HfiBenzo 2k Hard4Life

This guy has had it. He is leaving. You can only put up with so much.

Goodbye, goodbye

Goodbye,goodbye

This is Rick singing to a new comer to town.  He is not quite a con man but he is no angel. He is just trying to get by.

East Farewell

Welcome to the Real World

Welcome To The Real World

This is the first tune from the second side. East Farewell has grown up and become a bigger city. This tune represents the traffic gridlock that comes with every city.

Entre Acte

The last song on the first side. This is a bartenders cliched soliloquy after one of Natalie's throw aways comes back to town.

Times to Remember Times to Forget

Times To Remember Times To Forget

This is a first person lament told by part time scoundrel, Romando Pitts. He stays at the boarding house but is "asked" to leave after he makes advances on Natalie.  Danny takes the lead vocal on this tune and it is delivered in a Rat Pack swing mode that makes the story all the more real.

Traveling Salesman Blues

Coreen takes the lead on this one. She sings a haunting chide of self absorbed patron of the Lost Oasis.

Angry Young Man

Sweet Natalie sings this one. She is an aspiring actress and singer and she knows how to get a man's attention. Donna does a great job on the vocals, really spicing things up.

I Can Make You Smile

This medley introduces you to Mrs. Mallard, a no nonsense proprietor of one of the boarding houses in town and her daughter, Natalie. If you are a boarder you better not talk to her daughter.

The Boarding House/Sweet Natalie

The Boarding House - Sweet Natalie

This is the first song on the album. It introduces you to East Farewell. Larry and Phil do a wonderful job using their tight harmonies to weave an enchanting arrival to East Farewell.

Don't You Wish

JD Carroll has been writing music since before paper was invented. Originally, he carved his lyrics into wood tree limbs and etched them onto slabs of soft stone. This was a durable but extremely time consuming way to record his music. Unfortunately, most of his early writings were destroyed in the second apocalypse. Luckily, his music had become very popular within the Neanderthal community and was held in great esteem by that promising species. It was passed along though word of mouth for centuries; it evolved as it was passed down from generation to generation. Somewhere in the past his music crossed over to the homo-sapiens and moved on into the more modern world.

When his good friend, Johannes Gutenberg, started fooling around with his new printing press JD suggested to Johannes that he turn out some of JD's music to test the usefulness and practicality of the new gadget. Much to JD's dismay, Gutenberg decided to go with the money and print Bibles instead. This caused a major riff in their relationship which still resonates today. Some slights are hard to get over.

It is rumored but not substantiated that JD was working with Ludwig Von Beethoven on the "Ode to Joy" and JD suggested he change the name to "Come on People, Lets Get Happy" but Ludwig thought the name was a little too long. Everyone is thankful.

As the industrial revolution took hold JD found himself palling around with Charles Dickens. It was at one of their late night, cigar chomping, whiskey drinking gabfests that Charles mentioned he was looking for a career change. That Counting House thing was not working out for him. JD suggested that he try writing. Maybe something involving social reform. The possibility of serializing was discussed. Maybe even a short story about some mean old guy who finds redemption through a dream or something. Dickens found great success soon after and helped JD move to America.

JD landed in Menlo Park working in Edison's Lab when he mentioned to Tom that a wax cylinder might work better than Tom's original leather cylinder in the early prototypes of Tom's phonograph. He also tried to get Tom to record "My Father's Son" instead of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" as his first recording. Tommy stuck with "Mary" and the rest is history.

During the 1950's JD moved to East Farewell and wrote the album of the same name. His experiences there shaped his later work. While working with the Everston Brothers, JD mentioned perhaps if they tried some tight harmonies and shortened their name they may have better luck with the rock & roll genre that was starting to take hold. Don and Phil would always laugh about the time JD and his girlfriend, Kathy, fell asleep in the movies and were scared her parents would think something was going on. They even wrote a tune about it but changed her name to Suzy to protect Kathy's reputation. East Farewell was a small town, words spread quickly.

As the 1960's and 70's came around JD moved to outside Philadelphia, PA and worked on refining his sound and learning to record his music on analog tape. He produced the vinyl 45 "I Can Make You Smile" b/w "Brand New Lover." Both received lots of play on juke boxes all over the city.

In the new millennium, as this Internet fad thing took hold, JD has been re-recording his music into the MP3 format and has made it available to all on this site and at www.creativeventuresmusic.com. as well as on I-Tunes, TuneCore, Jango and CD-Baby.

Check it out, enjoy.
