Listen to “Mother’s Day” and “Poppo!”. Two very different but equally unfit-for-regular-public-consumption songs here. I wrote “Mother’s Day” in September 2007 to send to my mom. She’d been diagnosed with an especially nasty kind of cancer the previous summer, and I’d spent time with her during her surgery and treatment. I was just depressed, and recorded this pretty quickly and Continue Reading …
Partially Examined Music Blog: Lee Abramson’s “Shalom” (plus a Bonus Mashup)
Listen and read about Lee Abramson’s “Shalom.” Thanks to Lee for his donation to support our podcast. I encourage you all to look here and read about his struggle with ALS, his candidacy for president (here’s his platform), and his musical career. I know he’d love to hear any nice things you have to say about his music, so don’t Continue Reading …
Partially Naked Self-Examination Music Blog: Remembrance
Listen to “Rembrance.” When reading Schleiermacher, I was reminded of my friend Steve Petrinko, who was my main cohort in my college band The MayTricks (previously covered in a number of music blog posts). Working in close proximity like that at that time of life (we were also apartment-mates for a couple of years) meant lots of philosophy discussions, and Continue Reading …
Partially Naked Self-Examination Music Blog: Words & Numbers
Today’s musical nugget is called “Words & Numbers,” as recorded by Madison Lint. New readers may not remember my 1/2 year music blog, wherein I forced myself to complete, or digitize, or remix or remaster a song from my past every week. The point of that was to get me to finish up a couple of significant album projects, but Continue Reading …
The New Album is Now Available
My band, New People, has now finally completed our second album. You can hear tracks and purchase it (if you’d like) here. You can also find details there about our CD Release Party tonight (Wednesday), for those of you in the Madison, WI area. Note the nifty art by Ken Gerber, who did the P.E.L. logo and caricatures. Are the Continue Reading …
Partially Naked Self-Examination Music Blog, Week 30
As I hit the big 30 here, let me thank you for your indulgence, to the extent that you’ve actually been reading/listening. I’m marking this round number with another whole album, this time the debut full album by The MayTricks from 1992, cleverly entitled The MayTricks. As this was really the first full-length album I worked on, it definitely has Continue Reading …
Partially Naked Self-Examination Music Blog, Week 29
At last, here’s the final tune from the 1991 MayTricks demo (which I’ve made a new page for), “Her Skin Is Only Warm.” The song was written by Steve and was our most bombastic. It was modeled on The Rolling Stones’s “Steel Wheels” album, meaning it has kind of awkward “Rock! Rock!” lyrics, but it was actually describing a particular Continue Reading …
Partially Naked Self-Examination Music Blog, Week 28
Three songs today: cover tunes by The MayTricks from 1992 or so. Specifically, the Police’s “Can’t Stand Losin’ You” (which I sing) and Talking Heads’ “And She Was” and The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black” (both of which Steve sings). These are actual, multi-track studio recordings done with probably as much care as many of our actual album tracks, recorded Continue Reading …
Partially Naked Self-Examination Music Blog, Week 27
Correcting my previous post, apparently this is my first recorded original composition: “The Funny Train.” While I had always assumed this to be a traditional melody, a quick web search reveals no previous versions, so I hereby claim it. However, I note that “There was a little man, and he had a little can” appeared previously in a prohibition-era song Continue Reading …
Partially Naked Self-Examination Music Blog, Week 26
At the half way point of this 2010 experiment, I’ve got something very special to post: my first ever intentional recording of a song, which was also my first experience playing with a band that I put together. It’s from spring ’86 and called “Venus on Earth.” I had some little music composition program on my Apple IIe that let Continue Reading …
Partially Naked Self-Examination Music Blog, Week 25
Today I present the crown jewel of my high school band years: The Spring ’89 version of “Run Away.” I’ve previously blogged about this song, which is pretty cheesy, but pleasurable, I think. This version owes a lot to the keyboard programming of the last couple of albums by The Cars (my favorite band at the time). The story of Continue Reading …
Partially Naked Self-Examination Music Blog, Week 24
My computer no longer boots and is in the shop, which means I’m on my wife’s MacBook, which means it’s time for more camcorder youtube uploads! Here’s a version of “Love Is the Problem:” http://www.youtube.com/user/MLinsenmayer#p/a/u/0/e0LblloTUnc We (my band New People) recently played a very big show at Madison’s Brat Fest, on the “Quench Gum” stage, which I honored by inadvertently Continue Reading …
Partially Naked Self-Examination Music Blog, Week 23 continued
I felt bad enough about posting the previous tune that I spent a bit more time and “polished” up another two old clunkers from the same pile, because mom always told me “If you do something bad, do more of that same thing to make up for it.” So, first, a very old (1988) demo called “A Little Feeling.” This Continue Reading …
Partially Naked Self-Examination Music Blog, Week 23
Warning: foul language, juvenile humor, possible misogyny, and terrible sound quality. The song is called “Girl,” and it is from fall, 1989, just a couple months into my college experience, recorded in the excruciatingly awful sounding method of tape-to-tape dubbing, which is what I used from 1987 or so through spring 1991. This was my first collaboration of any sort Continue Reading …
Partially Naked Self-Examination Music Blog, Week 22
To apologize for many weeks now of old (i.e. poorly recorded) and (in the case of the “classical pieces”) near unlistenable material, I’ve now newly encoded and posted the entirety of my “Mark Lint and the Fake Johnson Trio” album: http://marklint.com/FJTalbum.html. This is probably my single strongest collection of tunes. The recording quality is decent (i.e. digital 8-track, not 4-track Continue Reading …
Partially Naked Self-Examination Music Blog, Week 21
Continuing this thread, a multi-movement horn trio: “Ron Visits the Land of Insanity.” I think these undoubtedly very talented music school players practiced this once together before coming into my class to try to get through this, and I put them through some mighty indignities including trombone parts written much too low and choreographed coughing. I see I’m going for Continue Reading …
Partially Naked Self-Examination Music Blog, Week 20
Here’s another, earlier music composition class piece of weirdness: “Argument Leading to Death.” I’m thinking now that my week 19 entry was likely from the early spring of 1993, while this one was from late fall of 1992 in the previous semester’s class. I think I decided it would require less effort this time around if for the class performance Continue Reading …
Partially Naked Self-Examination Music Blog, Week 19: Patriotism
This week I’ve dived into digitizing old cassette tapes and waded through a couple of unlistenable options before coming across this thing that you might find interesting. “What happens in music composition class stays in music composition class,” goes the old saying, but I’m letting out some of the hell: a song called “Patriotism,” composed in (I think) 1992 and Continue Reading …
Partially Naked Self-Examination Music Blog, Week 18
…Almost done polishing the turd that is this old demo. Here’s a Pink Floyd-y song of mine called “To Valerie,” written for a girl by that name in my second month or so of college (fall of ’89). I believe it was elicited when I went to knock on her dorm room and a male voice said “Go away!” so Continue Reading …
Partially Naked Self-Examination Music Blog, Week 17
This week I give you an entire album from my murky past: “So Chewy” by the MayTricks (no, that movie had not come out when this band existed, so that name isn’t as awful as it seems, though it’s not so good, I think; any band name you have to spell for people is bad news). It was recorded in Continue Reading …