Archive for the ‘Listening’ Category

Marian Call's new CD is done and ready for pre-order! And she wasn't thinking small…

2 and 1/2 years in the making, "Something Fierce" is a double-album, a 2-CD set with 19 songs and a 16-page booklet of lyrics and photos. In that time she's traveled all 50 states, had some amazing experiences both good and bad, and she returned home to fall in love with Alaska all over again. And all of that went into her music.

Broadly speaking, "Something Fierce, vol 1: Good Luck With That" is about her life and what's happened to her over the last few years, and "Something Fierce, vol 2: From Alaska" is a love letter to her adopted home, but that's far too vague a description for both. It's not as geeky as her previous releases — one of which was commissioned to be just that — but she is a proud geek, and so the flavor remains. It's not a single thing at all. There is sad here, very sad, and there is thoughtful, and there is bouncy fun that I guarantee will stick in your head for days. There are the thoughts of someone who has traveled far and done a lot, and there is the expertise of dozens, even hundreds of friends, family and fellow musicians with whom she crafted different parts (I'm in the background of "Goodbye Morning Moon" but I don't think I damaged it any). There are sections she recorded in hotel rooms and in studios, with raucous crowds and by herself, and with every instrument you can think of, including, of course, typewriter, rainstick and deceased cat.

But what it really is, is Marian. It's a look inside her head. It's her thoughts and her humor and her heart. It's the powerful voice we knew she had, further tempered into a finely wrought tool by, basically, life.  And I haven't really told you a damn thing about the songs, because a) I hate spoilers and b) it's easier to just show you. Head to SoundCloud for samples, or listen to (and maybe buy) Good Morning Moon and Anchorage. Go to her live shows or listen to her occasional concert webcasts (check her site for times). And then order "Something Fierce."

"Something Fierce" will be released October 1, 2011, and there are a variety of ways to get it. You can pre-order the digital download version for $15 (or more, if you wish) and you'll get something free now and the download link to the album as soon as it's available.

Or you can pre-order the 2-disc CD. The first 500 will be autographed, and you'll get the digital download copy as well so you can listen to it right away while you're waiting for shipping. Autographed copies are $25, or you can wait till after the release and get the non-autographed ones for $20.

More details here.

Marian Call performing at The Geek Easy in A Comic Shop in Winter Park, FL, Sept. 17, 2010, with guitarist Bryan Ray. This is an early version of "Good Morning Moon," now available for sale at mariancall.com . Try not singing along, I dare you.

Indie artist, geek diva and all-around talented lady Marian Call is nearly finished with her newest release, "Something Fierce, Vol. 1," and she's just released a song from it: "Good Morning Moon."

She was challenged to write the song that astronauts on the shuttle should wake up to, and she did. It's a happy, muppety, relentlessly cheerful song that will get stuck in your head. Sorry.

And I'm in the background, one of the many voices that contributed to the chorus and whistling. So from now on I'd appreciate it if you'd refer to me as "Recording artist Chris Bridges," thanks. Now to go update my LinkedIn profile…

You can hear it below or at her site mariancall.com, but please consider buying a copy so she can keep doing this.

(Psst, get Dollhouse: The Complete Second Season here.)

The latest event in her 50-state tour, geek-folk singer Marian Call is coming to Winter Park, FL, to perform at The Geek Easy at A Comic Shop.

Marian puts on a hell of a show, complete with typewriter and rain stick, and doesn't get to this end of the country so you won't want to miss this. Plus she'll be sharing the stage with Marc With a C,  Donations of $10 or more are requested.

A Comic Shop is at 114 S Semoran Blvd. Winter Park, FL, and the show starts at 8. See you there!

Along with all the other wondrous things to see at Dragon*Con in Atlanta, GA, this weekend — an amazing collection of stars, writers, artists, musicians, and a few zillion people just as passionate as you are about the same things you love — Marian Call is putting on a concert and wants you there!

Marian performs an intimate show at a private warehouse space in Atlanta the weekend of Dragon*Con, at 236 Marray Drive, Atlanta, GA 30341. Tickets are $15, $10 for students, seniors, military, disabled, or starving artist (honor system). Please purchase the appropriate ticket. In order to increase capacity, some strapping able-bodied fans may be asked to enjoy standing room; be kind and plan to take turns or leave seats for those who need them.

The concert is at 8 p.m., Friday night, Sept. 3, at The Warehouse Therapy Band Space, and tickets are available at her website (at the top).

Marian also will be making other appearances in the area this weekend, check her site for details.

Teres immediately pointed out that Bon Jovi was not included, "'cause they don't do pop songs, they do rock songs but everyone thinks they do pop songs 'cause they're so cute and cuddly." End quote.

