sketches testing some Surfin’ harmonies

Here’s a new sketch of a song

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Filling in for Chris’ blog tonight as he’s hard at work learning new music for his “Little Maestros” job. (I’m sure he’ll add some very glowing remarks along with mine in the near future!) This super talented a capella group of young men, Nine After Dark, decided to arrange a Chris Merritt medley of “Tower of Sand” and “Madison” — they also made a video of their performance over the weekend, and we had to share it with everyone. Amazing job, fellas!! Also congrats to any of Nine’s 2010 grads, you’ll be great additions to any college a capella groups for sure.

~ Cathy

You don’t want to miss this show next week!!! The band and I will be blowing the roof off Buchanan Hall, in the most beautiful town in America, Upperville, VA.  And if that’s not enough for you, there will be two other AWESOME groups opening the show, plus, eat some Big Daddy’s BBQ, and drink adult beverages (beer, vino) galore!  Could there be a more perfect thing to do next weekend?  I don’t think so.  Plus, a portion of the money goes to saving the historical site of Buchanan Hall.

Well, in the city world, meanwhile, I saw some rats after the show.  I’m having a blast with my new camera.

But also, I’ve been busy.  Brett and I are working on getting songs ready for the studio next week.  We’re working on one called The Times Are Changin’, one called Radio, one tentatively called Dirty Girl, one called Surfin’, Read the rest of this entry »

(quickly – I’m performing tonight at The Bitter End in NYC – come and enjoy the music and have a beverage – 8 o’clock!  more like 9)

Yesterday was the best day of my life.

First I went in to my new job playing music for babies.  Seriously.  More on that later.  The I bought a digital camera.  It’s time to Read the rest of this entry »

Don’t forget – you can grab a free Chris Merritt best-of album here!  (It asks you to sign up for the newsletter, but you don’t have to – there’s a link that goes straight to the download.  But you should sign up for Wes’ highly awesome newsletter!)

Why not throw the link to a couple friends who might have somehow overlooked the international musical phenomenon known simply as Chris Merritt?  “Hey there, friend!” you might say.  “Check out this quirky piano freak I found!  His music makes life slightly more bearable!” Or something to that nature.  Have a quick link to gmail, yahoo, and aim.  You’re welcome.

I’m in a best-of mood.  In fact, I think it’s about time to get serious about my little band.  It’s time to make this thing huge.  It’s time to make history.  We’ve got some ideas, and I will keep you documented on our progress daily here.  With a more-than-freaking-amazing donation from my currently favorite Chris Merritt fan on the planet, we find ourselves in the midst of decision-making time.

Here are the facts:

• The next Chris Merritt record will be the best Rock And Or Roll album ever made by human men
• We have 8.7 billion ideas and the 22 best songs I’ve ever written,
• plus a crack team of the finest musicians on the planet, including percussion factory Brett Ripley
• We need a decent budget to make this record what it’s supposed to be, which is the sonic version of synthetic life
• We need a promo company or a record label, realistically, to get there
• We live in NYC, which has many promo companies and record labels
• The public is bound to get sick of crappy music any minute now

So, Brett and I propose the following.  We’ll get in a studio next week with some of this surprise change and finish up a couple new (amazing) tracks that we’ve been secretly rocking out to.  That way you guys will have something new to hear.  But we’ll use the majority of our efforts over the summer not on making another masterpiece that flies below the radar, but on securing a fat catapult to launch our boiling lard over the heads of…..I don’t know where that little analogy was going.  Basically, it’s time to kick some butt.

I’ll update four times a week.  Monday.  Tuesday.  Thursday.  Saturday.  You’ll know our successes and failures.  You’ll know what we’re up to on our epic journey to stardom.  And most importantly, you’ll be able to keep in touch with us and help us.  We need your help.  We’ll have jobs and fun activities for you.  We’ll give you stuff.  Signed shirtless photos.  It’s time to become intimate friends with my email, the post office, and my cell phone.  Damn that cell phone.

Friends, I’m sorry about the lack of Tuesday Tapes.  Cathy, I’m sorry I haven’t called you back.  And Emma, I WOULD like that Pearl Jam t-shirt.  And Wes, here’s a video of a man who truly understands the high comedy of Ricky Gervais.

Let’s start strong, folks.  Send the best-of album to two of your friends that LOVE strange, manly piano-rock.

The time has come.

love, Chris

Apparently my mom entered a couple of my songs in the UK Songwriting contest.  Out of five-thousand thousand entries, Cult Of Karl was one of the four songs that placed in the indie/rock category – cool!  Thanks mom!  She also entered Avery and something else, which apparently almost placed too.

Check out the contest results here and the video on the contest’s YouTube account here.  Half of the credit goes to Dustin Hofheins for his amazing bassline on Cult (I love that bassline) and Steve Pick for his amazing animated video.

There was one grand winner in each category and three runners-up.  Cult Of Karl was the runner up in the indie/rock category.  And the winner?  Amazing – an eleven-year-old girl named Daniella Salone won with her song Good Thing which is unbelievable.  It would be a great song even ignoring the fact that a young child wrote it and recorded every instrument!  This girl is awesome.  She can write better than almost every adult ‘songwriter’ I’ve met.  If this chick keeps at it, she will be truly great.

This song is in fetus stage but it will be a huge hit, I can hear it in my head:

It’s a pretty short one, so here’s an oldie called Dr. Jerk:

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Here’s a magazine article about myself.

I remember talking Cassandra’s face off for like an hour, so she must edited about 97% of my inspired ramblings.  Anyway, thanks for the great and awesome article Cass!  Mind if I call you Cass?  It’s kind of close to Ass though huh?  Well, forget it I’ll just stick with Cassandra.

In other news, I’ll be playing Relay For Life in Charlottesville VA on Saturday!  I’ve never really played C-Ville but this is for a great end:  eliminating cancer from the human race.  Come walk and hang out.  I’ll be playing two gosh darn sets!  I think the only real and final solution to cancer will have to do with manipulating genes or nano-bots.  Really.

Here’s a song I made.   I Don’t See You Here from Virginia Is For Hoverers (Part I) (buy it here, fools)

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I will be playing tomorrow (Saturday) night at Local 269 (which is on the lower east side on Houston) at 8 PM.

I’ll be playing mostly acoustic and I’ll be doing all science-themed songs!  Come by for an hour of hard science and hard drinks.  And rock music as well.  Plus, you get a free disc of all my science-themed songs!  Yeah, I know, I’m a nice guy.

Physics, biology, astrophysics, famous scientists…..maybe some history and computation thrown in as well.  Oh, and also science-fiction songs.

You know,

• The Turing Machine
• Anti-Bird (Little Bird)
• The Singularity
• Sequel
• Sanctuary
• Sarah And The Fabric Of Reality
• The Beautiful Ms. Parker And I Approach The Singularity
• She-Wolf

You know, stuff like that.  Maybe some Magical Stones and some I Don’t See You Here thrown in.  Am I forgetting any?

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