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White Christmas
12.23.11 | Permalink | | Comments Off on White Christmas
I LOVE Irving Berlin’s White Christmas film version and really wanted to cover the song Snow which plays during the train ride to Vermont. The four part harmonies are intense to put together with the spare change in the day, so maybe by next year I can work it out. Instead I went with the flagship song. Of course I have very little to add to the classic Bing Crosby approach so instead I think I went for Vampire Weekend screwing up royal on a Motown grooved version. I think to do this properly I need a horn section and a gospel trio in the background… and a couple more takes on my performances as well because DAMN am I flat and off and… LOL. Happy Holidays!
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Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree… with cute hair
12.22.11 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree… with cute hair
I surprised Tamara with this one because she LOVES Brenda Lee. If I have my facts straight, Brenda Lee was one of the first records she ever owned and she loved to sing and pretend she was Brenda Lee with her tape recorder. Now don’t get all excited and think that she is the one singing on this song. No sirree. I picked a key I thought she would like and laid down everything before asking her to come sing this. I must have picked the key she NEVER sings in, because she could not make this work. I tried to do some pitch shifting with the software but it made the guitars sound bad or it made her sound like Kathleen Turner (sultry, sure, but not what we were going for).
So rather than let some leftovers go to waste, here I am singing a Brenda Lee number:Â Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree!
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree
I have to add that I messed around with an auto-tune plug-in and I think it is really weird to hear any twangy phrasing in my voice get corrected. I pushed the slider up there and it is interesting to hear what that does. I like just singing and letting myself be flat if I don’t have the time or the chops to fix it, but I can see that if I took the time to learn the ways in which auto-tune alters the shape of my voice, that there is a skill there akin to yodelling. I should to the Lonely Goatherd song from Sound of Music and auto-tune it intensely!
I also got to do slide guitar, something I have always enjoyed but was too lazy to re-tune my guitar to give myself some prettier options sonically. Still it is fun to dabble in things I used to have so much time for, and now seems like a luxury.
Postscript: BTW I chose these pics for that ole-timey flair and because my wife’s hair looks FREAKIN’ AMAZING! What a cutie. She curled it after we did Guinevere’s hair for Santa and it was so fun to see her transform. Honestly don’t know if I would rather kiss her more with the curlers in… or out. I guess I will take ’em however I find them. Hubba hubba. (P.P.S.: This isn’t facebook. If you don’t like my public airing of affection go put your hairshirt on and crawl back into your monk’s hole).
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Elves in our Midst
12.21.11 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Elves in our Midst
I have to admit it, the elves have been fun. Granted, at times they have been a little stressful for various reasons, but for the most part, FUN. When the elves arrived at our house, I was every bit as excited as the kids were for them to start playing around. Over time, for me at least, the newness has worn off and I’m just not as excited every morning to burst out of bed around 5:30 AM to find them like I once was. Having them around has been like an entire month of early rising to see what Santa brought. But our kids? They LOVE the elves with their entire beings. Yesterday Gigi came up to me looking a little dour and blue. I asked, “What’s wrong baby?”
“How many days till Christmas, Mommy?” she responded.
“Five days! Just FIVE DAYS! Isnt that exciting?” At this point she burst into tears and laid her sweet little curls on my shoulder, “What’s wrong? That’s exciting!”
“But when Christmas comes our elves are going to go home AND I’M GOING TO MISS SNOWFLAKE AND SNOWMAN!” This last part was said in the hybrid bawling/hollering combo only reserved for the very upset. And my girl was very upset. It turns out that, yeah, she’s going to miss them. She’s grown very fond of her Snowflake. She was also VERY worried that once they left that they would not return EVER. I told her that most likely they would be back next year, and for many years after that. In fact, if I were a betting Mama, I would bet that these same elves would be elves for her own children. Then Bradley offered up a little bit of Elf Magic by offering to ‘play’ elf every once in a while, to give her a surprise some morning when she is not expecting it. This seemed to cheer her up, and along she went.
I turned to Bradley after this whole exchange and we acknowledged that this whole elf thing was pretty important to our kids. Snowflake and Snowman were a big deal, they will be missed, and our house will be a little bit lonelier without them here. Our kids will miss their magic, their love, the feeling that there is always a safe person in our house. It seems silly, they look like just a couple of stuffed dolls, but the magic and wonder they brought into our house filled our kid’s up with love and happiness and imagination and hope and excitement… I DO hope they return again.
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Santa
12.21.11 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Santa
After our initial exciting run-ins with the big man this year we weren’t so sure that our kids wanted to see Santa again. So yesterday we asked them is they needed another visit with Santa. Jude was all set. He did not want to go again. Gigi, on the other hand, looked at me with panic in her eyes, “But Mommy! I wasn’t all cuted up when we saw Santa before!” So, of course, we had to go see him again, this time all “cuted up”.
The next hour or so was spent with the kids in the shower and swarming around me (the water went cold on poor Jude just as he got shampoo all over his face, poor baby) as we got ready for Santa. Jude was easy, bath, brush, dress, DONE! Gigi was much more, shall we say, particular. And we had a fabulous time making her look as particular as she wanted. Which translates to hot rollers. Hot rollers + Guinevere’s hair = hair that most little girls (and many princesses) would die for. By the time she was all dolled up and ready we were at peak time, of course, so we headed to the mall where we sat on Santa’s lap. I missed most of the conversation, but I think Santa must be confused about what to get Jude. He has changed his mind SO many times. Gigi stuck with her seasonal request (Barbie Doll Set & Scrapbooking supplies) while just has asked for a dinosaur, an airplane, transformers, a Super Why doll, Star Wars Lego, books and a fishing pole. All at different times, quite dependent on the last thing he saw before we ask him the question. It’s charming seeing how excited he is about the holiday.
Afterwards we headed away from the mall and went out to lunch, played around at the park, recorded a few songs. Overall, a good day. Merry Christmas!
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Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
12.21.11 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
Guinevere helped me bang out the chorus.
