Vingt-Neuvième

Happy Summer to you all. It was July outside, but cool and dark in The Living Room. Goodbye Ludlow Street? Not so fast. The first of three “final” shows at The Living Room’s Ludlow Street haunts got Chris Stamey out of the house. Laura wrote about nuns, Kate referenced Supertramp, Freedy studied the lava flows, and Steve Goulding debuted as an All-Star. And then after the show half of the participants hightailed it across the river for a farewell performance at Maxwell’s, which was in it’s final week of existence. Sigh.

All new music from:
 Chris Stamey, Freedy Johnston, Dave Schramm, Jody Harris, Amy Allison, Kate Jacobs, Peter Holsapple and Laura Cantrell

The Radio Free All Stars: Jeremy Chatzky, Steve Goulding, David Mansfield, Timothy Hill and Dave Schramm

Presented by: Nicholas Hill

Laura Cantrell, Sister What’s Her Name (Laura Cantrell); recorded live with the Radio Free All Stars; Thrift Shop Songs (BMI) admin Bug Music/Chrysalis

Peter Holsapple, The Ongoing Blues (Peter Holsapple); performed and recorded by Peter; Hospital Music (BMI) admin by Bug Music/Chrysalis

Chris Stamey, I Wrote This Song for You (Chris Stamey); recorded live with the Radio Free All Stars; ShangMoto Songs (BMI)/administered by Bug Music

Chris Stamey, Lovesick Blues (Chris Stamey); recorded live with the Radio Free All Stars; ShangMoto Songs (BMI)/administered by Bug Music

Freedy Johnston, I Got to Get Out of the Lab (Freedy Johnston); recorded live with the Radio Free All Stars; Trouble Tree Music (BMI)

Dave Schramm, He’s a Leaf in the Western Wind (Dave Schramm/Rick Moody); recorded live with the Radio Free All Stars; Hot Stove Music (BMI)/Grow Your Own Music (BMI).

Kate Jacobs, Oh Joy (Kate Jacobs; arr. Dave Schramm); recorded live with the Radio Free All Stars; Small Pond Music (BMI

Jody Harris, Not For Nothing (Jody Harris); recorded live with the Radio Free All Stars; Copyright Control Jody Harris

Amy Allison, Blue Plate Special (Amy Allison); recorded live with the Radio Free All Stars; Shop Girl Songs (BMI) admin. Bug Music

Recorded live at The Living Room in NYC on July 24, 2013 by Jimi Zhivago with Eric Feigenbaum and Gabe Wilhelm. Mixed by Dave Schramm, except I Wrote This Song For You and Lovesick Blues, which were mixed by Chris Stamey.

Notes:

Peter Holsapple on The Ongoing Blues:

It’s been a crappy month. Such overwhelming sadness from so many sources. And still I can’t seem to cry. So I wrote a song for the song club as partial therapy. I don’t feel one iota better, so I will do what the song says and soldier on.

No guitars were abused in the recording of this tune. Electric piano, organ, electric bass, singing (if you can call it that) and a lonely hi-hat in lieu of waking the family up with my ham-fisted drumming in the middle of the night. Seems fine without them, but a drummer might think otherwise.

Unsolicited advice: tell your friends and family that you love them because they need to know it.

Peter H.

Dave Schramm on He’s a Leaf (unfortunate rock variant):

Impulsive/spontaneous often = fresh/exciting. Sometimes not. I had a different song prepared for this evening. One that Rick wrote the lyric for, that we had crafted over the course of weeks. Considered, fretted over, finally grew to love. It had the same title as the song that appears here. But then, because I rather wanted to MAKE NOISE that day -sometimes you just want to make a loud noise – that morning I quickly fashioned a ROCK song hung on Rick’s lyric, a lyric for a folk song. Is that relevant? Possibly. Certainly the tone of the thing has changed with the delivery. In the end I think I have saddled the verse with noisy mediocrity. And apologies to Rick for that. And he didn’t even know about my treason until long after the deed had been done. But there is a consolation prize. I quite like the bridge bit – “A constant love, such precious thing” and am happy that it appeared from wherever these things appear from. [...]