Last year I sat down to chat with the members of BrownChicken BrownCow StringBand, two of whom are my brothers, the rest of whom are very delightful and siblingly folk. This is the first segment from that session. I’ll be adding more segments as I get them edited. I took the photos, did the drawings, recorded and edited the interview, and created the video.
I am a beginner in the land of video creation, so I ended up making some quality concessions to get this thing uploadable, but I am just happy to be able to share this recording with you.
This segment features Justin Morris, talking about how he came to join Xander Hitzig and Orion Hitzig in Hawaii to form the nucleus of the band as it is today.
There is a lot of Christmas music out there, and every year, as the grocery and retail stores begin to pump it out some time before Thanksgiving, I become convinced that I will never enjoy another Christmas song. However, with a little digging, I can find a lot of childhood favorites that have stuck with me and somehow still make me happy.
This is rather a bizarre video (and as a kid in the ’80s I had a barbie doll with white heals exactly like those at 1:34!), but the song is the from Anne Murray Christmas, which somehow finds its way into the family cd player every year at about this time. If I just listened to one of these songs in July, I would probably reject it as being not really the kind of music I listen to, but every year, Anne Murray Christmas fails to annoy us at the end of December. Anne Murray sings Walking in a Winter Wonderland
Jingle Bells can be one of the most irritating songs, as repetitive as it is, but this skilled and faux-reluctant rendition makes me remember why it was my favorite when I was ten years old… and I kind of want to sing along. Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra sing Jingle Bells
I remember loving the movie White Christmas when I was a kid, and even though I can’t remember what it was about, I do remember the songs. Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney (?) Sing White Christmas:
(Side Note: As a youngster I had a voice envy for Bing Crosby. I wanted to sound just like him, although he was soon thoroughly supplanted by Julie Andrews. Not that I can sing anything like either of those people as an adult.)
A more recent composition, now one of my all time favorite christmas songs, is the one written by musician Tim Minchin. The song touches on most of the things I love and dislike about the holiday, and, while comedic, involves my sentiments with its recurring mentions of family gathering, family dependability, and family love. Tim Minchin plays White Wine in the Sun:
Recently I have gone to the local open mic, at the RiffRaff Arts Collective’s beautiful Room Upstairs, almost every week. I don’t perform, but I enjoy watching performance. I love music and enjoy poetry and literature. The feel of the gathering reminds me of gatherings I attended growing up in my home town. Being there with other artists of all types (it is common that I am not the only person in attendance with a sketch book in tow) makes me feel at home. It feeds me.
Here are a few samples of the sketches I do while watching and listening to the Open Mic:
This stop-motion video was created using over 1200 photographs that were shot with a Nikon D60 and assembled into video using iMovie HD. The fades to and from black were made (except for one segment) entirely using camera settings (as opposed to video effects).
Unlike a music video, the sound track was created to enhance the visual imagery and conceptual background,
not the other way around, and, as a result of that process, there is no clear audio composition or song structure.
The sounds were made using my ancient Casio SA-20 TONE BANK keyboard and my natural-born mouthbox (voice).
The Words
Time, Time, Alas you pass me,
Time Time, Alas you Linger.
Even Breathing congeals the present
Even Breathing nudges on
the line of time.
Incrimental moments…
Why must my lines of time
combine…
Why must my lines of time
combine with other lines,
finding and choosing and binding,
unwinding and losing…
We walk alone on stone
We walk, we talk,
We push the time by.
Time Time Time…
Time, Time, Alas you pass me,
Time Time, Alas you Linger.
