Great day in the morning!  The Viper AND His Famous Orchestra will be tearing up large swaths of the Illinois cosmopolis and hinterland over the next few months.

Here’s what we know about so far:

PRF Auktoberfyst 2011
Saturday, October 1, 4:00 p.m.
Klas’ Restaurant, Cicero, IL
http://www.prfbbq.com/prf-auktoberfyst-2011-schedule-1625
…or say you’ll be there on Facebook.

The Viper and His Famous Orchestra are the first band of an all-day program on the last day of a three-day festival. My friend Faiz (who helped set up the show, and will be rocking there as well) says that Klas’ is a very cool place to play — an old Czech restaurant that he describes as like “playing inside a cuckoo clock.” Let’s polka!

Third Annual Champaign-Urbana Folk & Roots Festival
Saturday, November 5, 11:30 p.m.
The Iron Post, Urbana, IL
http://folkandroots.org

The Viper and His Famous Orchestra stay up LATE for this one (I’d forgotten there was an 11:30 in the p.m., too) to bring you all the music that’s fit to folk. I’ll also be doing a songwriting workshop earlier in the day, called “How to Steal a Song,” about which I’ll have more to announce as the time draws near.

Prairie Breezes Mini-Concerts for Kids
Friday, December 16, 4:15 p.m.
The Urbana Free Library, Urbana, IL
http://www.urbanafreelibrary.org/about/news/#bre

Burdened with four strings and the truth, The Viper brings his ukulele and his Famous Orchestra to the Urbana Free Library for an interactive show of kid-tested, grown-up-approved music and mayhem. Learn to play The Viper way on washtubs, suitcases, and other repurposed household materials, and sing along as the 4-piece Orchestra performs a unique blend of street-corner jazz, meeting-hall folk, and front-porch country.

Don Gerard for Mayor

This was recorded at home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on a perfectly clear day. The thunder comes from the open course Community Audio project of the Internet Archive, and is made available for free use and free modification for any purpose under a Creative Commons attribution license (the author is given as Gaia), at http://www.archive.org/details/Sounds_of_Nature_Collection.

“Feliz Meriton” is an orginal composition by my daughter, Irene (as you can read about here), who will be turning 7 in a week. Many, many meritons to her.

Full set list below. “Feliz Meriton,” “The Yodeler’s Christmas,” and “Make a World Brand New” were all new songs premiered at this show, much to the delight and/or dismay of the AARP:

Nino’s Steak & Seafood, December 21, 2010

• Winter Wonderland
• Mele Kalikimaka
• Winnebago Bay
• The Yodeler’s Christmas
• Christmas Time Is Here
• Stopper in My Hand
• Feliz Meriton
• My Seafaring Lassie
• You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch
• White Christmas
• Blue Christmas
• Make a World Brand New

If you’re keeping score at home, the instrument is tuned to C, but I’ve flattened the 7th to a Bb. This is the only song I’m capable of playing on this instrument so far (and as you’ll see, my rhythm is pretty wobbly), though I’m also working on a rendition of “Our Lips Are Sealed.” Should be ready by Christmas 2013.

“Christmas Time is Here” — all fancy

download the mp3 | download the wav file

“Christmas Time is Here” — nice and plain

Feliz Meriton

The song is faux French with some Spanish influence (don’t bother to look up the meaning of “meriton” — it doesn’t exist). Irene sings all three vocal tracks. And as she tells you in the pages of her own online IRENE Magazine, “This is a song in D minor, so don’t cry!”

And now, think back to 2009, when you and I were young. “The Christmasy Blues”:

download the mp3

And “Jingle Bells”

download the mp3

The song proved controversial because it raised two questions: 1) whether or not in performing it we were really just doing someone else’s joke and 2) who the joke is on. We comport, you decide.

Ron Henn, Summer 2009 (not at Mike ‘N’ Molly’s), mulls over the
question of whether he can fully commit to singing “Benny Lava”

The performers are The Viper on baritone ukulele, Riley Broach on washtub bass, and John Peacock on suitcase and other percussion.

This may be my favorite recording of “Das Kapital” (otherwise known as “Capital”), mostly because I like the way that John stands up and sits down throughout the song.

Set #1

• I Left My Liver in Libertyville
• Big Headed Small Minded Man
• Winnebago Bay
• Sharkin’
• My Seafaring Lassie
• Ich Bin Berlin (The Sundown Song)
• Das Kapital
• One Big Union
• Ballad of the Henry 55
• Whispering

Set #2

• First Round Polka
• Randolph St.
• Sharkin’
• Party in the U.S.A.
• Stopper in My Hand
• Last Call Waltz

We played in the Tripp Commons room on the 2nd floor of the Memorial Union. And playing there, as well as trawling through the bowels and the freight elevators of the Union, brought back lots of memories of my time as an undergraduate and a Union rat in Madison. Painful, awful memories. Thanks a lot, T.A.A.!