I drove to VA to work for my dad and his landscaping company.  When times get tough I turn to shoveling animal crap over people’s lawns for money.  Anyway, I wrote some new semi-songs on the old piano in the basement, but I was too lazy to record them.

However, I’ve been hooked on these old Paperface b-sides lately…it’s cool to be able to look at this stuff with more objectivity now.  I think Paperface was objectively a damn fine group.   I didn’t write good lyrics, and sometimes I made up lyrics on the fly, and I didn’t worry about singing well or playing the piano well, and we were still a good group.  Probably mostly due to Tristan and Jake, come to think of it.

I also organized my whole catalog of music.  The grand total is:

• 500 songs on early Chris Merritt tape demos
• 4 official Chris Merritt albums
• 21 albums of newer Chris Merritt demos
• 5 Paperface albums (one of b-sides)
• 3 Upperville songs!

I feel like I’m just getting started in my writing.  I’ve been listening to lots of Rimsky-Korsakov and Vaughn Williams and Berlioz and I think there is much to be done!

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Delays on tapes, this week has been busy!  The show at Rockwood was awesome.  We were done and it was still light out.  But the finest people in the city all came out.

Then I got a job doing grunt work for the UK Embassy in NY.  I worked with a couple of the guys from Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels or Snatch or something.  Bleedin’ cockneys they were.  Sweet blokes they were and a couple of cheeky bastards.  Why do I always end up around these Limeys?  First the gig at Le Caprice (a London restaurant) and now this.  Where are they all coming from?  Did they all just get here?  They still sound like they’re straight out of Layer Cake.  My slow American brain has trouble keeping up with them.  I think it’s the universe telling me to get my Elton John ass to England.

Here’s some little demos I recorded at a new Yorkman’s house:

I thought I would post the newsletter for all to see.  If you don’t subscribe to the newsletter, now is the time.  Wes sends ‘em out about every three weeks, and he takes it to an art form.  Use the simple sign-up button to the right of this blog.

Long time no spam, eh?

We played a show last week for these amazing kids at St. Andrew’s school in Delaware.  The students were so awesome – by the end of the show, most of the audience was on stage with us.  Clapping, dancing, singing.  It was a freakin party.

This confirms my recent longing to play for younger audiences.  21+ shows tend to be more jaded and low-energy.  St. Andrew’s, you guys are rad!  We’ll come back soon.

Anyone got more show pictures?

Come see me and the band at Rockwood Music Hall in New York City on Tueday night.

Be there at 7:00 pm to see us play!

Keyboard still broken.  I’m into this song lately.  It has a lot of minor chords and it’s weird.  I’m loving weird lately.

This seemingly innocent song has some randomly psycho little features.  I wish I could say I meant to write them.  It has a couple key changes, plus melodies that are called back in the different keys, so the same melody is heard in a different context.  The verses are cyclical – they have no clear beginning and end (I just chose arbitrary places to start and stop).  There are deceptive chords that should be minor, but are weirdly major.  This is called back in the verse repetition thing at the end.  Also the time signatures are all over the place on this one – nothing really odd, like 5/4 or something, just weirdly chopped measures and odd numbers of chords in a progression, etc.

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Hey, we got some incredible last-minute entries to the low-budget video contest!  I sure as heck wouldn’t want to be Judge Wes.

Here’s a round-up of all the videos:  first, we have an embarrassing (for me) soufflé of ancient footage of my rat-tail adorned head and fat women dancing from NickSax12.  This video is amazing.  10/10

Second, we have a hilarious and mysterious Big Girl video from donmarquez101.  Awesome acting and enigmatic interpretation.  Rad. 10/10:

And here’s the Sugar entry that I never posted, made by none other than my own mother.  It’s amazing beyond words.  I’m struggling to describe it, really.  10/10

And last but not least, here’s the 10/10 Vegas romp from BeauregardB that was posted a couple weeks ago:

The court will resume when Judge Wesley has made his final verdict.

By the way, keep making these.  The deadline is over, but I’ll still send you something cool or write you a song or somethin’.

And ps, if I haven’t written or called you back lately, I’M SORRY!!!!!!!!!!!

sorry for the overload on guitar songs.  My keyboard broke in the epic Stand Break Show Disaster 2010.  Today I’m trying to fix it, also going to the zoo to draw animals for album artwork.

I wrote this song in about five minutes.

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I ran into Jolie’s Tarmac video this weekend.  I think it’s darn rad.

Tarmac

this is no fun – this is music from a shallow man – these are movies from a shiny can – then why are my friends -sitting over on the other side – sitting over on the other side – i could barely make it through alive – but the cannery workers – are players and millionaires

buddy, you still set on taking off?  yes, as a matter of fact – give me a chance, can I get my wings out on the tarmac?

industry gone – information is becoming free – no more radio or mtv – singing, why are my friends – sitting over with computer king – shake your booty, we’ve got everything – entertainment, air conditioning – but the blood on the carpet is making me manic

buddy, you still set on taking off?  yes, as a matter of fact – give me a chance, can I get my wings out on the tarmac? – well buddy, what if the world is mostly full of brown-eyes? – come on and give me a chance, can i get my wings out on the tarmac?

everyone gets a chance in cybermocracy – maybe i’d like that more if people didn’t suck – turn down the voices of the singularity – and turn up the music

and i sing and i want something to break but all the pipelines are broken i – am just fine and i am fed and i’m well but i am still feeling broken, aye

Wes and I made bad raps again.  Check out the video.  Disclaimer:  watch out for f bombs!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oyr_n-uyOY&feature=player_embedded

The Deli magazine featured me on their NYC blog, right up front!  Cool, man.  You gotta scroll down a bit cause it’s been a couple days since they posted it.

http://nyc.thedelimagazine.com/

I’m ecstatic that they put the Cult Of Karl video up.