@squidger: Hey there Simon. Thank you for the listen and comment. Glad you enjoyed it.

Beautiful track. Your vocals strike deep.

a very interesting tune,nice soft feel too.

My fully improvised, eclectic mix of mid-tempo bangers from last Saturday’s Exeter Street Art Festival DAY event (I may upload my night shift later on).

This aint the smoothest of mixes - and not always in key (oops!) - but I include it in full here because OH BOI WAS IT FUN to play for that secret garden full of smiling, happy faces in the SUN! Huge thanks to JamtheChannel and all involved x

Photo by Matty Love.

Ms Ogyny > ESAF(Day) Secret Garden Party 2021

A piano doodle I have played and loved for years, this one minute version was done last night to test out my new sustain pedal. Live mic on my real piano sounded terrible, however I tried! I am not sure if it has the merit of making it a longer piece and adding to - does it need a vocal/vocals, live mandolin (saw possibly) or anything else? I don't really know where to go with it.
It has been recorded for a very dear soul who has supported me a great deal in recent years, who I know liked the piano part a great deal.

Pinocchio Mourns His Strings

Another one from the home studio, me and Andreas having fun, and dreaming of spring and our garden.. based on a real-life collab with a blackbird, one fine day a few years ago :-)...  Hope you like it <3 <3 <3

Guitar&bass: Andreas
vocals&lyrics: me

Sitting in my garden
guitar on my knee
someone in the branches
is jamming with me
I can't think of any songs
and coming from her beak
are sounds as sweet and powerful
as all my sounds are weak

Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba

Cheaky little blackbird
you're overshining me
you should have been a mocking bird
the way you're teasing me
trying hard as I did
this verse is all I had
so I stole your chorus, bird
and what you gonna do about that?

Ba-ba..

Blackbird

I was delighted when Wes Martin gave me the opportunity of adding backing vocals and additional instrumentation to this beautiful acoustic song that he wrote. It felt like a real present! This is what he said about it:

"Riverbed symbolises the ancient, worn, life bringing veins of the landscape. It's an ides of a conversation, a journey with them. Something much bigger in significance and lengevity than us. About floating, finding, and understanding our place."

Riverbed (Wes Martin & HanJan)

Here is a song with two of my loveliest friends on the cloud. It's a bit special I think. 

Paul's guitar part on its own is a beautiful filigree of gossamer threads and Emma's stunning voice and lyrics soar and shimmer above. I was nervous about adding anything, so I tiptoed around on the soprano sax and hoped for the best. 

I don't like using the word 'romantic' when it comes to music…but to me, this is romantic music in the best sense; pictorial, true to the heart, a thing of beauty and I'm so pleased to have had a tiny part in it. Please visit Emma and Paul's pages for more wonderful music

http://soundcloud.com/emma-shanley

http://soundcloud.com/paul-sale

davemckeown.co.uk

Moonlight Shimmers, Dave McKeown with Emma Shanley and Paul Sale

“Every person must choose how much truth he can stand”, said Irvin Yalom, American writer and psychiatrist. “Self-awareness is a supreme gift, a treasure as precious as life. This is what makes us human. But it comes with a costly price: the wound of mortality.” Inspired by Yalom’s book ‘Staring at the sun’ British poet HanJan (@hanjan) wrote the poem Ripples.

I wrote music to these words and asked Texan vocalist Faerytale (@faerytale aka Lisa West) to sing them. Lisa never stops to amaze me. With her musical talent, and her warm and compassionate personality. For a reason she writes and sings personal songs for very sick people and people who lost a loved one, to give them a sense of peace and love in their most vulnerable moments.

RIPPLES
When we are dead
And nestled under the ground
Or scattered over favourite seas
And special places
The mountain will say nothing
The trees will not moan
And the river will be moving slowly
For someone else.
All that you know
All the thoughts you have owned
Will pass into nothing.
Only your vacated body
Will provide sacred compost
For those that inherit the earth.
And only those things you created
In the minds of your children,
In the people you touch,
In the art you leave behind,
Will show you have been here
And that you loved.

