Think I’ll be around here for a year or two  /  and if we work all day and night, we’ll be alright

Can’t discern just wear I’m bound  /  I know it’s best when she’s around...

 

Here is a list, in no particular order, of some of my favorite Jonathan Richman songs. I get to see him perform at Thalia Hall tomorrow night and I've been listening to his music all week in preparation.

 

○  Since She Started to Ride - This obscure but humorous song about dating a horse girl is from his 1990 album Jonathan Goes Country. (YouTube link)

○  City vs. Country - It's no secret that I love this song off 1995's You Must Ask The Heart — I've performed it live several times. (YouTube link)

○  That Summer Feeling - An enduring song from his 1992 album I, Jonathan. I like how he will sing different lyrics live. (YouTube link)

○  You Can't Talk to the Dude - Another one of his more popular songs, also from I, Jonathan. I love the lo-fi production on this album. (YouTube link)

○ To Hide a Little Thought - Another great track from You Must Ask The Heart. I like how self-reflective the lyrics are. (YouTube link)

○  I Have Come Out To Play - This track from Modern Lovers '88 is lighthearted and fun. I like the swing beat. Also, root beer mentioned. (YouTube link)

○  Let Her Go into the Darkness - Another one from You Must Ask The Heart. The instrumentation reflects the lyrics' theme of darkness. (YouTube link)

I was going to make “TSOP” a regular thing where I celebrate songs that have a connection to Philadelphia but I kind of forgot about it until now. “Boyish” just came on one of my playlists and it reminded me about my precious forgotten column. Please excuse the lack of grace with which I jump back into this. “Boyish” is a dreamy indie pop song from the 2017 album Soft Sounds from Another Planet by Japanese Breakfast. The album was self-produced in their studio in Philadelphia. The drums, which play a slowed+reverbed take on the...

 

At the start of the new year, I made a goal to write 4 new songs in January. Today, I wrote a song using an instrument I’ve never played before — the mandolin. I bought the mandolin recently at a rummage sale for $35, but hadn’t gotten the chance to learn anything on it other than the tuning of the strings. I googled mandolin chord shapes and found A, D, and E (I IV V, old reliable). I learned the shapes and improvised the song using those chords. The phrase “real love is better” popped into my head...

 

Last night, I played at the café/bar in Epiphany Center for the Arts in Chicago. It was a great opportunity for me to practice my vocal stamina and piano chops. I split the time up into 3 sets which featured original music and an eclectic mix of covers. I recorded audio and video of my performance so I could watch it back and figure out ways to improve. I should have done a better job sequencing the setlists, because I ended up playing 7 of my best originals at the start of the first set, which was the same time that the bar opened their doors...

 

I've started writing songs in Spanish before but I never completed one before. I decided today to write a full set of lyrics to one of my songs in Spanish. The experience was humbling and a lot of fun. Turns out things like maintaining rhyme scheme and flow is a lot harder when you're writing in a second language and don't have a huge vocabulary to pull from. However, using the free Spanish language rhyming dictionary rimar.io (ostensibly modeled after RhymeZone) helped a lot in the process. What helped even more was consulting with Dra. Karla Jácome, Ph.D to make sure my lyrics made sense and sounded natural. She also contributed some amazing lyrics to the third verse. I'm having a lot of fun singing this song and it's been stuck in my head all day. I'm excited to share it as soon as I can!

Last night, I saw my first ever opera. It was George Bizet's Carmen at the Sarasota Opera House. Congratulations to the actors, musicians, crew and staff of the show. It was a wonderful introduction for me into the world of opera. The opera is in French, so I appreciated being able to read the lyrics and translations in the surtitles. The opera was fast-paced and full of recognizable songs and melodies. (Everybody in this world has heard the Habanera or the Toreador Song at some point in their life.) Carmen premiered in 1875 in Paris and quickly became one of the most popular and beloved operas in the canon. Who knew opera could be such a fun time? I will certainly look forward to my next opportunity to see an opera, although how one could follow up Carmen I don't know. In the meantime, I will not be listening to opera on Spotify because the singing is annoying and I don't understand the words.

For the past few months, I've been practicing and recording a short collection of songs so that I can release an EP by summer. I'm really excited to share this group of songs in the summer specifically, because the whole vibe of the record is very summer-y. "Goldfish" and "Funnel Cake" will be included on the project, as well as other songs that have not seen the light of day before and others that have.

 

The EP will be called Splish Splash.

