Tuesday, November 04, 2003

2001 Holiday Session, with Sofa

I’ve uploaded a series of mp3s, from a December 2001 weekend improvisation of holiday music.

Here are the songs.

Most of you know that each year Deb & I send out a little CD of holiday music, as our Xmas card. In 2001, I cajoled Sofa to come over to the house, to record some home-grown holiday tunes with me. The general idea was to invent a few songs to include on the compilation of other, more worthy, tracks. And that is just what happened. That year, we sent out what we like to refer to as our holiday White Album – it probably would have been far better without so much of the noodling.

However, now that Sofa has departed, these recordings have taken on a special appeal. I went back to the original DATs and culled out more of the day’s efforts. Now, I have about 40 minutes of the musical comfiness that was/is Sofa.

In spite of my singing, I can’t help but smile as I listen to these tracks. I hope you have the same experience. Throughout the day, Sofa and I volleyed silly song ideas back and forth. We improvised lyrics, to recognizable musical scores. Sofa’s guitar work is awesome; as those of you who had the pleasure of hearing him play already know. Occasionally, I added bad keyboards. Regularly, we cracked each other up. An otherwise promising musical direction often ended up with laughter and a new tack had to be set. In the background, the attentive listener will hear a yule fire crackling and the hippie holiday dogs shaking to the beat.

There are a few bittersweet and telling moments. Including I Want a Hearse for Christmas here might be considered in bad taste on my part. But these expressions were also part of the Sofa we all loved. I’ve included a few alternate outtake versions of a few songs to show how wide-ranging his approach to crafting the music could be.

It was always big fun, when Sofa dropped by. His sense of humor and mine were dangerously similar. He was always more nimble & clever; but I was fearless & unencumbered by delusions of talent. Together, we shredded.

The Sofa you hear in these recordings, is the Sofa I knew.

Let me know what you think. And if you’d like a CD-r version, I’m making up some of them too.

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