Spoken word piece with guitar -- Tony, vocals and music

Guitar, for the geeks in the room -- Danelectro shorthorn DC59 tuned to DADGAD.  Direct into computer, Garageband effects.

Mother Of Moons

Once again, we've chosen to participate in Victor Infante's Great Cover Song Challenge, a journalism project where bands are given a song to cover -- no choice in the matter, anyway we want to do it, assigned by random draw. Victor then writes an article about the works and what they say about the topic or artist chosen. 

This time around, the various musicians involved were given some of the classics of the disco era.  We were lucky enough to get one that we dug -- Sylvester's "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)."

We dug into it with a bit of a swampy feel -- inspired for some obscure reason by thoughts of Little Feat.  Although it might not have the vibe we originally intended, the end result was satisfying.

The poem in the instrumental part is a bit of a rant about the homophobic and racist slant to a lot of the anti-disco sentiment of the 90s, which we all agree was a lot of bullshit. Lowell George of Little Feat fame gets a mention as do the infamous Whiskey-A-Go-Go and Commodore Hotel.   Highly recommend y’all go read about Sylvester, BTW.  

Personnel: Chris O'Donnell, fatback drums; Chris Lawton, recording, production, and nasty-ass electric guitar; Tony Brown, mediocre vocals and decent poetry; Steven Lanning-Cafaro, seven-string electric guitar and six-string bass, although not at the same time, as he is not an octopus.

You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)

Drowning

Tony. One mic. Acoustic guitar. Not really about Philadelphia.

Philadelphia

One of the oldest poems in my memory banks, dating from the early 80s.  I never thought about setting it to music. Kinda resisted the idea, in fact. But out of the blue...

Tony on guitar and vocals.

Chrysler

Out West

I Ride This World

Poem by Rich Boucher, "The Only One Who Gets You."  Loops and samples and stuff by me. 

A bit of fun for a "Cover Song Challenge in a private Facebook group.  I can't play guitar all that well any more thanks to neuropathy, so I tried something else.

Blueberry Pie (Butch And Fabienne Remix)

Victor Infante, a columnist writing a critical article on a certain popular 80s band for Orange County Weekly (from SoCal), created a cover song challenge as a way of looking at the crucial elements of that band's work.  He'd done it once before on Phil Collins; it was an intriguing project.  He's an old friend of the band, so we were game for the second round.

How it worked: we agreed to do the challenge, and on a given date, we and about 100 other acts were given  a song by this artist blind and told to cover it in whatever way we saw fit.  No choice in the matter... it's an interesting idea, especially when you get a band and/or song that aren't regarded well by critics and, um, "serious musicians."  Which is kind of the point.

It's Air Supply's "I Can't Get Excited."  Not exactly our cup of tea, but we made it our own, with a film-noir soundtrack feel and some dysfunctionally read and augmented lyrics by Tony. (Air Supply actually heard and liked a lot of the covers, by the way -- no word on ours in particular, but...)

Here's a link to the article, and if you click on the word "Storify" at the end, you can hear ALL the covers. Thanks, Victor, and to all who participated...even Air Supply themselves.  

http://www.ocweekly.com/music/lost-in-love-exploring-air-supply-in-oc-weeklys-great-cover-song-challenge-7529216

Tony Brown, vocals; Chris Lawton, guitar; Steven Lanning-Cafaro, keyboards; Chris O'Donnell, drums.  Recorded live at Duende Project HQ, 8/14/2016.

I Can't Get Excited (Noir Supply -- Air Supply cover)

Once again, as part of a critical study, we're contributing this twisted version of "Danger Zone" to an article looking at 80s music soundtracks.  Thanks to Victor Infante for this opportunity, once again...

It might get a little political in here...

Personnel: Tony Brown, vocal and rhythm guitar; Steven Lanning Cafaro, bass and keyboards; Chris Lawton, lead guitar; Chris O'Donnell, drums.

Produced and engineered by Chris Lawton and Steven Lanning Cafaro.

Danger Zone:  Threat Level Orange

Cover for a project called "It's Complicated." David Crosby and Jefferson Airplane both recorded this way back in the 60s.  Nowadays, there are layers of meaning and connotation we might not have heard back then.  Is it creepy or liberating? You decide.

Triad (David Crosby)

Chantey

A submission for the Great Cover Song Challenge: Guilty Pleasure Edition.

Song by David Crosby.  Tony, vocals and Telecaster; Steve, bass.

Triad (Electric Bass and Electric Guitar)

This is where The Duende Project (Tony Brown, poetry/guitar; Steven Lanning-Cafaro, bass/nylon string guitar/keyboards; Chris Lawton, guitars; Chris O'Donnell, drums) host various demos and rehearsal tracks so we can listen to them as needed and give folks an insight into our processes, etc.  One-offs and weird stuff, some for download.  Enjoy.

Duende Project Demos

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