Category Archives: embalmed ones

embalmed ones

In the digital archives – live @ Mike N’ Molly’s, August 7, 2009

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Victor Cortez rocks the 88’s… er… 9’s

It took me a year to getting around to doing it, but I’ve finally managed to archive and post the recordings that Sarah Hennies made last August of the The Viper & His Famous Orchestra playing at Mike N’ Molly’s in Champaign, Illinois. The individual tracks are now available for free streaming and/or download on the archives page of the Viper’s page/blog at https://theviper.org/dig-the-archive/: 2 sets, 1 encore, 24 songs in total. Over the next few weeks, I hope to get other shows up and online as well.

This particular show show is fun and relaxed – at times very relaxed – and gives a fairly good representation of the Orchestra in its current incarnation and a pretty decent preview of the sound we’ll be bringing to Mike N’ Molly’s when we play there along with Edward Burch this upcoming weekend (Saturday, July 10 at 11:00 p.m.) and when we host the kids show and instrument-building-session at the Orpheum Children’s Science Museum also in Champaign (Sunday, July 11 at 1:30 p.m.). I’ve put these up pretty much as is, leaving out only the between-song banter.

But I also am planning to do some basic editing and mastering of some of the better tracks – adjusting the volume, cutting to the chase, etc. And so in that light I present below a good performance of Liz Phair’s “Flower.”

Flower (Liz Phair)(click to download)

You’ll hear the Viper on the baritone ukulele, Riley Broach on the bass, Edward Burch on the suitcase, Rob Henn on assorted percussion (is that him doing the flamenco handclaps?), and Victor Cortez on metal music stand and Thor knows what else. That great sounding electric mandolin you’ll hear belongs to Kip Rainey.

I’ve cut out some out-of-tune a cappella caterwauling I’d done at the beginning of the performance, and cut out some of the middle parts where Riley & I go out on the floor to dance (the visual effect is lost here). But I’ve left in Edward’s confessional ruminations on how things are going in his life. And I’ve left in every single one of the filthy filthy lyrics. Don’t play this for anyone under 38.

embalmed ones

Silence and Noise

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Two new Viper solo recordings as of June 7, 2010.

Silence
click here to download “Silence”

Noise
click here to download “Noise”

Both were recorded in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Milwaukee, Wisconsin with the Viper playing a Harmony soprano ukulele tuned in D. Both basically follow the directions of John Cage’s composition 4’33”: in each recording I prepare to play the ukulele at 0’0″, then lower it and lift it to prepare to play it again at the 1’31” and 3’02” marks.

Both recordings were made using a Rode M3 microphone channeled through Line6 Gearbox software and recording to the Audacity sound editing program. “Silence” uses the “Classic Vocal Front” Gearbox setting and “Noise” uses “Detroit R&B Vocal.”

I recorded these to put some content on the Facebook band fan pages I created for “silence” and “noise” as part of my efforts to be able to “like” music, movies, books, and TV in a way other than to simply self-market myself as a list of discrete, pre-commodified brands.

And you can too! Go here:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

Of course, in a fitting final piece of typical Facebook half-assedness, the Facebook music player application is apparently M.I.A. So you’ll have to listen to it right here on the Viper blog.

embalmed ones

Small minded man

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As I prepare for The Viper’s upcoming guest spot with The Golden Horse Ranch Band on Sunday, March 7 at The Whistler in Logan Square, Chicago, Illinois, I offer this taste of a new song written specially for the occasion.

This is a bit of a piece of a scratch recording of the last verse and chorus of a number titled “Big Headed Small Minded Man,” a song, as far as I’ve been able to determine, about dry cleaning, .

“Big Headed Small Minded Man” (scratch track)
click right to download

You’re also welcome to view the video version of roughly this same part of the song as filmed by my daughter, Irene, with some help from Ventriloquitty.

on YouTube

embalmed ones

Jingle Bells

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The Viper’s seasonal side project, The Reds and the Blues, are back — this time performing James Lord Pierpont’s winter classic from 1857 originally titled “One Horse Open Sleigh.” As usual, Irene Vipersdottir Jerving sings while The Viper plays ukulele (here, doubling on jug).

on YouTube

For just the music:

“Jingle Bells”
download the mp3

For the story of The Reds and the Blues, and our recording of Irene’s original “Christmasy Blues,” see our previous post.

embalmed ones

So be good

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Here’s a song to open your advent calendar by: “The Christmasy Blues,” music and lyrics by Irene Vipersdottir Jerving, age 5. There’s some good advice in here, so listen up.

‘The Christmasy Blues”

download the mp3

The song is from a forthcoming CD to be titled Christmasy, as recorded by the two-person band (me and her) that she calls The Reds and the Blues. The entire run of the CD will be 1 copy, which she plans to give to our upstairs neighbors for Christmas.