Beautiful When We Were Young

Hello all.  Click here to link to my latest contribution to Chicago Public Radio’s Re:sound.  I’d recommend listening to the whole show, since it rips as always, but… my song starts at roughly 52:30, should you be short on time, like so many of the kids today.

Goodbye, Sweet June

Yes, June, you hath come and gone, without a single new post on 52 Teeth.  The depths of my shame are unfathomable.  I can only offer the following, middling excuse: I’ve been engaged in the joyous labor of preparing for the second episode of Shame That Tune, and for my second appearance on Chicago Public Radio’s Re:sound.  Both are going down this weekend.  For details, see the 52 Teeth “Shows and Events” page.

I’ve also been playing a fair amount of tennis, each bout of which necessitates a substantial emotional-recovery period.  Ditto for watching Cubs games.  And that about gets things up to speed.  I’ll post my new Re:sound song by the end of the weekend.  (I lose a finger if I post it before the show runs.)

Deliverance Day

Like Bryan Adams, I’m asking you to “please forgive me” in my delinquency this week.  With the holiday weekend, I completely forgot that Monday morning had come and gone without a new post.  I hope my negligence didn’t spoil your Memorial Day.  With or without a new song, veggie dogs still taste weird, right?

I’m posting “Deliverance Day“, my first full-length song for Re:sound on Chicago Public Radio.  (The episode aired this past weekend.)  Because my job was to write a song that summarized the content of the show, the lyrics will not make a corn-pickin’ lick of sense unless you listen to the show itself. Which I’d recommend, because it’s a great show.  But I hope you’ll be able to enjoy it either way.  (Incidentally, there’s also a profile of yours truly that starts around the 40-minute mark.)

The show collected a bunch of “Chicago Sound Drops,” i.e., short audio pieces about the city submitted by different (mostly local) producers.  I thought the “Sound Drops” sounded like a long-lost doo-wop group, so the genre kind of chose itself.

For the first time, I attempted to mic my upright piano — I dangled an SM57 behind it and just let ‘er rip.  There are probably more sophisticated ways of skinning a cat, but it was fun, relatively quick, and I didn’t break anything.  A good day at the office by my standard.