Ever experimental in the ways an artist can work with her audience to both make a living and give them something special, geek-songstress Marian Call is selling a new bootleg CD to celebrate her second full-length live-streaming concert at WholeWheatRadio.org . 15 tracks in various stages of polish; some from live performances, some early versions of familiar songs, and some proto-versions of songs from her CD-in-progress "Something Fierce."

But you've only got half a day or so to buy it.

The audio is not perfectly mixed and mastered; the songs are mostly live bootlegs.  The CD label will be nicely handwritten and autographed by me, with your name on it as you please, and the track list & credits will be printed on the printer here at WWR.  If you want a lipstick smooch on it, please specify when you order.  This is homebaked music — as in, burned on my laptop.  This is INDIE MUSIC IN ACTION.  The CD’s come with Marian’s homeburn guarantee — if the disc doesn’t work, I’ll make and ship you a new one from home, cuz I actually care about you since you’re ordering something weird like this.

For SerenityStuff fans who remember the Sing a Song of Saffron contest, her second entry, "Never Did Catch Her Name," is included. Check her blog for a track list and more details.

Head to WholeWheatRadio's Marian Call page and scroll to the bottom. The CDs are $12 plus shipping, and will only be available from 8pm tonight till 10 a.m. tomorrow (Alaska time; that's 9 pm to 11 am PST or midnight to 2 pm EST). (By the way, I love that WWR's page includes a running tally of how many CDs she's sold. Go Marian, go!)

This is an excellent way to support a truly talented and witty musician, and indie music in general. Go check out the live concert tonight, if you need more (free!) encouragement to support Marian.

I am watching Stephen Fry in America, where the celebrated British actor and author drove his black London cab through all 50 states, sampling a bit of each as he went, and I'm finding that as I talk to my wife during breaks that I keep wanting to speak with a British accent.  Not as an affectation or joke, mind you, and I'm not using any obvious British slang.

I just quite naturally begin choosing my words more carefully, pronouncing them more traditionally, enunciating them more precisely. I place emphasis on different sections of the sentence, making observational sentences more of a question than a declaration. Somehow I manage the trick of sounding both self-deprecatingly apologetic and mildly superior at the same time.

As it seems to happen with appalling regularity whenever I watch such programmes, one must assume a genetic source. Somewhere in my history there lies an English gene, ready and willing to leap out out a moment's notice and force me to pronounce "schedule" with a "shed."

"I am going to be speaking to you this evening with a British accent, so do be prepared for the words you hear to come with a little more authority than you're used to. And you could have had this, and that's the real tragedy." — John Oliver

It fades, it fades. A few hours from now I'll once again be dropping my Gs and coarsening my speech. But for now I find myself transported with the challenge of delivering sentences with complex constructions, where clauses leap like playful porpoises around each other, swimming in the same depths as Wodehouse, Chesterton and the Pythons.

Mind you I'm well aware that Americans have whelped their fair share of speechifiers who could give any Brit a run for his money, and there are certainly any number of British accents that are at least as harsh to the ear as any Southern twang. And I perform the same linguistic gymnastics (in much different directions) whenever we watch the Beverly Hillbillies, or anything featuring mobsters (the movie "Oscar" can have us speaking in broken Italian for days).

I'm also painfully aware that to an actual Brit my accent would sound like nothing of the kind. Years of television and movies have instilled in me a sort of conglomeration of tongues from around the island, with some Yorkshire running into my Lancashire, with Black Country vowels trampling all through my Ipswitch and East Anglia and Liverpool mixed together in a hellish brew. Think John Cleese by way of Ringo Starr and Douglas Adams with some Dave Allen sneaking in, all the worse as Dave Allen was most definitely Irish. Or, to put it in more understandable terms to an American, imagine someone making an American accent by using pronunciations from Jersey, Georgia, Boston and Texas all in the same sentence.

But for now in my head I am British, soft-spoken and wryly humorous and calmly amused by everything. And a jolly good day to you all.

It started when Canadian musician Dave Carroll was on a United Airlines flight, waiting at O'Hara in Chicago. People on the flight pointed out the baggage handlers on the ground tossing around guitar cases, which turned out to belong to Carroll and his band Sons of Maxwell. Carroll's pleas fell on deaf ears and he discovered upon arriving at his destination that his custom Taylor guitar, valued at $3,500, was severely damaged. There followed a year of Carroll's attempts at getting United Airlines to even acknowledge the incident, much less pay for the $1,200 of repairs that still didn't quite restore the guitar to its former sound.

Finally Carroll told the last representative, a Ms. Irlweg, that he would write and produce three music videos about his experience and release them into the wild.She may have been less than impressed. That was then.

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