this is the happenstance ending of a tune that didn't make the record.  
kind of like the leftover raindust of some stuff that got left on a table outside.

dony wynn plays drums and percussion.  buddha plays the box.  i'm playing the piano and the wurlitzer "genie."

buddha box genie

old sea song from the 1600's that i found in a readers digest book about american myth and legend.  i'd never heard the song so i took the words and chords they had and made up my own melody (with some help from dave vaughn and james gortner).  on the recording, jane herships sings along and mark parsons plays flute.

the golden vanity

a song that started when my girl was talking about the way that everything passes, including her.  then there was a warm thunderstorm and some 4th of july fireworks that we watched on the roof of our brooklyn apartment.  when she left a few days later to help shoot a film in ecuador, i felt the strange, sad freedom of the anything hours.

my uncle, tom lennon, helped me with a second guitar part and some singing at the end.  bill flores plays pedal steel.  jane herships sings along. dony wynn plays drums. emile millar plays banjo and xylophone. that's me on harmonica.  and that's a mobile that karen and i made.

the anything hours

a little dittie for our neighbors, the squirrels, who lived in our ceiling.  they seemed to pick up on the energy of new years eve and were making lots of trips up and down the ladder that ran from the roof to the landlord's garden down below.  we were a bit like them, but we used the stairs. 
i played the guitar, vocal, kick and foot-snare all at once on this recording.  then i added the piano part and later had bill flores put some pedal steel on there.  my uncle, tom lennon did some singing at the end, and my other uncle, his brother, michael lennon, played some bass.
 

active day

a song i wrote with my ramblin' buddy, jacob berman, about midway through my stay in austin.  sort of inspired by our travels in north africa and the ongoing search for the next seeing place, as he calls it.  this recording was made at about 2 in the morning after a long night on the outskirts of downtown austin.  a guy had just stuffed my shirtpocket full of grass and we were as happy as could be.  
that's emile millar on guitar, me on the vocal and the table, and mark parsons on the fiddle.  if you listen real close you can even here jihad berman singing along now and then.  the paddling indian is from an assemblage piece i made a while ago.


one shoe blues

a song that came out of a couple letters and packages that passed between me and one of my oldest friends, dan malloy.  living in brooklyn for a few years sort of renewed california for me.  that's probably why i moved back.
i play a lot of stuff on this song: guitar and singing, percussion, harmonica, piano, and wurlitzer.  dony wynn plays drums.  james preston plays bass.  emile millar plays banjo. jeff lennon, michael lennon, and dan malloy sing along on the choruses and whistle with me at the end.
  

dear daniel

another witness song from the corner of 6th ave. and 19th st.  i was listening to a charlie parker record over and over.  it was a moody fall day.  big clouds and wind kept changing the light.  i daydreamed of old new york and the amazing jazz that was going on then.  the sky seemed to be the only thing that was the same as it was back then.  maybe cause it never stopped changing.
garth stevenson plays upright bass.  nate birkey plays trumpet.  i play piano, singing, and genie.  michael lennon plays drums.  kristi holthouser sings along. 

summit at birdland

an ode to the israeli valley girl who pulled me out of california and into new york without even asking.  i guess she did it with her owlish eyes and unpretentious ways.  the song pretty much came out like an exhale after i met her.  sort of a goodbye to the old me and a shalom to the new.  
i play guitar, wurlitzer, harmonica, xylophone, kazoo, and do the singing.  dony wynn plays drums.  me and mike johnson play percussion.  buddha plays the box.
 


casual karen

in some ways i just want what i've already had.  some grown up version of my childhood,
if it still exists these days.  the town and the country, the ocean and the land, friends and family, a summer of blackberries and a winter of mud.  time. space. more life before death. 
i play wurlitzer and sing. eliot "glass ghost" krimsky plays the magnus organ.  garth stevenson plays bass.  me, mike johnson and karen nedivi play percussion.  my cousins, ted and jeff lennon, sing along.  they're also sitting there with me at our grandma lolly's house in venice, about 1980.

small goals

an instrumental that i wrote after a short poem that goes:
the red day has run
and if
we was wind 
i'd let her go.


it's in honor of my late, great sister, katrina elizabeth montgomery.
i play piano and wurlitzer.

vaughnmontgomery