Category Archives: songs
Walking
Found this song on my HD the other day. Words just can’t describe. The picture has nothing to do with the song. It just caused a small crisis this evening with drop box.
The Bilge Song
(a hyperlinked sea chanty)
Verse 1:
In the bilge of the boat
‘Neath the billows and waves
Sleeps the bilgy-man’s boatswain
Witta biscuit he craves.
Chorus (sung after every verse):
So HUP! the ol’ hanker
Han’ furl patchy sail out.
Th’ scull’ry-mun’s cookin’
Han soon there’ll be shall-out (shallot)!
Verse 2 (Nanook’s solo):
A’ the snewy narth pool
Ware the snew people liv
Thay etts blubbery sausages
Caught wit ‘are shivvs!
Wup chee!
(A sea chanty)
Refrain:
Wup chee! And
Down the anker!
Slurp up yer lime
Er yull git a kanker.
Verse 1:
I got tew gun an’
I got tew boots
Sew harry into port and
Spend all the loots!
Refrain
Verse 2:
Me an ‘na lasses
We gets on juts fine…
Afra couple swigs
Froma bottle o’ wine.
Refrain
Note: When singing as a round scoundrels and scalawags should alternate lines . . . or verses . . . or whatever.
Today Was Painted Thin
I recorded Today Was Painted Thin on the 4-track in Essex sometime around April of 2003. As with most efforts that I myself “recorded and mastered” without Tim, the quality is pretty poor. I always liked the song though and wanted to record it again with people who could actually play instruments, rather than bang them (which is typically my approach to playing instruments). However, like the Lesternomicon, this might be as good as it ever gets.
Night Caller
Here’s another tasty tune for your enjoyment. Night Caller started out as just one song. During the writing of the lyrics, the idea of a sequel came up and for some reason we thought it sounded like a good idea. For reasons lost in the mists of time, that good idea some how became a great idea, and it was decided that we would write 6, no 10, NO 12 SONGS! in the same story arc.
Night Caller was still the first one and most likely the best. I think in the final count, we recorded 3 songs and had ‘rough’ recordings for 3 more. They might eventually make their appearance.
Tears for Phil Collins
I finally purchased a decent set of monitors and the Logic Pro 7.2 upgrade. While playing around with the new software, I figured it was time to start putting up some of the other songs that Mike and I have recorded in the past 2 years. I think this was one of the first serious ones we did here in NJ. It’s called “Tears for Phil Collins.” I’m sure Mike will explain some more about it.
Harness the Wind
When Mike and I first moved into the house we currently live, we were recording a lot of music. Most of the tracks we haven’t put up on the site yet. A lot of them were for an aborted project called “Night Caller.” It originally started out as one song, then it grew a sequel, and in true “Mike” fashion it spiraled out of control into a 12 song concept album. Needless to say, that fell apart.
That however is not the story of this post. This post is about the song that ruined music recording for me. I haven’t recorded a song since this albatross of a song landed 9 months ago.
Big Bag
“Big Bag” marks the Cave of Trouble’s second Burger Kings track (the
first being “May I Have Some Cake Please”). Tim and I labored on the
song for a couple of weeks and then Meggie Miao shot the video starring
herself, Brian and myself in one whirlwind of a weekend, and a bit of
another.
Get the song here.
Enjoy.
Cicada Video
For some time Tim and I have been interested in recording soundscapes. Last summer, during the cicada craze, Tim went out and managed to record some cicada-scapes. I’m sure Bernie Krause could have recorded a cicada humping a grain of sand, but by our amateur-soundscaping standards, I thought the cicada sounds that Tim captured were pretty fabulous. My favorite moments would be when a cicada hit the microphone, or a plane could be heard flying overhead, fading in and then out of the cicada summer-haze. We’ve not posted any of these soundscapes, but if for some reason there is a great internet-outcry to hear them, we’ll post them. Then you too can slobber in an ecstasy of sound as cicadas hit microphones at minute fifteen.
The eventual plan was to put an EP that would be part soundscape and then part cicada-electronica. The electronica end of the plan never became a reality, as it was contingent upon a lot of time and most likely outside help. So the recordings sat.
Eventually however, video artist and photographer Meggie Miao (who also happens to be Tim’s girlfriend) approached us and asked us to record a song about cicadas that she could use in conjunction with some footage of cicadas she had shot. So Tim and I went away and wrote a cicada song, though not the song we envisioned. It did however use the cicada-scapes. So part of the original plan was implemented.
The resulting video, thanks to Meggie’s excellent writing and directing, looks absolutely spectacular. And who knows, perhaps there will be an electronic cicada song yet…
The video is available here in .mov format and the song is available here as an mp3. Quicktime might be required to view the video.