Mr. Saturday Night

Love Again For The First Time

A little insight into the 1982 #1 hit by Toto from a voicemail message left by my friend, singer/songwriter Alex Dezen. Yes we normally do this kind of stuff. 

Alex Dezen's Africa Rant

Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan — at least, that’s how the old saying goes. But as passionately as we’re conditioned to strive for first place in our success-driven world, deep down we all know we’re our truest selves when we’re confronted with failure. It’s a sobering subject, and perhaps not the first you might expect to inform a hook-filled, piano-driven pop album, but Julian Velard isn’t your average recording artist.

The New York-based singer/songwriter’s fifth full-length LP, Fancy Words for Failure, surveys that universal chasm of disappointment with the bemusement reflected in the its title. Suffused with the same musical warmth and melodic sophistication fans have come to expect, the album adds another batch of unforgettable characters to Velard’s growing gallery of hangdog rogues — potentially unreliable narrators who cop to professional jealousy, domestic discord, thwarted ambitions, and money woes; who acknowledge their lives are really pretty great, even as they can’t help but wonder why that brass ring remains stubbornly out of reach.

Leavening the melancholy strain that runs through the record is the classic songcraft that’s earned Velard a devoted cult following (and helped make him an unlikely favorite among pop connoisseurs in the Netherlands). Fans of Billy Joel’s early Brill Building eclecticism and Randy Newman’s acid wit will hear strong echoes of those traditions in Fancy Words for Failure, which — much like its songs’ protagonists — tucks its darkest moments behind a quick joke and a (mostly) sincere smile. As a songwriter, Velard continues to mature, weaving together chord changes that belie the depth of his musical background without ever forgetting the value of a hummable hook.

Title notwithstanding, Fancy Words for Failure finds Julian Velard honing his creative craft while balancing his growing discography against a number of other musical gigs, including a relationship with The Howard Stern Show as the bandleader on the long-running radio hit’s wrap-up segment, a guest musician spot on NPR’s Ask Me Another, and a jingle-singing sideline that’s put his voice in spots for Coca-Cola, Wix.com, Google, and the New York Knicks. Along the way, he’s also co-written extensively and landed a number of cuts (including a song on Olly Murs’ debut LP) and toured extensively, sharing international stages with a growing list of acts that includes Paul Carrack, Jamie Cullum, Amy MacDonald, José González, and Goldfrapp. Raw and honest, bruised yet hopeful, Velard’s latest proves Failure isn’t the end — if anything, it sounds like he might just be hitting his stride.

Sweatpants On The Living Room Floor

Available May 19 on Go Entertainment in Benelux. Contact sjaak.bruijn@planet.nl.

Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan — at least, that’s how the old saying goes. But as passionately as we’re conditioned to strive for first place in our success-driven world, deep down we all know we’re our truest selves when we’re confronted with failure. It’s a sobering subject, and perhaps not the first you might expect to inform a hook-filled, piano-driven pop album, but Julian Velard isn’t your average recording artist.

The New York-based singer/songwriter’s fifth full-length LP, Fancy Words for Failure, surveys that universal chasm of disappointment with the bemusement reflected in the its title. Suffused with the same musical warmth and melodic sophistication fans have come to expect, the album adds another batch of unforgettable characters to Velard’s growing gallery of hangdog rogues — potentially unreliable narrators who cop to professional jealousy, domestic discord, thwarted ambitions, and money woes; who acknowledge their lives are really pretty great, even as they can’t help but wonder why that brass ring remains stubbornly out of reach.

Leavening the melancholy strain that runs through the record is the classic songcraft that’s earned Velard a devoted cult following (and helped make him an unlikely favorite among pop connoisseurs in the Netherlands). Fans of Billy Joel’s early Brill Building eclecticism and Randy Newman’s acid wit will hear strong echoes of those traditions in Fancy Words for Failure, which — much like its songs’ protagonists — tucks its darkest moments behind a quick joke and a (mostly) sincere smile. As a songwriter, Velard continues to mature, weaving together chord changes that belie the depth of his musical background without ever forgetting the value of a hummable hook.

