probably very pervasive but not much talked about, I'm coming out of the closet in this blog post as an insomniac. I have been having sleep issues for the past three years. I haven't slept for a full night in all that time, and I can count the times I've been able to fall asleep in that time without medication on one hand. Even after taking a sleeping pill (ambien, or the generic equivalent thereof), I might still not sleep very much or very well.

And why am I putting this up on the internet? A few reasons. To be perfectly honest, I hope anyone reading and wondering why my posts kind of dried up will be understanding and come back, and keep reading.

Second, I think there's a lot of guilt and shame around not being able to sleep. Somehow it's my fault, or I'm a bad person so I can't sleep, or whatever. I know I've felt like that sometimes. And like everything that is surrounded by guilt and shame, it kind of loses its power a bit when it's pulled out into the sunlight.

And third, because I'm frustrated that even the medical community seems not to take sleeping problems seriously. I can usually function fairly well on very little sleep, so often I can pass for a normal-sleeping person in day-to-day interactions. But recently, the sleeping pill of choice has seemed to stop working, and I've been getting 2 or 3 hours of sleep a night, not much better than taking nothing at all, and the past few days I've been positively dragging through the day.

 I finally broke down and made an appointment with a sleep clinic. I met with the doctor, he gave me "homework" in the form of a Sleep Log, that I'm supposed to keep for two weeks, and gave me a prescription for a different kind of sleeping pill.

As the appointment was in the evening, I did not have time to get the prescription to my pharmacist until the next day. I bring it down to my pharmacy around 9:30 this morning. It turns out that my insurance will not pay for this new prescription, and that without insurance it is $230. I may be able to get a waver, but the request has to come from the doctor prescribing the medication.

So I immediately call the sleep clinic, and explain the problem to them, and they tell me that they'll get on it, to get the "special permission" that the insurance company needs in order to consider making an exception. I don't hear from them for a few hours, but then remember that my doctor wrote his phone number on the card, and figure I'll talk to him directly and let him know what is going on, and maybe I should get something that my insurance company would pay for without making me jump through a bunch of hoops. Funny story, he gave me a phone number he cannot be reached at.

I eventually get patched back into the main office of the sleep clinic, and I tell them that I want something for tonight, so if I can't get the super duper special sleeping pills, just something different than what I'm taking that will still be covered by the insurance company. The guy on the phone says he's faxing in the special request to my insurance company, and that it may take a day or two. Which means another sleepless night for me, so I say let me talk to a doctor, he says they're both in session, and someone will call me when they're available.

Fast forward to 5:30PM, and as my appointment was at 6:00PM yesterday, and that was when it looked as if the office closed up, I decide that I'd better give it one more try. I get an answering machine, telling me the regular hours are 9-5, and to leave a message and they'll get back to me tomorrow. Guess yesterday was special. My appointment was for 6:00.

So, if even the medical professionals who claim to be sleep experts don't take the problem they treat seriously, that's a problem. And don't get me started on the little prick of an insurance bureaucrat who decided that I didn't need the pills and denied me, and is probably sleeping perfectly well tonight.

So I'm coming out of the Insomnia closet. I'll let you know how it goes.

M

One more time

As some of you may have noticed, I haven't been very good at posting blogs for some time now. I was trying to be fancy, I suppose, in putting together some artwork for each blog posting, putting out a podcast which has also since fallen by the wayside (with special apologies to Julie Clark, the subject of my unfinished, final podcast).

So I'm giving it one more try, picking up the pieces, and staying on top of a scaled back blog site. Less art, more frequent postings, and we'll see what happens.

Thanks to all who have stopped by over the past few years. Hang in. More to come...

xo,

M

Songwriting seminar with Robin Frederick

My good friend John Raymond Pollard brought this video to my attention. Though it's partly an infomercial for the Taxi music service, it's also got some great information for songwriters.  It's about an hour long, so set aside some time and take a listen.

Happy 2010

Here's to a great new year, and a fresh decade, for everyone. One song down for 2010 already, and another one coming. How's your songwriting coming along?

Back after a long hiatus

Hey all,

It's been a long break, but summer is a crazy time, out of town, yada, yada, yada.

But we're back for another season now, so look for more podcasts and more music news in the coming weeks. Next up, the beautiful Julie Clark talks to me about her music.

See you soon.

xo,

M

More songwrity goodness from JRP

On Thursday evening, my good friend and fellow songwriter John Raymond Pollard allowed a few of us in my songwriting group to preview his new CD, entitled simply Dreams. And what a treat it was. From the whimsical, thoughtful Living an Alternative Dream, to the austere, haunting The World of Tarot, to the final rocker The Divide (By the Time I Get to Phoenix), this is a trip worth taking. We sat in what ended up being the first hot and humid evening of this unusually cool summer season, drinking some delicious wine (also provided by John), and taking this thoroughly enjoyable musical journey.

True to the title, there is a dreamlike quality to many of the cuts, achieved from the artful use of synths, guitars, percussion and horns. John's guitar work on this CD is some of the best I've heard from him. And he's backed himself up with some hot, hot musicians.

Although the CD is not available yet, it will soon be available, and I'll announce it here, and you can bet the John will have something up on his own website.

Thanks, John, for a truly wonderful evening of music.

More internet trouble

Hang in there. I'm having more connectivity issues. Hopefully back soon.

M

Think before you check your guitar

United Airlines broke this guy's guitar and wouldn't take responsibility. Here's his revenge. If you can book anywhere but United, do it.

Wrong Podcast...my apologies

If you downloaded the podcast from the link inside the post, you got a second copy of Terry Radigan, part 2. My apologies. The error has been corrected, and just in case here's the correct link as well.