Category Archives: Music

April Winchell has a better music collection than you

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Paul Winchell was a well known ventriloquist in the mid-1960s, the voice of Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff. His daughter is April Winchell has her own accomplishments, including a website where you can find some great music.

There’s a collection of cover versions of Stairway to Heaven, including

AUDIO: The Dixie Power Treo (tuba and banjo)
AUDIO: Dolly Parton.

But my favorite section was Terrifying Christian Recordings.

Then I Start to Yodel by Princess Ramona

Jogging for Jesus

Amazing Grace (Tim Gibson as Donald Duck)

AUDIO: Then I Start to Yodel by Princess Ramona
AUDIO: Jogging for Jesus;
AUDIO: Amazing Grace (Tim Gibson as Donald Duck)

BONUS: Collection (PDF( of Terrifying Christian Recordings

BandMaker.com

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I think we can all agree that the hardest part of having a successful rock band is coming up with a good name. You can always find a drummer or a lead singer but a good band name… very difficult. Fortunately, there are no shortages of websites to help with this critical task. At BandMaker.com you plug in some words and get some recommendations. I think you can do the same thing at WORDLAB but I got distracted browsing their list of 4,000+ names for rock bands. A few of my favorites:

  • Adjustable Waistbands
  • Viral Bunny
  • Twinkie Spore
  • Turd Cribbage
  • Tim Tation and the Quagmire
  • Stool Patrol
  • Sandy Muff
  • Rock Paper Sisters
  • Nuclear Winter Squash

I wanted to try my hand at some names but came up dry. So I pulled a few from my tag cloud (sidebar)

  • Anonymous Audio
  • Blackberry Brush with Near Greatness
  • Coffee Zone Consciousness
  • PowerPoint Prison Santa
  • Smoking Spam Tattoos

Let me know if you decide to use one of these.

Stagger Lee

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This morning my friend Bob gave me a copy of the death certificate of Lee Shelton, who died in the prison here in Jefferson City, MO, of tuberculosis in 1912. Shelton was an African American cab driver and pimp convicted of murdering William “Billy” Lyons on Christmas Eve, 1895 in St. Louis, Missouri. [More on Shelton at Wikipedia]

The crime was immortalized in a popular song that has been recorded by numerous artists. Here are just a few:

  • Grateful Dead
  • Tom Jones
  • Pat Boone
  • James Brown
  • Neil Diamond
  • Fats Domino
  • Dr. John
  • Bob Dylan
  • Duke Ellington
  • Woody Guthrie
  • Bill Haley & His Comets
  • The Isley Brothers
  • Huey Lewis and the News
  • Taj Mahal
  • Wilson Pickett
  • Sam the Sham
  • Ike and Tina Turner

You might need a Blip.fm account to listen to the two versions I’ve linked above.

Song of @fezmonger

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Going for a bike ride and leaving the phone behind.
Keep the ratings up and don’t forget to roll
the credits when you’re through.

It is days like this that I wish
I had a café lifestyle
and not the sit in front of a computer
life I have today.

The train is running extra slow today.
Not a surprise considering
the rain tends to jack it up.
Gonna be a looong ride home.

This train is moving
a bit slower than I would like.
At this rate we won’t reach basecamp by tea time

And it begins again. I hope the train shows up soon
my cloud cover is breaking up
and it looks to be a hot day ahead

Sitting on the train platform in a warm LA night.
At least the smoke has cleared out…
I’ll be back here tomorrow

The damn couch keeps calling my name.
I’m trying to get something… hell anything, done today
but a nap sounds so very nice

The lines above were compiled from random tweets by Jason Rogers. No words were added or deleted. I did break lines as spirit moved. I hope someone with music in their soul can make this sing.