Love. Whether it's religious or secularist, capitalist or communist, optimist or nihilist, it's the time of year where everyone needs to "chill" and appreciate those we love and those who love us.
Sorry Dads, but Mommies just may have an edge when it comes to superhero attributes. It's just Dads have the better PR department while Moms' accomplishments are much more inglorious.
Fortunately, we have a day to give Mom her due and sing her praises...which we in The Hipwaders are more than happy to do: Always Mom - The Hipwaders
Life's richest moments and memories usually consist of both the good and the bad, the Yin & Yang, the sweet & sour. The bittersweet does provide the best memories and The Hipwaders just had that kind of a show.
The City of Suisun put on a Kid Festival yesterday and event chairperson Anita Skinner did her best to provide local kids and families with an awesome event. Cities are usually only able to put on one kid-oriented event a year and yesterday was that day.
But, it rained.
Now, normally, that'd be the end of the story. People wouldn't show up. Vendors would rue the day they paid their fee to hawk their wares as families won't show up to an event if a downpour is in the forecast. With us it's a little different. Fortunately, the rain let up about an hour prior to our show and we were able to set up. Surprisingly, Lt. Governor John Garamendi showed up to the event as he had a meeting with the local city politicos later that day. Our friend, Alan Blondin, did think that Garamendi went a little overboard with the Stormtrooper security.
I had the chance to speak with the Lt. Governor and took the opportunity to ask that he lend an ear to the concern of my fellow paramedics who don't have the power that police and fire unions have to highlight issues important to their profession. He reminded me of his role in the 1982 California State Senate bill that led to the licensing of paramedics. I also thanked him for his role as State Insurance Comissioner and Prop 103 in his fight to end corruption in the insurance industry that led to massive rebates in fees to car and homeowners.
Word on the street is John Garamendi may be running for Governor next year. I think he got The Hipwader vote when he introduced us to the crowd at the Suisun Harbor.
While "crowd" perhaps isn't the right word, people showed up from as far away as Sacramento and Brentwood. It's always fun to see our friend Alex rocking out. We were also happy he requested "Field Trip" off our new cd. It's probably our favorite song to play. So while the people danced away - as a did a giant Subway sandwich (?) - we were able to have fun for and hour and a half until the rain returned and we had to cut the gig short. It was supposed to be a 3 hour tour!
We promised Anita Skinner we'd do all we could to help her in her quest to get Suisun City to have another kid-focused day this summer. While most of the planned events got rained out and the vendors got soaked (pun intended) we had a blast and got to meet up with old fans and made some new ones, too. Oh, yeah, and the Lt. Governor asked for business cards. We also hooked him up with some cds (he's got 10 grandchildren). Perhaps The Hipwaders will be performing at a family function at the California State Capitol for "Governor John Garamendi".
I got the library bug from our rural school's weekly visits from the bookmobile. While in the midst of National Library Week we should point out that Melvil Dewey directed the first library program in the country at Columbia College in 1887. Best known for his system of classifying books, his greatest achievement was probably his invention of the hanging vertical filing system which premiered at the 1893 Columbia Exposition in Chicago.
The bookmobile went and lost a wheel Crashed into my room I fell in the book deposit bin I could not swim I was so scared so unprepared I cried HELP
Ivan librarian gave me a card He said this will take you places Besides where you are Head for the future Or go to the past A library card will get you there really fast
I decided to spread the word About what I’d heard So I fixed that wheel on the busted bookmobile Backed out of my room With good cheer I gathered all to hear What I’d been told
CHORUS
Dewey has ten classes each class has ten divisions each divided on and on
First there’s generalities Philosophy, psychology Religion, social science, languages
Next up there’s math and science Medicine, technology Arts like music, clowns & puppetry
At the end there’s literature Geography and history The biography of Mr. Melvil Dewey...
Although our new CD isn't supposed to be officially released until April 7th, I though it was time to let everyone have a listen. Here's every track in glorious lo-fi. Buy the CD for true hi-fidelity and the neat album cover by Brian Clarke:
Now if you want some of the back story on this here album, here you go.
With the current way music is distributed and listened to, we've realized albums seem to be on the way out. Prior to 1965 and The Beatles "Rubber Soul" album from which no singles were released, pop/rock albums were - for the most part - a collection of hits with some filler added to pad out a release. Now, with easily accessible downloads and portable mp3 players, it seems like single songs are what interest people the most. It's pre-1965 all over again. We'd hate to put out a full length release and have difficulty selling it as, in reality, we've actually sold very few albums. Our downloads have slowly increased over time and we felt the best option is to release mini-albums. With a mini-album, we can record more frequently and at less expense.
We've actually been able to record 95% of our next release, a Christmas album, with the money we've saved.
Anyway, we hope you enjoy the "Goodie Bag", who's title came about when my family went and saw "Space Chimps" last fall (Chimpanzees in space? Come on, it's comedy gold.). During one of the scenes a character inquires about "goodie bags" and that set me off thinking how it'd be a great title for a song, album title and even a band name.
