5 more tour stops!

Click for more details about each show.

FEB 6 AUCKLAND
FEB 11 SYDNEY
FEB 12 BRISBANE
FEB 14 MELBOURNE
FEB 15 PERTH

It’s been a gradual transition that wasn’t always even apparent to me, but I can definitively say now that my work will be focused more on my YouTube channel than this website. (Though a redesign is on its way that will integrate the two a bit more anyway.)

Of course, all the songs here will stay up for your enjoyment – some might even be made into videos in the near future. :) I will also continue to do commissions.

Thank you all for your support and encouragement over the years. Things are getting bigger and better and I hope you’ll stay on this magic carpet ride with me forever!

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I would like you to make an extended version of the song “Leaves from the Vine” that Iroh sings in the show “Avatar the Last Airbender”. I need it for a performance I’m doing in the spring.

Here is a link to the song that appeared in the show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFASos1G-5U

I’d like the song to follow the same feel and tempo, while staying under three minutes. Basically, I’d like the song to be as sad and as emotional as the original.

Here are the lyrics I came up with.

Leaves from the vine
Falling so slow
Like fragile, tiny shells
Drifting on the flow

Little soldier boy
Come marching home
Please, soldier boy
Come marching home

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I have a brother called Dave. His girlfriend and I want to buy him a song for Christmas. It should be in a beat-boxing/rap style (he likes to beatbox and is much better than the teenagers on the bus). It should extoll the virtues of Samurai Dave, the badass-est badass Samurai never to be an actual Samurai.

- he collects and makes swords out of wood, metal, bits of chair, whatever he can find
- he has a staffordshire bull terrier called Nathan Explosion
- while we were in Japan we made up euphemisms for Japanese words that we didn’t want people to overhear us say on the train:
>>”serious man with a serious dog” = a samurai
>>”flash-stepper” = ninja
>>”colourful rogue” = yakuza
- instead of ‘no, no, it’s fine’ he accidentally said “No, no, it’s cake” to a (non-cake)shop assistant in Japan
- he isn’t afraid to dress up as a lady when the need arises or just because it would be completely inappropriate
- we have been calling him a corpse-dragger because in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. he fills corpses with items and drags them around behind him like macabre suitcases
- he likes to dress the pets up in outfits that he has made himself, like kimonos and robot costumes
- he likes snakes
- insisting on picking the best and prettiest roses for little phillip, haha (Phillip was a possum that was rescued from being pecked to death by birds and we had to feed her plants from the garden until she was old enough to be released)

The first time Dave went to Japan he burst one of his lungs and had to go to hospital in a town which had never seen a foreigner before; the ambulance people couldn’t pronounce ‘David’ so they just called him ‘Rabbit’. All the nurses had crushes on him and kept bringing him little presents and notes and things, including the cool male nurse who bought him manga. They actually had to operate on him and poke holes in his chest, and that was when Dave discovered that the Japanese don’t really believe in anaesthetic. Also, he now has wicked scars.

At an izakaya in Tokyo, Dave (and I) tried to order ‘various pig parts’ expecting different cuts of pork – which is how we ended up eating pig heart, lungs and intestines. Actually, here is a list of things Dave ate in Japan: bee larvae, teriyaki crickets (their knees get stuck in your teeth), ostrich, pig organs, snake wine, curry with cheese (EVERYTHING WITH CHEESE), and sake-in-a-jar

In Japan we sat in bus-stops and drank sake out of a jar like hobos. It was awesome.

Dave once bought sandwiches for the yakuza. It is his deepest shame.

Instead of finding out where a bar/pub is from, oh I don’t know, the internet, Dave likes to make me walk the streets of strange cities at two in the morning, turning down back alley after back alley because the perfect pub is ‘probably somewhere down there’. Also, Dave can wander through the streets of a strange city and find the same pub he visited last time he was there over a year ago.

Dave has twice fit through the nostril of the Buddha which is SUPER LUCKY. there is a giant wooden Buddha at Nara and out the back of the shrine there is a huge wooden column with a hole at the base of it the same size as the nostril of the Buddha. Usually only children can do this. I do not understand.