We are the stones that sink when flung into this still lake.
If we give our living plummeting momentum
Let velocity and passion hurl us forwards
Without restraint
It may be that our ripples will reach from bank to bank
To be felt by those we never touched: 
Through the blaze of our own comet tail light across their heaven.

Ripples

RIPPLES (feat. Faerytale & HanJan)

Don’t Give Up The Day Jobs - based on the original collaboration invitation https://soundcloud.com/dave-mckeown/dont-give-up-the-day-job
Music by Dave McKeown https://soundcloud.com/dave-mckeown
Lyrics and vocals Mark J Bennett 
Some vocal melodies and a line or two I owe to my dear friend, the late NiggyQ https://soundcloud.com/sanigar

Just when you thought,
It couldn’t get much worse.
Zero hours contracts,
Universal Credit curse.
Without Gran there’d be no childcare,
Without the food-bank, the cupboard’s bare.
Don’t give up the day jobs,
Work nights as well.

I’ve always been a grafter,
Never one to shirk,
Early morning papers, 
And weekend laundry work.
No time left for more education,
No energy left, nor motivation.
Don’t give up the day jobs,
Work nights as well.

Why does it have to be this way?
Why don’t debts ever go away?
Still we’ve lived to fight another day.
I fear it’s the way, that it’s going to stay.
Accept the lot you’ve got, the life you live from day to day. 
Day to day, day to day.

Just when you thought,
It couldn’t get much worse.
I made an insurance claim, 
But they wouldn’t reimburse.
Is it worth it just to keep standing still? 
We can’t afford to ever get ill.
Don’t give up the day jobs,
Work nights as well.

Don't Give Up The Day Jobs (Dave McKeown/Mark J Bennett)

After quite a long break, I much enjoyed composing again.  The process is always absorbing, fascinating and surprising to me!  Thanks to  Dave McKeown for assistance with mastering.

Musings

Here is a song written and performed by the lovely Bas Kooman, otherwise known on Soundcloud as Heb Ik Jou Daar. In this song we both pretend to be dogs. If your Dutch is a little rusty then the lyrics below should explain our canine impersonations. 

For those who haven't met Bas I can thoroughly recommend a visit to his page at
https://soundcloud.com/hebikjoudaar. There you will find consistently well-written songs with thoughtful themes and lyrics, all beautifully performed and produced.

This is my first recording on my newish C Clarinet. Most people wouldn't notice the difference, but for instrument nerds like me, it's slightly smaller then the standard clarinet, sounds brighter and allows me to play in concert pitch for the first time ever. 

SUBURBAN SHEEPDOG BLUES

every evening my owner takes me for a walk 
through the streets of our neighbourhood
at times he takes a pause and has a chat
with the lady who owns that bitchy poodle

of course there are always interesting smells around
so I like to stick my wet nose into the air
and, more often, towards the shrubs and bushes
there things are really interesting, making life worthwile

deep inside my dogged personality
there’s no room for pussyfooting 
and nothing in this neighbourhood is what it seems
all this wagging and trifling
makes me sad as well as mad
so I like to lift my leg 
and listen to the sound of my taking a leak

Suburban sheepdog blues
Suburban sheepdog blues
Suburban sheepdog blues

deep inside my dogged personality
there’s no room for pussyfooting
it used to be my job to keep the sheep together
how deep a dog can fall
is something they don’t want to know here
“he always used to look for a tree
and lifted his leg”
is all that remains for my suburban tombstone

Suburban sheepdog blues
Suburban sheepdog blues
Suburban sheepdog blues

[English translation by Hans Bouman]