To record the album, we set off for The Hangar up in nearby Sacramento. Run by John Baccigaluppi, The Hangar is a funky warehouse that is home to Tape Op magazine - the best magazine on recording ever! The Hangar is a comfortable recording environment where a skateboard ramp is situated in almost every room.
Our engineer, Bryce Gonzales, had us record live (Nick Baca - drums, Tito - guitar, DJ Kinville - bass) which wasn't as hard as I expected as we had been performing most of the songs live for the past year. Unfortunately, Bryce had to leave the sessions when the opportunity to record freak-folk cult hero, Devendra Banhart arose.
After a hiatus of a couple of months we able to get another engineer,Robert Cheek, to come in and record the vocals and a few overdubs. As Robert had actually recorded the Deftones' cool version of John Lennon's "Jealous Guy"in the same studio, we felt we were in capable hands.
We quickly recorded the overdubs and mixed the album and then headed own the hall to MonsterLab Audio for mastering by the golden-eared, Eric Broyhill and his insanely friendly dog, Gypsy.
We not only enjoyed the laid-back recording vibe in Sacramento, but the local restaurants are really good and sometimes you're lucky and come across some cool photo ops:
THE SONGS:
1. BIRTHDAY RUCKUS. This song came about when we tried recording our samba-esque version of "Happy Birthday" in our garage rehearsal space as a birthday greeting for Evalyn Harper. She's the daughter of Oklahoma childrens' music performer Monty Harper - whose guide to kid-friendly radio shows is indispensible - and his wife, Lisa Harper. Lisa has a terrific podcast, Kid Music Planet, and was asking for children's music performers to just record a quick little message to wish Evalyn a happy 7th birthday. Anyway, our attempt at recording a greeting failed and when the other guys left I drank some coffee and sat down with my guitar and quickly came up with this ditty. When I sent it to Lisa I even told her I was gonna re-record it with my band as I really liked it. So, Evalyn, thanks for the inspiration!
2. FIELD TRIP. Probably our most popular live song. As a father with two young sons in elementary school, I've been on my fair share of field trips. Some lame, some pretty cool. With the budget crunch schools have been experiencing, I thought about what kind of field trips schools could have if they had Pentagon-sized budgets.
I'm a huge fan of songwriter, Scott Miller, of Game Theory/Loud Family. I had to give him some props by alluding to the first song I ever heard by him when his band was operating out of nearby Davis, CA. It's in the second verse where I mention his song, "Nine Lives to Rigel Five".
3. ALWAYS MOM. My mother passed away when I was young and never got to know her as an adult. Therefore, in my eyes, she will always be young, beautiful and saintly. My own wife is a terrific mother who tireless attention to our children is amazing. With both of them as an inspiration along with all the mothers who make the trek to our shows with kids in tow, I knew I had to write of songs for mothers everywhere.
4. PRELUDE TO A THING. A palate cleanser from all the upbeatness!
5. THINGS YOU WANT. Brian Boyd is a friend I've had since high school. He's smart, funny, and very creative and is the most interesting person I know to converse with. We had agreed to record some demos of song ideas he had floating around and said he'd send me some stuff. What he sent was a full 90 minute cassette (?!) of song (in varying stages of completion), jokes, vocal impersonations, and what-not. I picked out about a dozen songs I really liked. One partial song that really caught my ear was, "Things You Want". It was an upbeat romp with a terrific melody and a cool verse and chorus to which I added a bridge and another verse. I was hoping to record it in the style of NRBQ and even tried to do my best Terry Adams clavinet imitation. It doesn't sound anything like NRBQ.
6. MY NEW CAMERA. I remember when I got to use cameras as a kid and how much I enjoyed taking pictures. With their compositionally-challenged skills, kids can take some awesome pictures of headless parents and siblings with missing limbs. I thought I'd try and capture some of the joy I feel with taking pictures and especially had fun with the Free Design-type vocals.
7. WHAT'S THAT NOISE? Inspired by the Don Knott's movie, "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken", I decided to create a Halloween song about someone spending the night in a haunted mansion. Using music from a song I'd previously attempted to record a couple times before without success, we were finally able to come up with an arrangement that worked. Like, "Things You Want" it has the close harmony singing I love doing with Nick.
8. GOODIE BAG. The title track that was inspired by the Space Chimps movie. I'm not sure when the tradition of handing out goodie bags at birthday parties came about, but I know I didn't get diddley squat when I attended birthdays as a kid.