Dave’s hobbies/interests include: collecting dogs, hitting things with sticks, sword-fighting with bits of dowel shoved inside a pool noodle, leaping around like he is a samurai/ninja, beat-boxing, jujitsu, furniture making, climbing up things that are dangerous to climb, embarrassing his sister…

Dave once had a pet wolf spider called Bigby. ‘He’ laid eggs. They hatched. The house was then filled with baby wolf spiders. Dave cannot tell the sex of spiders, I guess.

He used to be in a children’s circus troupe. As a result he is stupidly good at climbing/swinging/leaping over things. Never tell him something like that is impossible. He will definitely do it then.

He hates lettuce, cucumber and watermelon — all the inoffensive fruit and veg. In spite of hating lettuce, Dave once attempted to make lettuce soup. It was a disaster. His dog, meanwhile, likes bananas.

Dave likes beer — but only ale. Lager is no good.

SWORDS SWORDS SWORDS

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I got Sarah (Dave’s sister) to sneakily record him beatboxing so I could use it in this song. How rad is that. Also this may be the most information about a person I’ve ever crammed into one song.

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In 2006, Utada Hikaru released an album called Ultra Blue.

What I want is an English version of this song. I started writing lyrics in my spare time. It’s taken me a long time as I’ve been busy with classes and am a bit of a perfectionist, but I’m thus far pleased with what I have.

Places I’m used to being, people I’m used to seeing
Recently all seem to speak of the tragedies,
Of places far across the seas
I want to feel safe again in the night,
Soft music and sleep without fright
No matter how painful the time, why do I sing? (Who knows)
I don’t want to love again, why do I keep trying? (Darling, darling, ah)
I don’t hear a thing no matter what you say or do
I am blinded without a clue
I just tried, I just tried turning BLUE
I am only human
Complimented by this color
Day and day growing number
I think I’m getting older
I remember the sadness of your frown
Those spinning lights
I want to believe once again you’ll be around
The light is bound to reach you
Even on nights so freezing, who is the one singing? (Who?)
From sheets of music thrown askew
The notes, their tune inked in BLUE
I remember the sadness of your frown
Those spinning lights
I want to believe once again you’ll be around
The light is bound to reach you
Oh, no matter how painfully my life, why do I live? (Who knows?)
I just want a normal life, fame is overexaggerated.
Darling darling, ah, questions make me BLUE.
Darling darling, ah,
Tell me something good
Or let me feel your warmth one more time,
You have no idea the mountain I’d climb
Oh, no matter how long the night, day should break right?
Just like the stories from when we were children?
And though I don’t can’t hear a thing at all,
I know this storm will soon end
And though the future is cloudy
We can always keep on hoping
Why can’t you understand this? And why do I care about it? (Who knows)
I don’t want to love again, why do I keep trying? (Darling, darling, ah)
I don’t hear a thing no matter what you say or do
I am blinded without a clue
I just tried, I just tried turning BLUE

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Funster song, kid-like in a Spin Doctors/They Might be Giants kinda way

Lisa wants to a bad robot
with nanotube-enhanced ultracapacitors, silicon circuitry and electromagnetic cogs
Lisa wants to be a bad robot
and make positive charged bots
and servos with titanium gears

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I’m an editor at Poor Mojo’s almanack. I would love a theme song for the Giant Squid column.

I’ve met with the other editors and we’ve scraped up the $10,000,000* for the full-on Pants treatment, but one of my co-editors tossed this idea out:

“If we go 10,000,000*, do we want to ask for two versions? The standard rock anthem circa 1976, and then the japanese girl band punk cover from the late nineties? Figure whatever a normal 10,000,000* dollar song would be (like 2-3 minutes) and cut it in half.”

Facts about The Giant Squid:

He lives atop the Renaissance Center (aka RenCen) in Detroit.
He has a Velocitator to travel on land (it’s kind of a robo-suit)
Once fought Lincoln (or at least the spiritually animated Lincoln Memorial)
Whales are his mortal enemy
His eyes are optically perfect
He eats dogs
The Giant Squid desires to conquer the world.
The biting and crawling things of the ocean are his minions.

*Price somewhat exaggerated for your reading pleasure.

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