DECORATIVE ENVIE: MUSIC

I am so enjoying the Yahoo! group "Decorative Envies". It's a small group, with a simple aim: Make its members' mailboxes happier by sending pretty and/or interesting mail to each other. Real mail. Snail mail, if you will.

Each month a theme is announced for each of two categories, Decorated Envelopes (Envies) and Postcards. You can sign up, or not; there's no requirement to be in all the swaps, just the ones you're interested in and have time for.

This month's theme for the envelope was Music, and included not just the envelope, but a note card and tag. I had a great time creating the set I sent!

The front of the envelope

The back of the envie

The note care

The tag front

First inside tag page

Close up

Second set of pages of tag

These were made for my dear friend Miz Mollye, who has already emailed me to say she loves them! YAY!!!

Now I have to admit I haven't done the postcard yet, which has a book theme. I know what I'm going to do though, I think....

If this sounds like fun to you, too, search the Yahoo! Groups for Decorative Envies. I know they'd welcome you!

TODAY: LOVE A TREE DAY

This is Love a Tree Day. As an official, card-carrying tree hugger I thought it only right to blog that, and put up a song featuring an oak.

The song is "Wood", performed by my partner in music, Paul Lerman (vocals & bouzouki), and myself (flute & vocals). Paul wrote the music; Gabriel Steevenz wrote the lyric. I did the photography. Hope you enjoy it!

FELICITY'S TIDE (MUSIC & SLIDE SHOW)

This is another of the pieces of music Paul and I wrote and performed together, Felicity's Tide. I wrote the lyrics after dreaming the story, and Paul wrote the music, including my flute part. You'll hear him singing and playing bazouki, and me singing and playing flute. I'm sorry to say I've forgot the name of the man who stepped in with the fiddle. Our album, by the way, was produced by Steve Einhorn of Artichoke Music.

WALTZING IN THE WOOD (SLIDESHOW & MUSIC)

My niece, genius that she is, has shown me how I can, finally, put my music online. I put one tune on in an earlier entry, but it has odd clicking noises in it from my camera. This is perfect--combine a slide show of my photography with a cut from the Cd Paul and I recorded together, Waltz of the Wood, which was also the name of our two-person "group".

In this piece, you'll hear Paul on vocals and guitar, and me on flute, with a snippet of vocals thrown in. The photos I took on a rafting trip down the wild portion of the Rogue River in Oregon, which I adore.

"SWAPPIN' LIES" PARTY GIG

A soon to become not unusual event: My band had a gig yesterday! A marvelous time was had by all, I do believe.

The gig was at the Red Lizard Running Team's end-of-summer party, a get-together featuring chit-chat, a roast pig and other yummies (no dessert! How could they?!) and two bands, Brightest Comet (http://www.myspace.com/thebrightestcomet), and us, Swappin' Lies.

We played first, and stayed for Brightest Comet's set, which was woefully short. These kids are good. I wish I had a photo of all three of them, but this is the best I could do, one of their lead, Andi Camp. Their drummer is Martin Castillo, with John Reed adding guitar.

Photo from Red Lizard Running


And this is us:



Photo from Red Lizard Running


Craig is playing conga here, Steve and Lorna are in the middle, and I'm on the right. This is "my" song, "Bedlam Boys". It starts with a slow, soft duet, just Lorna and me, which ends with a fiendish and loud cackle from Steve, and then adds the drum, speeds up, and rocks out. It's a capella all the way, except for that drum, with four-part harmony on the choruses and occasional further fiendishness from Steve. Great fun, and a real wake-up call.

It looks like we'll be landing a regular Friday night gig at a wine bar on Fremont after this. How perfect is that? Music and wine to end the week. Aaaahh.

Oh, you know what? Just for fun, because I can, here's Bedlam Boys as performed by Old Blind Dogs. I won't compare us to them, but this something like what we were going for. (Push the little arrow to 4:44 on the slider, which is when Bedlam Boys actually starts. I'd shorten this if I knew how, but I don't know how. :oP )



For the record, we may not be Old Blind Dogs yet, but we got plenty of kudos on our performance, and proof of it in the form of $65 in tips. Wah-hoo! We'll get the equipment we're yearning for soon!