mellowacoustic

Romeo and Juliet (Indigo Girls cover Dire Straits)

Played with Martin DXME Acoustic Guitar
Registered live with Zoom H2.

Pezzi di Vetro - Francesco De Gregori (cover)

May 17, 2014

If you dismiss my field recording, Blue Angels vs. Red Birds (and I do), it's been two months since I've done any new creative recording. Neighborhood noise is certainly a factor, but also there has been a matter of a claims case filed against a real lyin', deceivin', cheatin' and a-thievin' company across the river. It involves one of my late mother's major legacies left to me, so the stress and sadness surrounding it all have absorbed my time and energy since March 17th.

Yet despite having all that ugliness Spring on me, and then now my great displeasure for Soundcloud's "enhanced" software with its seriously skewed algorithms and persistent Stream issues, it's long past high time to dance on a moonlit cloud with you all again!  :)  And with a little luck, this track may actually make it into the Stream of each Follower, but I'll back it up with mail notices. Hopefully my baroque jazz version here will prove there still can be something new under the moon!  ☼ 

[Arranged, performed and produced by Kathleen Martin]

Moondance

[D/L .mp3  here http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kathleen_Martin/Play_on_Words_Doo-wop_You_Do_to_Me  OR .wav here http://kat330.bandcamp.com/track/play-on-words-doo-wop-you-do-to-me ]

Jun 15: Happy Father's Day to all you daddy-o's out in SoundCloudland!

Had it in mind a while to develop a song around a cool kitten copy editor, Grammar Puss, and the village wordsmithy, Wilder Witt III, her cool cat cunning linguist. I would jot down a lyric once in a while but couldn't settle on a style to deliver the song. I was leaning toward Minnie's "If You See My Rooster" or Simone's "I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl," but even if my suggestive lyrics are up their alleys, my pipes clearly are not. I was considering something more Eartha-ly coKitt-ish when, out of the blue, a notion of doo-wop style landed in my lap or thereabouts. Wasn't certain if it would work well with my words, but in the end I actually appreciate the dissonance of double entendre lyrics set in a sweetly innocent musical genre.

My instrumentation includes the usual suspects but might mention I contributed the "bum-bum-bum-bum" vocal low notes. I tried using a REAPER effect to take it down another octave where I actually wanted it, but it just didn't sound right. The shuffling drum track and closed-hat chorus beats are off of a Zoom RhythmTrak machine JT (Philo) got for me. Sure hope this brings a smile to all you super cool cats and kittens out there!   xxxooo

Play on Words (Doo-wop You Do to Me)

You have a way with words, as well this kitten knows.
You went from good to verse, perfected purple prose.
You know that iamb ode beside your syncopated beat.

Tease me with your wordplay, you cunning linguist you.
Take poetic license, show me all your quill can do.
No syntax will be levied on our nothings whispered sweet.

BRIDGE:  Your mighty pen is stirring
                  Now your grammar puss is purring
                  Hear my haiku-ing out in delight
                  We'll form a bona fide couplet tonight!
                    
You're just my typeface (comic sans), a font of fun
The way you simile like a brightly burning sun.   ☼
Your dangling participle is my favorite part of speech.

BRIDGE:  Your mighty pen is stirring
                  Now your grammar puss is purring    
                  Hear my haiku-ing out in delight
                  We formed a bona fide couplet tonight!
                     
We doubled our entendres, and you rapped me in your rhyme.
Your assonance so tight can parse me any time.
Your irony is hot again, it's time to steam the sheets....
...with our blended body heat.

[some lyrics Weirdly synch up with Al Yankovic's "Word Crimes" released the month after this--check his out]

Written, performed, recorded and produced by Kathleen Martin [June 14, 2014]
Cover art/design by JT Lindroos

Play on Words(ck. lyrics)

July 11, 2014

The back story to creating this tale of woe -- as in how I totally backed into it -- is worth the price of admission alone. Recently I'd found myself with a long and sturdy thumbnail, rare enough given gardening, housework, etc., and took the opportunity to record a guitar part remembered from my youth. I adopted this self-taught playing style of plucking down the strings of a chord with my thumbnail when that and strumming were all I had in my teen trick bag. (A few years still until a fellow Chattertock at Brown U. showed me how to include my fingers in a rolling pick style.)

For some of you I suspect it's Child's play to recognize the source tune here -- which shall remain unnamed just to see who's bothered to actually read these notes and also knows his/her traditional folk music ;) -- but I could only recall the first lines of lyrics in 209's refrain. This is not often the case with my old repertory, rarely having to look up lyrics except for a word or two here and there. I would like to say it's because they were too morbid to remain in memory, but my own version below clearly belies that as any excuse! No, I think it's that the original words didn't speak to me well enough, as is usually the case when I encounter a problem with memorization.

So I thought, why not pen my own story to the mournful melody? I'd already had "Lady-in-waiting" as a working title for something else original, but those words were present day, personal to me and didn't fit the song structure. The title, however, led me to briefly looking up some background info on historical ladies-in-waiting, which led me to a glossary of heraldry terms, and so on. My imagination latched onto "mistress of the robes," "lese majesty" and "jessant-de-lis" (cf. JT's cover design), and therein this tragic tale was formed. I was tempted to write several more verses -- to expose more fully notre dame's betrayers and their plot to seize the throne -- but unlike our Mistress of the Robes here, I kept my head about me.  xxxooo

LADY-IN-WAITING

REFRAIN:                                     [echo]
A Lady-in-waiting is her lot in life, [A Lady-in-waiting]
And likely all she'll ever be,       [and all she'll ever be]
Longing for an end to her strife.
She is eager for delivery.    