I'm getting all these Taylor Swift "fun facts" on my TikTok For You page lately. I'm in too deep. How does one wade to shallower waters of Swiftie Tok? It's not that I don't want any Taylor content. But this is too much. You feel me.

 

I now get daily Calvin & Hobbes comic strips on my fyp. Those kind of brighten my day. TikTok can be a numbing or even negative experience if you let it. I've been making more of an effort to engage with only the kind of content that I want to see and that has a positive impact on me. I get a ton of musicians and producers on my fyp as well, which often leaves me feeling a bit more connected and inspired.

 

“Saturday” was released in 2015 on an album called All of Something by a band called Sports, who have since changed their name to Remember Sports. They’re a Philadelphia-based power pop band who started out playing house shows and releasing their music on Bandcamp. I love their peppy energy and uber-specific lyrics that range from the mundane to heart-on-the-sleeve emotion. I also like how many of their songs are short and simple musically (many of their songs are 2 minutes or less). “Saturday” clocks in at 1 minute 13 seconds...

 

Last year, I did a bracket of musical marches with my students during the month of March in the spirit of March Madness. It was a lot of fun, so I decided to bring it back again this year. I substituted in some new suggestions for some of the losers from last year that were less popular. This bracket is not meant to be a definitive statement on the musical merits or quality of these marches (some of them might barely even be considered marches...

 

I’ve just begun the process of mixing my upcoming EP, Splish Splash. I’m so grateful to be able to record and produce my music independently. Mixing is one of my favorite parts of the song production process. This group of songs I’m currently working on has been a fun challenge. The vibe, style, and arrangement varies from song to song. Each song lives in its own sonic world, so to speak. Nevertheless, many of the songs share certain musical elements. (Can you use “nevertheless” in a blog post? I feel like I’m writing an essay.) Some of these songs were written and partially recorded years ago. I’ve used a few tracks that have been sitting on a hard drive for a while and recorded over them or used parts from them…

 

I’m excited to share these songs! They’ve been stuck in my head all month…

The release of my EP Splish Splash is 2 months away. June 21, 2024.

 

It will be 8 songs — 19 minutes of sun-soaked bliss. Grab your beach bags, sun screen, and flip flops!

I love mixing, but it always consumes me. I’m always listening to my mixes or thinking about them or actively working on them. I get so fixated on getting them right. The great thing is I actually know what I'm doing. I've been feeling a lot more confident in my mixes lately. I've put a lot of hours into this skill, so it's gratifying to feel like I'm still improving. I'll master these in the next couple days and then I can really focus on promoting this thing.

Splish Splash is mixed and mastered and it’s been sent it off to the presses. We’ve got a shipment of 50,000 vinyls coming soon. Just kidding. It will just be on streaming for now. Sorry to disappoint. (Blow this up though and I’ll be able to press some vinyl!) Splish Splash is a celebration of summer, fun, youth, memories, love, and joy. I explore these themes in a musical tapestry of bright colors and organic instrument sounds...

 

Planet W is a new science-fiction musical and intergalactic love story… A small-town couple on the verge of a relationship crisis are abducted by a race of zany aliens hellbent on destroying the Earth! Can the star-crossed lovers save their future together and the fate of humankind in time?! We have been developing this musical for the past 3 years. I co-wrote the story, music and lyrics with Franco Giacomarra...

 

My upcoming single, “Missed Connection”, is a fusion of several different genres, with an overall sunny, Caribbean feel. For the harmony and guitar arrangement, I drew inspiration from African styles of music, particularly soukous. Learning those rhythms and techniques for the electric guitar was fun and challenging. I thought I’d share some of the history I learned in my research. Soukous is an uptempo, guitar-driven style of African dance music that originated in the late 1960s. The guitar parts are syncopated and very bright, often played in the guitar’s highest register. Soukous originated...

 

You didn't think I'd make you wait until Splish Splash dropped to hear some more new music, did you?

 

I'm releasing "Missed Connection as the third and final single leading up to the full EP release on June 21. "Missed Connection" will be available on streaming and there will be an accompanying music video on YouTube next Friday, May 24. Both the song and music video were super fun to make and I'm excited to share them with the world.

Today is the day! "Missed Connection" is yours!! The song is officially out on all streaming services as the third and final single leading up to my debut EP, Splish Splash, which arrives June 21. It's accompanied by a music video that was filmed over the past year with the help of Tori Orman, Lauren Krohn, and Julia Coakley. The video portrays a sun-soaked meet-cute fantasy that lives somewhere between the reality of city life and the fantasy of an ideal island getaway.I started writing "Missed Connection" a couple years ago...