Voice of the nation

Copyright 2024 Joe Stroffolino

Lots of people moving to the state of AZ
The desert seems like a nice a nice place to be
The only problem is there’s not enough H20
One day you’ll turn the tap and it’s not gonna flow
The climate keeps getting drier every single year
I guess we’ll have to take fewer showers and drink more beer

If you can’t stand the heat maybe you should get out of the kitchen
Maybe this isn’t the right place for you.
The sun up in the sky is 93 million miles away
But it feels a lot closer on a hot Arizona day

There’s not enough snowpack on the mountains up high
They say the Colorado river’s running dry
They’re ripping up lawns, replacing them with rocks
Instead of going barefoot, you walk around in crocs
The polar glaciers are melting in to the sea
I wish that they could scoop up an iceberg and drop it down on me

If you can’t stand the heat maybe you should get out of the kitchen
Maybe this isn’t the right place for you

Most of the rain falls in the summer
Monsoon season can be a real bummer
You get a big dust storm, they call it a haboob
You can watch scary videos on You Tube
You’ll be driving and suddenly you can’t see
You gotta make sure you don’t crash into a cactus or a tree

If you can’t stand the heat maybe you should get out of the kitchen
Maybe this isn’t the right place for you

A long time a ago, it must have been tough without air conditioning
People just had to sit around all day moaning and bitching 
Now the biggest thing we complain about is our high electric bill
As we lie on the couch watching Netflix enjoying the comfortable chill

If you can’t stand the heat maybe you should get out of the kitchen
Maybe this isn’t the right place for you
The sun up in the sky is 93 million miles away
But it feels a lot closer on a hot Arizona day

Can't Stand the Heat

Silence By Zitou Itou & Albert Paule

Written, performed and recorded by Neli CoKo, 2025, all rights reserved. 
Thank you for listening :)

Original Photography by https://www.pexels.com/de-de/@anna-nekrashevich/

Lost In Dreams

Guitar, vocals, arrangement - Lizzie Taypen
Photo - Dunavon Woods - Lizzie Pentland
Recorded early this morning on my phone, a simple take when it was quiet.
I am finding it quite difficult to play my guitar now because of my arthritis, so  good to play a little. 
Happy Solstice to all of you!!

She moved through the fair ( Trad Cover)

When Noobly sent me the instrumental I was blown away with its beauty. My instant thought was that I have to come up with something as equal and meaningful. I had to write from the heart and I have always had a vivid memory of the last time I spent with a close friend a week before his passing.
 I’ve tried to paint the picture from my head into the lyrics.
There’s not a day I don’t think or mention him as it’s the third anniversary this year of his death.
He died of liver cancer that took him swiftly from this world. He left a Wife  and two beautiful young adult daughters. 
Rest in peace Andy my friend and I will never forget the laughs you gave me and support over our long 
Friendship.
Conscience of Kings gives you ….

The last time

V1 
You  opened the door 
With me containing the shock 
You lead me down the garden path
To where the sun shone on the evening grass
Giving warm to our last time and past

Ch 
I just knew 
Its the last time with you 
You made it easy just being you 
A paragon of virtue 

V2 
You offered me a non alcoholic beer
Like it was the way forward from here
So we touched glass and said our final cheers ……
Me in my T-shirt & shorts you layered up to contain the warmth 
We drank we laughed we reminisced about our stupid past.
I will always be grateful for memories that always last

I just knew it was the last time with you……repeat

Ch 
I just knew 
Its the last time with you 
You made it easy just being you 
A  paragon of virtue 

Cover picture a Noobly original taken by himself, what a shot.

The Last Time ~ Conscience Of Kings

Cast of characters:
Jack Karasek — beats and seed idea
K2 and the Three [and the Four] -- @k2andthe3, @k2-kara –Ken–beats
Entheogenic Psychonaught (Josh Clary)– @josh-clary-1– Roland Phantom workstation
Llanpsych–@llanpsych –Tez– electric guitar
Tea R. Sea @tea_are_sea -- Terry – Synthesizer
TexMex Shaman–@texmex-shaman –Stephen– mix, master, and production
This song began with Ken's oldest son, Jack, who laid down the basic rhythmic beat. Ken took over after that with the rest of the beats, though. Jack just graduated high school last week, and he's into hip hop and trap music, so he wanted to share some of it with his musician father, who is very proud of him.
  Tez was first up on this one, which surprised me when I went back and checked the workflow. He added the perfectly placed guitar hits throughout. Josh was next up, using his synth to add the falling bass line. Last, but not least, Terry came aboard, adding the moody, melodic, high register synth.
  When it was all finished, we asked out resident pro mixer, Stephen, to mix it for us. 
  This song was in its current form for about the past eight months. It was originally part of a series of vehicles Eclectic Collective composed for The Mysterious Decibel. He got caught up in life, though, and had to abandon the project. So, we sat on it, asking all the rappers we know if they'd be interested in having a go with it, but no one bit. So, with Jack's recent graduation, Ken revived it as a celebratory song for his son. It could still use some vocals, too, so think of this as an open invitation to anyone who want to do the honors. 
  We hope you enjoy listening to this as much as we enjoyed making it. 
  Oh, and just a side note for all of our friends who follow along with us, we won't be releasing a song this coming Friday, the 4th, but will have  new one for you, the following Friday, the 11th. Thank you for keeping up with us!

Throwing Rocks (Eclectic Collective)

I had the very good fortune to connect with Andy H aka “Noobly” a few months ago over music that we mutually admired and we agreed to find a future opportunity to collaborate. This is the result. Noobly’s beautifully rich track, propelled by his soaring guitar work, felt like a kind of call to prayer to my ear. I tried to echo this somewhat in singing the bridge. Lyrically, just for kicks I used the Socratic Method to construct the verses (persuasion through Q&A) so that this song’s meaning becomes self-evident and hopefully more of a personal experience for each listener. Thanks for checking it out!

Prideful Pride

Do you remember the day when pride took you for its own
When a thief stole something precious in you

Do you remember the day when pride took you for its own
When a thief stole something precious in you
Did it happen when all of your friends cut you out
Was your heart set on winning something, but you lost instead
And when you were maimed did the anger in you surge
Can you mark the moment when you became someone else
Is your truth under layers of scar and combat
Are you the new thief, looting joy from everywhere

Prideful pride keeps piling on, on, on
Building your walls, can’t go wrong, wrong, wrong
Finding it hard to get along, along, along
Your pride is killing you, long before you’re gone, gone, gone

And in the end you’ll be left with nothing
A bright light that’s gone too dim
I have been in a prison of my own before, just like you
Until I let the facade fall
And was set free, free

Are things more difficult now that you are going it alone
And do you leave enough room for both your sadness and your anger
Does that wall keep scary things in, and the invaders out
Are you winning this imaginary war you think you’re fighting

Prideful pride keeps piling on, on, on
Building your walls, ’can’t go wrong, wrong, wrong
Finding it hard to get along, along, along
Your pride is killing you, long before you’re gone, gone, gone


Music/production - Noobly @ https://soundcloud.com/noobly-1
Lyrics/vocals - Todd J McLean
Artwork - Fukushima Greed, 2011 (mixed media) by Todd J McLean

Prideful Pride

After completing the song, I found a noticeable spread between the highest & lowest notes.  So I had a hard time with the vocals.  I could have altered the notes to fit the voice but in the end I decided to go with the original.  Please bear with my singing.

The lyrics is extracted from a lengthy poem I came across on the web.
In the end, perhaps the plot doesn't make much sense anyway.  So let's assume it's just for the sake of making a song.   See what you think.

Thanks much for stopping by.

[CREDITS]
Music / Vocals / Programming / Arrangement :  Michael C. Lynn
Lyrics  :  Neruda / Merwin
Electric Guitar Solo :  Dave Cleveland @Band_in_a_Box

[LYRICS]
The memory of you emerges from the night around me
The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea

In you the wars and the flights accumulated
From you the wings of the song birds rose

Cold flower heads are raining over my heart
I made the wall of shadow draw back,
Beyond desire I walked on

You swallowed everything, like distance
Like the sea, like time,  in you everything sank
In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded,
In you everything sank

The happy hour of assault and the kiss
and spell that blazed like a lighthouse
I raise my song to you

I don't know how you could contain me
in the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms

You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire,
sadness stunned you, in you everything sank
This was my destiny and in it was the voyage of my longing,
In you everything sank

.... Solo break....

You swallowed everything, like distance
Like the sea, like time,  in you everything sank
In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded,
In you everything sank

You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire,
sadness stunned you, in you everything sank
This was my destiny and in it was the voyage of my longing,
In you everything sank
Ah haaaa

In You (Everything Sank)

It's such an honor and joy to work with these two incredible artists! I have had the privilege of collaborating with Masa (Tot) a few times already, but it is my first making music with Khan. I hope you will enjoy this chilled out summer vibe.

Khan - @khan20233202 - Vocals & Lyrics
Tot - @tot-beat - Beat & Samples
Tea R. Sea - @tea_are_sea - Synth, Drums & Production


Lyrics (by Khan)

ON JULY

We met on July
We don’t know music come from and why
I can hear the storm is coming down down down
We don’t see but we see eye to eye
We can hear muses are coming down down down
We don’t see but we’re brotherhood

I saw fireworks tonight alone
I got the Big echo tonight and moon
I saw fireworks bring me to them
I feel paradise is here for me.

On July (Khan, Tot & Tea R. Sea)

xoedoxo & Mystic Totem - BURN

"Magic is what we do. Music is how we do it." -- Jerry Garcia

Welcome to my page, my peers, associates, friends, and musical family. I'm a lifelong, multi-instrumentalist musician who records prolifically and joyfully. You'll hear me play guitar, bass (regular four string, and four and five string fretless), mandolin, banjo, keys (piano, organ, synth), lap slide, sitar, and sing on my recordings here. I've been in a few dozen bands in my life, playing everything from bluegrass, jazz, rock, jam band, reggae, funk, afrobeat, Middle Eastern, traditional Irish, singer/songwriter, pop/covers, to experimental/avant garde. 
  Since I found SoundCloud a couple years ago, I've found many talented, creative people with whom to create music. However, in the summer of '23 I formed a band called The Eclectic Collective with some of my favorite musicians I've met through here. It started as a loose collective of musicians and coalesced into a core group of musicians who find other musicians with whom we'd like to make music, then run their songs through our process, and in effect add a full band. That core of The Eclectic Collective includes Tez (Llanpsych), J.J. Terrel, Ken (K2 and the Three), Stephen (Texmex Shaman), Chris (cgmaness), and Mark (mistermark). A couple of other musicians are frequent collaborators, as well, including Artur of Surfers Like Us, and Steve Vervaet of Steve's World. More recently, we've been joined by Carl of The Beautiful Dark fame. 
  The magic of music is amplified exponentially by each person adding to it. So, we really try to add our sorcery all kinds of music from all kinds of artists. Sometimes, we keep it within the group, but a lot of what we do is collaboration with other artists. Therefore these days, 100% of what I do is collaboration, within the group or with other artists on the side.
  I, and we, are also available for hire if you have a song or lyrics and you really want to add bigger instrumentation or a band and good production to it. 
  A small sampling of the artists whom I consider primary influences, and whom you will hear coming through my fingers include Phish, The Flaming Lips, The Grateful Dead, Radiohead, Rye Cooder, Steve Earle, Miles Davis, Fela Kuti, Arcade Fire, Mikey Dread, Yellowman, Purpleman, The Meditations, Michigan and Smiley, Lee Perry, Dillinger, Django Reinhardt, Impossible Recording Machine, The Allman Bros Band, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Bela Fleck, Les Claypool, Sam Bush, David Grissman, John Prine, Talking Heads, Beastie Boys, MMW, Moe., Morphine, Ween, Steve Lukather, Michael McDonald, John Abercrombie, Dave Holland, John Scofield, Victor Wooten,  Cannonball Adderly, Thelonious Monk, Flea, Parliament Funkadelic,  Frank Zappa, Prince Paul, Pete Rock, Thievery Corporation, Amon Tobin, Chet Baker, Joao Gilberto, Stan Getz, Astrud Gilberto, Carol Kaye, Tame Impala, Mumford and Sons, Japanese Breakfast, LCD Soundsystem, Beach House, Sean Lennon, and Billy Strings, but of course there are many more. I also really like and am influenced by traditional Iranian, Palestinian, Indian, Sri Lankan, Sudanese, Mauritian, Somalian, Egyptian, West African, and Syrian music. I welcome anyone who plays non-western music to contact me for a collaboration, too.
 I'm overjoyed to have found my community on SoundCloud. This is a truly unique forum where everyone is sincerely trying to build each other up. The profoundly supportive and positive SoundCloud community has really opened up an exciting new world of collaboration for me. That is the main reason I'm in the Cloud, actually, to connect with other musicians and make music that I enjoy listening to, and hopefully others do, as well. I am ALWAYS looking to collaborate with interesting musicians, mostly though BandLab, which is where I record almost exclusively. It's a solid, free digital audio workstation hub where you can share recording projects, even if it's not where you make your recordings.
  Everything I do is live instrumental, not programmed, and using no computer beyond my phone. That's not to say that I would be opposed to using that kind of tool, it's just not my preferred medium with which to paint. If you like my music, please share it. If you want to collaborate, my BandLab handle is @bingo_pajama. Feel free to contact me at cornbreadband@hotmail.com, as well, even if you aren't on BandLab.
  If your music is primarily AI, please don't come around my page, as I'm not at all interested in complimenting a machine.
  Here's a link to music I've recorded live with a group of musicians here in Pittsburgh called The Northumberland Street Ramblers.
Check out The Northumberland Street Ramblers on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/fU4Me

Throwing Rocks (Eclectic Collective)

Entheogenic Psychonaut (Josh Clary)