Whilst the Queen's loyal Mistress of the Robes
She's falsely linked to treachery,
A foiled plot against the throne,
And stands accused of lese majesty.

REFRAIN:
[...]
At the hands of wicked knavery.

She knows not the villains who sealed her fate
But for a glimpsed escutcheon
Blazoned with a leopard's face       
As she's led to the castle dungeon.

REFRAIN:
[...]
By the knight who bears jessant-de-lis.  

Three days passed of pacing her cell,
Not a morsel partaken she.
Her only thought was "Why, pray tell,
Has my dearest Queen forsaken me?"

REFRAIN:                                        [echo]
A Lady-in-waiting no more in this life, [No longer waiting]
Her execution has started.             [She's at the guillotine]
It has come to the end of her strife.
Head and soul from her heart have parted.

Written, arranged, performed, recorded and produced by Kathleen Martin
Cover design by JT Lindroos

Lady-in-waiting

The Boxer (Simon & Garfunkel)

my love wasn't made for you, and your love wasn't made for me.

let me know what you think!

Fireside

Cover of Dire Straits' 'Romeo & Juliet'
Recorded at Telford's Warehouse, Chester, 2011. 

Dire Straits - Romeo & Juliet

Cover of Elton John's 'Your Song'.
Recorded at Telford's Warehouse, Chester. 2011. 

Elton John - Your Song

genius of love

I guess it's long past high time I included a Dylan cover here. After all, he is what inspired me to ask Mom for a guitar and, probably, his "Blowin' in the Wind" was the first tune I taught myself on it. "I Don't Believe You" is a little jewel from "Another Side," overshadowed and usually overlooked when stacked up against the great tracks around it. But I always had a soft spot for this simple song of a hot flame turning suddenly and inexplicably cold on one side, a universal emotional mystery to the keeper of the flame.

Before we saw Dylan at the nearby Horseshoe Casino amphitheater a few years ago, I looked up his tour set lists and, wonder of wonders, I noticed "I Don't Believe You" was included at some venues. A nice surprise that he resurrects this tune on occasion. Unfortunately, he did not at that Horseshoe concert, despite my most earnest mental entreaties aimed at the stage.

This upload is pretty much my usual -- voice, guitar, and melodica tracks -- but with one addition: I got out the electric guitar JT gave me ages ago to peck out a very rudimentary bass line. Though I've sorely neglected this instrument -- it's so heavy, and it needs restringing to rid of unwanted buzzing -- perhaps these home recording experiments will encourage me to mess around with it more often, much as I have his kantele gift as well. Better late than never!

I Don't Believe You

[REMASTERED version here for D/Ling anew: https://soundcloud.com/kat330repost/catch-the-wind-remaster

This Donovan classic became part of my early repertoire less than a year after it arrived in the U.S. In this version I've overdubbed some harmony, and I've added bits of kantele, melodica and electric guitar bottom-strings strumming to my original acoustic guitar picking. At the third verse I've also added some percussive plucking sounds of the strings high up between the bridge and bridge pickup on the electric. I found it sort of simulates the sound of light wooden wind chimes.

The best things about self-recording and being the sole instrumentalist and vocalist are: 1) Everyone arrives on time and is ready whenever I am, and  2) We all have the same vision and never disagree about what direction to take -- well, rarely anyway. That noted I am taking a breather, however, from all my recording, at least from the pace of nearly a new one each week. Probably it will pick up again whenever the weather makes leaving the comfort of indoors less appealing.

Catch the Wind

The Arsenal here: two vocal tracks, Korg piano, classical + electric guitars, melodica, and harmonica (newly added to The Arsenal after I co-opted my recent present to JT of a 3-harmonica set :) 

This is a cover of Richard Thompson's poignant "Walking on a Wire" interwoven with shades and echoes of Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice" for sort of a she says/he says mash-up of two great songs about relationship breakdown. If you're familiar with "Wire" (from Richard and Linda Thompson's superior "Shoot Out the Lights" album), you know there's a typically prodigious guitar part and solo by Richard. (You truly MUST hear it if you have not, even though it makes my version pale to nothingness in comparison.) The acoustic guitar here is often just a slower tempo of my "Don't Think Twice" guitar part, and the electric is mainly functioning as my bass per usual.

As for the original piano arrangement: After much experimentation, I found the only Korg mode to minimize any hiss noise is the harpsichord. I suspect some noise is still underlying, but the lack of legato in this mode somehow masks it best. At this point then, I'm recording all future piano tracks in that mode only. It's a shame since dynamics along with any smooth, connective phrasing so effective in many of my arrangements will be forfeited as a result. 

Finally, I might upload a version minus all the shades of Dylan depending on reaction and recommendations to this one, so please let me know your thoughts. Thanks!

The Boxer (Simon & Garfunkel)

Antonella Perrone 77

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Philo Gristle

kat330

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