We were fortunate enough to have our super-talented friend, Gunnar Madsen, add some vocals to our recording. When I wrote the song I was having so much fun playing and singing it I felt like I should scat. I quickly realized scatting should be left up to professionals. Having remembered that Gunnar Madsen was the singing voice of Sammy Davis Jr., in a Rat Pack biopic on HBO I contacted him and he agreed to sing. Trekking on down to his place in Berkeley, I was privileged to watch him lay down numerous vocal tracks. Each pass was different and hilarious and I wished we didn't have to stop and choose just one. It would have been great to have videotaped the session and strung all the bits together. Coulda got Gunnar placed on a psychiatric hold:
So that's it. A goodie bag collection of audio trinkets we hope you'll have fun passing time with. And, although it won't officially be out until April 7th, if you've made it this far you can find downloads and/or purchase the cd now at these places:
The Hipwaders' drummer Nick Baca is an art teacher at a local High School and has seen many creative students come through his classes. One of those students, Anna Wagner, is a terrific artist, photographer and now music video artist. Here's here visual version of our song "Cat in a Bathysphere" from our last album, "Educated Kid".
After having become enamored with drawings of her own cat, "Rat Cat", and having seen her stop-animation line drawings of said cat tip-toeing through the tulips, we asked Anna to see what she could do with Rat Cat manning the controls of a bathysphere (actually a bathyscaphe which is actually much more navigational but didn't sound so good singing).
After extensive drawing and watercoloring, Rat Cat is ready for his/her (I really don't know!) closeup:
Well, from our angle. We're getting ready to back into the studio - here forward to be known as "Santa's Audio Workshop". It's actually The Hangar in Sacramento. Santa's Little Helper will be Robert "Flossy" Cheek, who'll be recording us and creating the proper festive audio mood.
We've got 9 original tracks that will celebrate the Christmas season. Yeah, we're not getting into that politically correct argument about "Merry Christmas" vs. "Happy Holiday" and try and please everyone with Hannukah/Kwanzaa/Baby Jesus songs. This will be purely secular. I like everything about "the holidays". Sure, I like the Hannukah stuff - the principles of Kwanzaa can't be beat - and the Christian holiday tunes are top-notch. But boy-oh-boy do I like me my Santa Claus and the commercialism, too. I like the tinsel & lights and garish plastic decorations and the giant inflatable penquins and the crowds in the mall. I like seeing the rude frantic shoppers trying to finish up their Christmas shopping. Why? I'm not really sure. Probably because it reminds me of my childhood. It's like a circus that comes once a year and I'm that innocent kid who's fascinated by all the hoopla and magic. It's the time of year when you get in touch with the family and friends you've lost touch with throughout the year and remember why your friends are your friends and your family...well...is your family.
So, come this Friday, I'm going to try and cram all those feelings into my head/heart/fingers and hands and create an audio recording that represents those feelings. Wish us luck..and a Merry Christmas.
As we wait the many, many months until "The Holidays";-) , here's a video from a telethon we performed at for on our local cable access station here in Vacaville. It's a great little town that has a wonderful downtown yearly tree-lighting ceremony and a very cool neighborhood called "Candy Cane Lane" where every house is exquisitely decorated.
Hey, everyone. It's the 200th year of Felix Mendelssohn's birthday on February 3rd, 1809 and the whole world should be celebrating. And the reason we should be celebrating is for Felix's most righteous Christmas tune, "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". That's one fantastical tune that just comes blaring out in a triumphant fanfare to sing the praises of the...printing press? Yep. The music is actually from Felix's "Festival Song", a cantata to commemorate Johann Gutenberg and his invention of the printing press. How cool is that? It's a secular AND religious tune. It's two tunes in one.
Now, you may think it's rude to refer to the great Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy as "Felix". But as the most popular Romantic era composer, pianist, conductor and painter, he was a celebrity. Like Cher, Bono, Charo, etc... he's deserved to just have the single name. From Vienna to England, Felix was in demand and loved by people like Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
Like every classical composer it seems, Felix was a child prodigy who started composing at 10 years old and composed his masterpiece, Overture to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream when he was only 17 years old! Whew! Talk about overachievers. No wonder he died at age 38 after a non-stop life of creativity.
I'm also fascinated by his sister Fanny, a talented composer and pianist herself who was unable to get her work performed as musical careers weren't considered proper careers for women during those times. Fortunately, he was able to present some of his sister's work under his own name. He always was very close to his sister (I have this mental image of them sittin' together at the piano crossing arms in a duet of "Heart & Soul") and when she died in 1847 he became depressed . Exhausted, ill, and distraught over his sister's death he died a few months later. But, hey, we're here to celebrate his greatest accomplishment (for me, at least).
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Life's richest moments and memories usually consist of both the good and the bad, the Yin & Yang, the sweet & sour. The bittersweet does provide the best memories and The Hipwaders just had that kind of a show.
With us it's a little different. Fortunately, the rain let up about an hour prior to our show and we were able to set up. Surprisingly, Lt. Governor John Garamendi showed up to the event as he had a meeting with the local city politicos later that day.
industry that led to massive rebates in fees to car and homeowners.
5.jpg)
me in and record the vocals and a few overdubs. As Robert had actually recorded the Deftones' cool version of John Lennon's "Jealous Guy"in the same studio, we felt we were in capable hands.
We quickly recorded the overdubs and mixed the album and then headed own the hall to MonsterLab Audio for mastering by the golden-eared, Eric Broyhill and his insanely friendly dog, Gypsy.
THE SONGS:
