Written by Wim Venema

From The Lazy Sunday Dream album Midsland

Where have you been she screams in his face

Holding her breath and then holding her pace

Honey I know that look in your eye

You better make up some damn good lies

Honey I had to work till late

Hey don't make me laugh it's a quarter past eight

Baby you haven't been sleeping home tonight

You better make sure your alibi´s right

And the married man, he goes out every night

It's a pity she knows how much he lies

He's got two kids, a dog and a wife

A family man needs a family life

Married man he get´s fat and bald

He needs a proof he ain't grown too old

for the beautiful ladies

The married man don´t love her no more

Her place in his heart resembles a sore

But a divorce aint good for the kids

So he decided to keep it all hid

Like most of the men of his age he wonders

How to get out of the burden he´s under

He needs a girl to fit the dress

He bought for his wife, in ´65

And the married man died a long long time ago

When he said yes he should have said no

Bought himself a big fat Cadillac

With two fine girls sitting in the back

Make a big crash against a tree

And all of the girls go shouting

We never gonna get married

The story of how I became a waver and how that led to me being moderately disappointed by a total stranger in Challis, ID

Y’all might remember 2020 a novel virus had been unleashed on the world, shutting down civilization as we know it. We were all locked away in our homes twiddling our thumbs watching live streams and lots of Netflix. well almost everyone I knew was focused on Tiger King. Remember that? Ha ha well, while my friends were watching Tiger King. I was in my studio creating things that would bring me joy. One of my favorite things at the time was to share my recorded output with my good old friend Mike Stewart, former Gourds producer, manager, Shinyribs bassist, percussionist and all around Buddy for many years whom I like to call StewBall. This nickname after the old folk song about stew Ball the racehorse. I think I learned that from Peter, paul and Mary originally. Unfortunately, Peter Yarrow turned out to be a real POS. And for the life of me, I’ll never understand why Jimmy Carter pardoned him in his last day in office.

But I digress, we’re talking about StewBall Mike Stewart, and his fun time getting to remix my late night TV gold stuff. Some of which I’ll play for you at some point. This time also he had sent me remixes of older Shinyribs stuff as an experiment we were thinking about going forward with. It died on the vine so to speak. I do love the idea of remixing old songs, but without them being on a Time grid which is locked into a drum machine basically it is very hard to remix with any precision. Because the timing is human,Fallible, not perfect, natural you might say. And most music these days is locked in to a time grid. it’s perfect. It’s not human. It’s not natural and yet in my opinion still fallible. I think to some degree when people bemoan the homogeneity of today’s pop music it is this element of being in perfect time that exacerbates the experience of listening to perfectly boring music. Not all of it is boring, of course, and if I mention Peter, I must mention What’s his ass. The dude who married Kim Kardashian… Yeezy Yagi Yaga what’s his nickname Kanye Kanye Twitty that’s it. Anyway yeah his early 2000’s output is some of the best of this genre. What I call computer music. I don’t know that anyone’s been as creative as him since. He kind of defined the genre in my opinion like the Eddie Van Halen of artificial music. It’s fun stuff. It’s ear candy. It’s very creative, full of layers, and worth listening to absolutely if you never have. Anyway, this is sort of the idea of me and Mike had is take my music and remix it just see what would happen. We were just sitting around not watching Tiger King so what else were we gonna do? This song is from that time. Early 2020 maybe summer of 2020 I can’t remember exactly. I do have a dropbox folder filled with this kind of stuff that I’ve never known quite what to do with. So I think dropping it here would be a good place to start. See what y’all think about it. And is it worth sharing, selling on band camp or whatever? It largely feels unfinished to me and mostly experimental sounding. Though interesting to real fans like you I don’t see that it has value generally in the Music marketplace. But what is the Music marketplace anyway? nobody knows anymore what that is. It’s largely whatever we make it out to be. I’ve been thinking a lot about that issue how to go forward as a music creator, serving my fans directly from the tap, fresh juice right off the vines like lemons and limes, songs, and rhymes for all my friends.

Lately I’ve been playing around with video ideas. I do lots of layered collage stuff that in my Photoshop work. I wanted to capture that in video form. So I’ve been doing funny little videos with the idea that I was going to layer these different videos into one collage video. With music added, of course. I finally sat and did this with some of the video I shot on the tours this year of landscapes and other odd things I’ve come across. Like this video of multiple disco balls at the venue we played in Reno Nevada. Layered over some redwoods and some grass blades and the random open bookoutdoors on a shelf of a dilapidated building. Just sitting there. The book was too high for me to really see what it was. But I got as good of a video as I could from it, and the wind helped me out by turning the pages like a ghost hand at just the right time. I love that shit when random things happen just as they should happen without being aware of it till later when I watch the video and begin combining it with other elements.

When contemplating music for this video, I wasn’t sure which way to go. Part of me felt like I should use new music from my new record and use it as a promotional tool to promote more my new record. But let’s face facts, records die after three months commercially, if they were ever alive at all, we don’t know. So Leaving Time is pretty much a done deal. And I won’t go into it too much, but this is one of the great discouraging facts about making records as an independent artist. I don’t have well connected agents and managers or publicists who are working to make me famous. I haven’t given huge chunks of my publishing or rights to my image to any conglomerates to place me in high profile positions on major festivals or late night tv talk shows, to grow my professional career to a star status. I rather find this avenue of music career growth to be offensive, uninteresting and dishonest. But that’s just me.

Then I remembered the Stewball remixes. This morning‘s night remix you’ll hear a different person singing what sounds like a vocal, but it’s merely a harmony with my lead vocal taken out and that harmony vocal brought to the fore. The voice you hear is a great Singer songwriter named Michael Fracasso. A very good friend to me and to George Reiff who produced Well After A While. The album that Mornings Night is off of. There are some other harmonies as well on this that I am not sure who those singers were. It could be Brandy Zdan or Sally Allen. It could be The Mastersons. I don’t know. Jorge had carte blanche to add things as he felt necessary if I was there or not. Then if I didn’t like it later, I could nix it, but we would still pay the musicians. Which reminds me somewhere, I have my friend, Nick Offerman doing a recitation of a bit I used to do at the end of a song called Somebody Else. When we did it live, I would go into this bit about the drunken piano player at the end of the song and tell a story about something that happened. It could vary in its details. I thought when I recorded this song, I might add that, but I didn’t want to do it. I thought it’d be cool to have Nick Offerman do it. And he sent me a recording of it cool guy that he is. But in the end, I felt the bit, not because of Nick‘s performance, but because of the part itself, I felt cheapened the song and made it more of a novelty than it should be. I have a lot of other thoughts about that song and about this weird in-between place it sort of inhabits, where people giggle because there’s so much space in it. It makes people nervous and they don’t know if it’s serious or if it’s funny. I love that. I love that people don’t know how to feel when they hear the song. I love music really when it gives one multiple feelings that conflict or contradict with each other and confuse one. Tony Joe White is a great example of this. The first time I heard him, my friend Ingmar, who worked at Munich records gave me a copy of one of his first records. When I search for it now all I find online is a record called simply “ Tony Joe.“ So this record may have been a European version of his first or second record. It has a song called Stud Spider on it, I found to be a really bizarre song then and still now. It’s great. It’s one of my favorite things, but I remember at first not being sure if Tony Joe White was serious or not. Like was he for real or was he tongue in cheek? Maybe I should make a playlist now that I’ve referenced Peter, Paul and Mary and Tony Joe White in the same post ha ha. That’s right we’re going to listen to songs about a spider man playboy And a famous racehorse

So here it is without further ado my highly indulgent art film, Reno Disco Bal

Love trouble Alpha that’s how we write it on the set list and these three are often group together as a triplet a trio, a three song assault. Often coming early in the set these three usually set the tone for a more electric guitar driven rock ‘n’ roll set. I have found when I include this three song block in the set. I do tend to play the electric guitar more. It just sets the tone. You know these songs firstly as, “If Love Is Earned “ what I think of as an early 70s Elvis song. I like to think that Elvis would’ve like my son and offered to record it. He may have offered me a 50%.what I think of as an early 70s Elvis song. I like to think that Elvis would’ve like my son and offered to record it. He may have offered me the 50-50 publishing deal Aggie did so many others he would take 50% of the writer share. Which seems unfair but when you do the math 50% of millions of sales is really good money so many riders like Eddie rabbit Mack Davis Ryan millsap they took they took the deal.. Dolly Parton now over did not take the deal on. I will always love you. And it paid off for her with Whitney Houston and you chat with it in the 80s.

The middle songs, of course trouble trouble ass sort of Louis meets the fabulous Thunderbirds rock ‘n’ roll song using reckless driving metaphors for life and love. I got the hook for the Son lyrically from Iola Davis, who was a spokesperson for KKDA sold 73 in Grand Prairie, Texas. A radio station. I listen to religiously when I was in Dallas. Maybe the greatest local radio station I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing. Every day multiple times you would hear. From Iowa Davis saying that was very words don’t trouble trouble till trouble troubles you so 73KKDA you’ve got a friend. It was one of many proverbs, witticisms, historic speech clips they play throughout the day on KKDA. I wrote the song for a local Austin advertising agency who was looking for a song. that the Texas Department of transportation wanted to do to encourage people to not speed to go the speed limit. And so the basic idea of trouble and speeding don’t trouble trouble trouble troubles, you all that stuff kind of is along those lines of reasoning. It did not get selected for the campaign. But I thought it was such a good song anyway I decided. Make it into just just a good song and that’s what it is one of our best rock ‘n’ roll songs. Then this goes into alphabet, which is you know my school house rock song also rhythmically or rhyme scheme loosely based on the folk song Alberta, which I know primarily through Doc Watson version. And I decided that could have a rocked up version of Alberta so I just changed the alphabet and made it all about the alphabet and what I think about those letters yeah pretty cool and great rest great reference it doesn’t matter too much what you sing it’s a great room.

Recorded: by Mark Creaney

Video: Seth Celdrán

Drums- Keith Langford

Bass- Mason Hankamer

Keys- Eric Baker

Steel & Bongos- Marty Muse

Tijuana Trainwreck Horns-

Tiger Anaya- Trumpet

Mark Wilson- Sax & Flute

Shiny Soul Singers

Kellee Broadway

Honey Son

So this video is, I don’t know how old it is. It says it’s two years ago, but this was during 2020. I know because this was part of the Sequestered Songwriter’s Facebook live stream that I joined about halfway through the Covid shut down. It was run by Jason Eady and Courtney Patton. They organized all of their friends doing a theme night each week. It was Paul Simon night for this one. What was also great about the sequestered songwriters themes, they gave us all something to learn, something to focus on, something to plan for. That is one thing live streams in general were great for. As I travel around the country people come up to me and tell me how much my live streams The Ribfry meant to them, their friends and family. I truly entertained a lot of people, more than I realized. Sequestered Songs was just one more thing that we could all enjoy and bond over and share with the fans. They were all cover songs, but I learned a lot of great songs. This is one of my favorite ones. I just ran across this randomly looking through old recordings, cleaning up my dropbox and some other files, listening to things. I remember doing this But gosh dog it’s really good. I did it way better than I remember. I mean it’s not perfect but that’s not the point to be perfect right? perfect is boring and I’m never boring. I just thought it’d be fun to share it here at Substack. It’s probably a lot of you may or may not look through all the YouTube videos I have. There’s tons of stuff out there, but most of them have only hundreds of views. They haven’t been seen by hardly anybody. I think I’ll start sharing some things that I liked especially from that Covid live stream era. There’s a lot of great stuff that I think in the coming years we’re gonna start seeing a lot of, appreciating it more for what it actually was. Yes, it was a reprieve from our nightmare lives. But taken on its as its own on without the surrounding context of circumstances there were a lot of cool performances that went down in livestream and we’re gonna have that forever. It’s like it’s a treasure trove and one that should be preserved. I think all you archivists out there get to work

Some of you may have witnessed this mash up that I keep in my back pocket for solo shows usually. The first time I remember doing this was at a memorial for friend, Wally Williams whose wife, Judy had passed. Also incidentally, it’s the first time I remember meeting Alice spencer. I remember I was sort of the centerpiece of the music for the memorial, but I was in bad voice. I had a cold or allergies or something so my voice was rather limited as to what I could sing. I didn’t think I could pull off the song by myself, I wasn’t sure a sing-a-long with this audience was appropriate. So I asked Alice if she could get all the singers in the room together on stage and she did. She put together a great group and guided them through the arrangement as I explained it to her, though she had never heard this arrangement. I should say that Wally Williams ran a production studio that specialized in creating music for advertising. They did all kind of music for all kinds of commercials. They were called Tequila Mockingbird, a famous place in Austin, where the music community often gathered, hung out, worked, drank, laughed and played and got paid. He and Danny Levin were partners who between them knew just about anyone who was anyone in Texas music at the time. This is why there were so many great singers in attendance. Alice, having worked there for a while, knew them all. What we had was a choir up there. It was magnificent, healing music for the family and those close to Judy.

When I sing it now it has the same healing power. These two songs together have a kind of synergy. When directing the audience how to sing it the trick is that i’m not singing the whole “I’ll fly away” chorus, we’re just singing the first half of it. So if you’re ever in an audience and I do this song, you can help me convey to those around you to just sing the first half of the chorus, don’t sing the last half because it won’t work, at least I don’t think it’ll work. It’s strictly alive song because I just don’t see what the point would be to record this. It was made for congregational singing. I ended with it on this show at the cactus Café because it felt like something was being healed by singing in that legendary room again I’ve told the story before about one of the first times I played in Austin was next door to the cactus at the Texas Tavern, opening for The Wannabes, a legendary local band. After my set, I wondered the hallways of the university of Texas student union where it’s located and saw this iconic door opening and closing. It was pitch black inside, but I could hear a lot of people and someone singing. I peaked in and saw a guy named Darden Smith on stage. I remember thinking to myself man it would be great one day if I could draw a crowd like this, in a place like this. Lo and behold dreams do come true. Thank you all for being part of my dream and tomorrow on my birthday, my 58th, I will be reflecting on this incredible life. This incarnation, a journey with music as my constant companion, has been a blessing that I don’t feel like I deserved, but I wish it for everyone, to find a life’s purpose and follow where it leads. That has made all the difference. Yes it was risky for me to devote my life to music the way I did. My parents were not thrilled with that decision when I left home after high school to pursue my dream. And I totally understood why they were concerned, because I was concerned too that I would fail. But the love and the inspiration that I felt so deeply for what I did, writing, singing songs, playing music with a group of friends, I just didn’t see how I could not pursue that and do it as often as possible. All I ever wanted and still doing it now at 58 years old I feel like I’ve had the best of both worlds, having raised a family with my wife, Robin, our kids, Guthrie, Lilly, and Harlan, the wholesome home and a troubadour’s calling. I’ve had the white picket fence and the “pink Cadillac” waiting outside, a magic carpet that I could ride around this world singing my songs with a peaceful, soulful home to always come back to.

Though this song says not to worry about a thing we all know there’s always plenty to worry about. Thank you all, each in your own way for helping me worry a little less with your support and encouragement. And thanks to my family for supporting me all these years, this crazy man with an impossible dream that he stubbornly refuses still to give up on. Because you never know what the next song is gonna be, you never know who you’re gonna meet, where the music is going to take you. This adventure still is just beginning. Let’s go.

Mason-Bass

Mark Creaney-Recording & Mix

Video- Don Ray

I’m not sure when I wrote this song. But it has always been a fave. I am so glad to finally get it on a record and properly recognized in my repertoires. As I have said before, this song was inspired by a specific guitar, a Kalamazoo arch top from the 1940s I’m guessing much like this one here.

A young man, Mark Allen who was working for me in the receiving dept at a local bookstore where I was a manager before becoming semi-famous told me about his grandfather’s guitar. The more he told me the more special it sounded. I asked him to bring it to me and let me give it some love. I took it home and restrung it, polished it up a bit, then played it for what must have been the first time in decades, idk. The first thing that came through my hands onto that fretboard was this little ditty that I called, “Kalamazoo.” I had this little thing around for a while before the song Drag emerged from my soul. The thought to merge these two pieces into one came to me one night, somewhere…it feels like it has always been that way. By the way, Mark has told me he wants to give that guitar to me. I’m not sure how I feel about it. I wanna go to his house right now and get it. But, also, I know sometimes selfless acts can become regrets. I’ve been very clear with him that he should think twice about it. He said he decided years ago but he just keeps forgetting about it. So, I guess I will have to go get that guitar from him. He and his wife just live up the street from me. So, I could go right now and fetch it. Maybe though I should make a little video about it. Would y’all like that? I believe the appropriate way to be gifted an instrument is to make it clear that I will never sell it, give it away or put it in a position to be harmed. And if he ever wants it back, it’s his no questions asked.

Drag

Lyrically this is autobiographical 100%. It’s a slice of my life, 20 years ago? Late summer, worn down by months of sweaty shows, high electric bills and electrolyte deficits. This is lyrically solid, a beautiful piece of songwriting I am proud of, my fave verse is the middle verse because of the reference to the Noah’s Ark biblical flood story and the muddy footed crow. It was Robert Bly who spoke of that old story couched in a Jungian juxtaposition between the crow and the dove, the light and the dark, lost and found. In my bible studies the crow (or raven in some translations) never came back. But, Bly presented it as the dove first returns with nothing, then a 2nd time with an olive leaf, the third time the dove does not return, then he sends out the crow who returns with muddy feet. These are things I think about when I have muddy feet. What do you think about when you have muddy feet?

Mason Hankamer- Dog House Bass

Recorded and mixed by Mark Creaney

Video by Don Ray

We shot this over at Sams Town Point with Jeremy Sexton. This was the first song released off of Leaving Time. I feel like this song encompasses much of what makes the album such a comfortable, cozy room of a record. Maybe my most honest and simple to date. Much of my recorded output has a certain amount of found objectivity to it. From Kev Russell’s Junker to Leaving Time it could be said I never knew where I was going but I wound up finding myself exactly where I needed to go. I have always followed my muse. The idea was never for me to be top of the pops, the new johnny bravo or anything like that. No, the thought was always with capturing great performances of great songs for better or worse. There’s nothing phony about this song. It comes from personal experiences losing my way, my friends, my purpose in life. But, having the courage to follow the path to where I can see a new beginning ahead and a bittersweet past further and further behind me.

Some things don’t come easy,

Leaving Louisiana blues is the song about having to leave someplace you love because the people you love want you to. Louisiana can be anywhere. The singer of the song is everyone that’s ever felt betrayed, unseen, ghosted, unwanted. In every leaving, there is the seed of returning, always. In every goodbye there is a bittersweet notion that you will come back one day, just like the ocean, the winds of change, the forgotten, the only begotten. Sometimes you gotta get up get out, get right with your doubts and sing about the way you want to be treated

Stream it, save it, like it, love it, think about it right before you go to bed at night. Keep it on your nightstand like a lamp in the dark to show you the way. Mostly just give it away, sharing means caring. If you care about Shinyribs and about the people in your life, if you don’t want this to happen to you one day having to leave your own personal Louisiana then share this song, it just might be the most important thing you do today

Now streaming on all platforms the second single off of the ground breaking album Leaving Time due out 4/25/25

Go like it, save it, dance to it, share it, talk to it and tell it you love it then send it to ya mama ya daddy ya brother sister greasy granny

go run tell everyone you know about this new song called shitty music by Shinyribs. There’s never been a song that’s so succinctly encompasses humanities search for meaning in a sea of banality blindness and cloying superficiality Kevin Russell also known as Mr. RIBS, has done it again if he were British, he would be knighted if you’ve got a match. It should be lighted to make a torch hoisted in honor of shitty music streaming on all platforms today, tomorrow and forever for all of us who feel such self-pity we now have a word for the music we don’t like…that word is shitty

Video: Don Ray

Audio: Mark Creaney

Courtesy of Cactus Cafe University Of Texas

I don’t wanna hang out with anyone that listens to shitty musicI don’t wanna hang out with anyone that listens to shitty music

I don’t wanna hang out with them they ain’t my friends

I want to hang out with you because you like to groove

I don’t wanna hang out with anyone who listens to shitty music.

If you like soul music come over and sing

with my hi-fi flying sit down next to me

Drink some Colt 45s, we can get up and dance

let your hair down, take off your shoes and roll up your pants

If you like country music, bring a bucket of ice

we can play what you want or just roll the dice

On some old 45s, some unlabeled cassettes

I like surprises, cold beer, and no regrets

do you remember this one?

How old were you?

when you first heard this song what did it mean to you

I remember this one do you think it’s true?

When I first heard this song I didn’t know about you

I don't wanna hang out with anyone…