VINEX-HERDER BLUES

Ik sjok hier elke avond met mijn baasje
door de straten van de woonwijk waar ik leef
soms staat ie ook wel stil en maakt een praatje
met het vrouwtje van die poedel, die arrogante teef

er valt gelukkig altijd wat te ruiken
dus ik steek mijn natte neus graag in de wind
en meestal in de richting van de struiken 
daar wordt het interessant, dat geeft het leven zin

in het diepste van mijn wezen
ben ik echt niet voor de poes
en niets in deze buurt is wat het lijkt
dat gekwispel en gekwezel 
maakt me treurig en ook woest 
dus zoek ik een boom op
en til ik mijn poot op 
en luister ik 't liefste naar mijn eigen gezeik

de Vinex-herder blues
de Vinex-herder blues 
de Vinex-herder blues

in het diepste van mijn wezen 
ben ik echt niet voor de poes
vroeger dreef ik koeien voor mijn werk
hoe of een hond kan sjezen
is hier een van de taboes
"hij zocht steeds een boom op
en tilde zijn poot op"
is al wat er rest voor op mijn Vinex-zerk

de Vinex-herder blues
de Vinex-herder blues 
de Vinex-herder blues

[Dutch lyrics by Bas Kooman]

Vinex-herder Blues, Dave McKeown with Heb Ik Jou Daar

Soundcloud Hero Dave McKeown is finally immortalized in a re-imagined Irish Drinking Song.... :)

There once was a lad named Dave McKeown, who lived down by the sea.
Although he was no sailor, down by the sea he be.

He played his pipes for money, he played his pipes for free...
... and after a coupla pints of ale, he’d sing this melody...

Chorus:
Too Rah Loo... Too Rah La....
By the bra of Biddy McGraw...
I am the finest piper-man
this world has ever saw.

One night whilst he was pipin’, he spied a bonny lass.
She stepped down from the bar stool, and handed him a glass.

A brilliant pint of black stuff, but poisoned, doncha’ see?
A piper hatin’ woman... she “kilt” him serially.

Chorus:
Too Rah Loo... Too Rah La....
By the bra of Biddy McGraw...
Murder-ed the best piper...
... the world has ever saw.

No finer wake was given. The whiskey it did flow.
A fight broke out and many a gobshite traded several blows.

Someone threw a noggin’ of whiskey on Dave’s bed....
... it woke him from his slumber, he rose right up and said....

Chorus:
Too Rah Loo... Too Rah La....
By the bra of Biddy McGraw...
What in thunderin’ blazes? Ye thought that I was dead?

Chorus:
Too Rah Loo... Too Rah La....
By the bra of Biddy McGraw...
He is the greatest piper-man..... the world has ever saw!!!!

Dave McKeown: Uilleann Pipes/Whistles
Derek Cornett: Music/Lyrics/Vocals/Guitar
Knickersdown Men's Chorus/Vocals
Special Guest: Father Jack

Note: All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, but not dead in Dave's case is purely coincidental.

McKeownegans Wake (feat. Dave McKeown in a song about Dave McKeown)

I wrote this bio years ago now, but broadly its the same. The main difference is I have relocated in the country and now live with a professional musician and try and toot away at the Clarinet. I learned to read music, which has given me a boost of confidence. Anyway, the old Bio below:

Home recordings of original songs, using the instruments around and about the house, a computer, some new software and cables I trip over. The concertina was a recent addition and dulcimer, accordion, mandolin, piano, the saw and others feature. I'm a little instrument obsessed (I dream about them regularly and probably obsess about them like most women covet shoes) and love the fact that I finally have the facility to record - it's not just my own four walls that hear my musical venturing. A friend has let me borrow a Celtic harp and I've tentatively started a recording with that...so I hope to get quite a diverse range of twanging, plucking, wheezing and strumming up here over time. 

The consequence of an instrument obsession is that I have very few shoes. But that's probably a very good thing.

Riverbed (Wes Martin & HanJan)

HanJan

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Bas Kooman

Carolyn Burnette

pip souster

Hal McMillen

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