Parsley sucks

Just wanted to check in and say hi. My most recent activities outside my fictional universe (where I am beloved and completely fufilled), have been hamstrung by the holiday hoodoo, and even the usual warm & fuzzy delusions have been pre-empted by the madness. Come January 1, however, we launch the three-pronged attack.

Prong one:new stuff written with someone who isn't me.
Prong two: a return to the vast Chuck/Oxford catalog to record one of the many buried gems.
Prong three: the usual prong, new material dredged from the day-to-day minutiae. Until then, read the newspapers, have fun and enjoy yr holidays.

I posted a song provisionally titled "Hang on every word". The lyrics were written by a friend and the whole thing was completed in a marathon session which left me emotionally drained and the sidewalk still unshoveled.

The bass is just killing itself to keep up and the b_vox are of interterminate volume (crucial drum fill overlooked as well), but it comes together by the second chorus. Unshackeled from the lyric writing process, the work was swift and the craic was good, though glacial and mute.

Thanks for the lyrics, send more soon.

Well, the MP3.com sites are no more so there goes all the traffic. Though there's nothing there that's not here, the playback was more stable. Oh well, I'm leaving the links just to pad the site.

Hey everyone. New tune today is "Talking Dog", a title in search of a metaphor, ultimately settling for "transcendence" or "validation".
It's a song I might refer to as 'funky', under my breath, though it's the stilted, narrow funk of the hopelessly bourgeois.

Hey guys, today brings a new, much-remixed tune. Remixed in the sense that I just couldn't get the lead guitar track to come out good all the way thru. So I gave up. The song is "A Dying Man", and is the standard pity-poor-me song with a defiantly upbeat tempo, about 136bpm if I remember correctly.

Lead vox are painless yet the back-ups kinda veer off course a bit and the guitar "solo" is the best of about five or six so learn to love it.

New tune! "More Dark" is the second song to be inspired by my interest in amatuer astronomy, which I define as standing in the backyard and looking up. Does it rock? Does the Pope shit in the woods?

The usual caveats apply: dreadful vocals, flat production and a hurried arrangement. It's a wonder it can be so "devil-horns-fully-displayed" badass with so many drawbacks.

Okay, well the domain name is in place and the drums for two songs are ready to record. You have approximately one week until arrival of pop song bliss. Hang in there.

As I age and decay, inspiration usually comes in the form of curmudgeonly annoyance. Therefore I thank the pathetic state of commercial radio, rabid right-wing blogs and outdoor halogen lighting for the ideas behind the latest slate of songs. Future fixations may or may not include that decrepit old codger in the very heartwarming Olive Garden commercial who apparently prefers shitty never-ending bowls of pasta and the company of his patronizing nieces and nephews to his idyllic life in Sicily. You, my friend, are on the list.

Why can't I get this site to show up on a search? Is that why you are staying away in droves? Well, I've got your number, and you need to get here to listen to the new doo-doo, 'cause it's coming.

Is this sad or what? I just cannot bring myself to program the damn drum machine for the latest round of songs. I have a couple ready to go more or less but I dread the effort required for those drums to sound even halfway decent. Any drummers out there?

Also, I've finally tried something I long intended to: setting music to poems that are in the public domain. I can't write without a lyrical idea, and have been so succesful in avoiding the various responsibilities most of you assume gladly that I now am fully without inspiration. I've so far saved 3 Blake poems, an Emily Dickinson and a Lord Byron from obscurity by setting them to Oxford Boy pop magic. The results are promising, but only a full recording will reveal whether I am wasting my time or not. Soon, soon.

Not dead yet! Though something has momentarily sapped my will to create, men have been dispatched and all will be well soon.

Ahh, all is right with the world. After 3 excruciating weeks, the DSL is back up. This, I predict will lead to a spurt of creativity, the fruits of which should appear here, to molder, soon.

Sad as it is, the powers that be are trying to keep the Oxford Boys from releasing another indefatiguable tune. But a week of remorseless drudgery and subtle antagonism has only resulted in yet another notch on our belts.
"Stars in the Backyard" is the lastest entry and I feel good about it. Vocals mixed comfortably low and an unfussy arrangement that sounds decent.
In your face, haters!

Thinking I may have blown my load (sorry mom) politically speaking on the Iraq War tetra-ology. Speaking of which, the third and fifth songs in the group will never see the light of day due to one being crummy and the other being forgotten. Anyway, I'm out of things to say except: "No Nuclear Holocaust, please!".

Yesterday brought a new song: ''something odd". Turned out okay with some of my least wretched vocals in a while. Practice, practice, practice! That's a funny word when you say it thrice. Anyway, check it out.

Another new song tonight, but I had to pull the last entry due to underperformed vocals. Funny thing is, I thought I brought it. I have a spare recording with better vocals (& bass), but it needs an organ. Who doesn't?

Tonight's was 'protest #4', a temp title since the obvious titles are all lame. And it's not a good enough political song to warrant it's subjects' actual name. In fact it's naive and patronizing. It's vocals stumble out of the gate with a bleating reading of the hack first verse yet improves with the arrival of the harmony. Why do I even bother not doing them?

I've been favoring a certain chord lately (F add9), a certain voicing to be exact, therefore a few of the newer tunes have a tonal similarity. It doesn't bother me but it has to end somewhere, although it's probably in my best interest to wring everything I can out of each chord. Two new additions today.

You know, power-pop kinda gets on my nerves sometimes. And it's most closely associated with what goes on here. That's hypocritical, I guess. Some would call it mushy- or fuzzy-headed, and they would stone me as I cast my vote for General Wesley Clark (just kidding, I barely know who the fuck he is).
Point is, I can't believe in black and white and it's harder to defend yr beliefs when, by definition, they are constantly shifting. I would lace cupcakes with extasy and serve them at a school board, of course.

Working hard over here at camp Oxford. Will gladly write a song about your pet, your parents or your sexual dysfunctions. Send info and I'll split all royalties 50/50, but you gotta do the leg work.

Though only two songs in the Iraq War tetra-ology have seen the light of day, I'm determined to finished at least one more, and I predict it will be the 128bpm "Rummy". By then the shape of the continents may no longer be recognizable, but I will finish.

The End is Nigh—Maybe
As my nights continue to be interrupted by visions of apocalypse, is it any wonder I can't get any work done?

The boys are currently in a state of diminished inspiration. Actually it's a state of diminished stash, and we need as much weed as we can get to face the daunting task of programming the drum machine.