Title notwithstanding, Fancy Words for Failure finds Julian Velard honing his creative craft while balancing his growing discography against a number of other musical gigs, including a relationship with The Howard Stern Show as the bandleader on the long-running radio hit’s wrap-up segment, a guest musician spot on NPR’s Ask Me Another, and a jingle-singing sideline that’s put his voice in spots for Coca-Cola, Wix.com, Google, and the New York Knicks. Along the way, he’s also co-written extensively and landed a number of cuts (including a song on Olly Murs’ debut LP) and toured extensively, sharing international stages with a growing list of acts that includes Paul Carrack, Jamie Cullum, Amy MacDonald, José González, and Goldfrapp. Raw and honest, bruised yet hopeful, Velard’s latest proves Failure isn’t the end — if anything, it sounds like he might just be hitting his stride.

Sweatpants On The Living Room Floor - Radio Edit

Check out my music on Bandcamp - https://julianvelard.bandcamp.com

Lyrics:

Thro’ the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber,
Past the wan-moon’d abysses of night,
I have liv’d o’er my lives without number,
I have sounded all things with my sight;
And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright.

 I have whirl’d with the earth at the dawning,
When the sky was a vaporous flame:
I have seen the dark universe yawning,
Where the black planets roll without aim;
Where they roll in their horror unheeded, without knowledge or lustre or name.

I had drifted o’er seas without ending,
Under sinister grey-clouded skies
That the many-fork’d lightning is rending,
That resound with hysterical cries;
With the moans of invisible daemons that out of the green waters rise.

I have plung’d like a deer thro’ the arches
Of the hoary primoridal grove,
Where the oaks feel the presence that marches
And stalks on where no spirit dares rove;

I have stumbled by cave-ridden mountains
That rise barren and bleak from the plain,
I have drunk of the fog-foetid fountains
That ooze down to the marsh and the main;And in hot cursed tarns I have seen things I care not to gaze on again.

I have scann’d the vast ivy-clad palace,
I have trod its untenanted hall,
Where the moon writhing up from the valleys
Shews the tapestried things on the wall;
Strange figures discordantly woven, which I cannot endure to recall.

 I have peer’d from the casement in wonder
 At the mouldering meadows around,
 At the many-roof’d village laid under
 The curse of a grave-girdled ground;

I have haunted the tombs of the ages,
I have flown on the pinions of fear
Where the smoke-belching Erebus rages,
Where the jokulls loom snow-clad and drear:
And in realms where the sun of the desert consumes what it never can cheer.

 I was old when the Pharaohs first mounted
  The jewel-deck’d throne by the Nile;
 I was old in those epochs uncounted
 When I, and I only, was vile;

Oh, great was the sin of my spirit,
And great is the reach of its doom;
Not the pity of Heaven can cheer it,
Nor can respite be found in the tomb:
Down the infinite aeons come beating the wings of unmerciful gloom.

Thro’ the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber,
Past the wan-moon’d abysses of night,
I have liv’d o’er my lives without number,
I have sounded all things with my sight;
And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright.

H.P. Joelcraft

Julian Velard’s musical stylings and comedic timing have made him a fixture in both the comedy and music scenes in his native America, and have created cult followings overseas in the UK and The Netherlands. His music initially took hold a decade ago, where praise from The Guardian, Time Out London, and The Sunday Times led to a major label record deal.
 
He’s toured internationally as an opening act for artists such as Jamie Cullum, Paul Carrack, and Goldfrapp, and he has shared the stage with a host of comedians including Will Ferrell, Reggie Watts, Paul Scheer, and Wyatt Cenac. His ability to transition seamlessly between both worlds has led to regular appearances on The Howard Stern Show and NPR’s Ask Me Another. In 2017, he was an artist in residence at the prestigious Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater in New York City.
 
Velard has written scores of songs for the internet and beyond including the viral sensation HP Joelcraft which was featured in Mashable, The AV Club, and Nerdist  Additionally, Fancy Words for Failure, Velard’s latest album, was profiled in The Wall Street Journal.
 
Julian has a pair of new releases planned for the coming year: the debut of Comfort Zone, his collaboration with comedian Brooke Van Poppelen, and an EP of songs about fatherhood called Sad Dad

julianvelard

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