Michael's Texas Embrace

Well, Andrew is headed homeward, and I have been doing homework for three hours, so the glorious sloth-like state that is thanksgiving is over. Well, not sloth-like, since we did a crapload of stuff while Andrew was here. Why, we drank around 50 beers, maybe a little more counting the beers at the drafthouse. We watched every episode of Firefly, a whole bunch of Ren and Stimpy, played a lot of cards (Texas Hold 'Em was kind of dumb, but Bullshit ruled as always), played Rummikub, ate a ton of food (we cooked enough food for three times as many people as we were. Rock). We watched a Turkish version of Wizard of Oz from the 70s, with live music and dubbing right in the theater (that's Foleyvision!) and that was freaking hysterical...why did those little midget soldier guys keep appearing and disappearing? Andrew cracked open a beer everyday by noon I think, and we all cracked open beers at noon on thanksgiving, and gave thanks for beer. So it was a class-A thanksgiving. Of course, it would have been nice to have more family, but it was the best damn three-person thanksgiving ever.

A custom seems to be establishing itself that people who visit make a song with me, so me and Andrew made a song. It's thanksgiving themed! I mean, it's about how the bums are stealing thanksgiving from the proper working-class via the government and general theft, I guess. It's offensive and stupid, full of sudden changes and bad singing...and it is totally awesome. I don't know if it's more offensive than me and Murf's hurricane song, but it's pretty rough (see Murf's page for the Hurricane song. Be warned, it has dying babies and cannibalism in it, and is 20 minutes long.) For some reason, I didn't expect collaborating with Andrew to turn out a song like this. Composition-wise I mean. I guess I had imagined Andrew inspiring some weird, complex arrangements, but we ended up making a song that's really sort of like an attention-deficit, tight and lean little rock combo, changing channels. That is, not too many instruments and lots of punchy bass and organ playing. And rock drums. Anyway, it's got urinating and random violence in it, and a killer bit of four-part harmony. And really, what more could a rock song ask for?

Hobo Thanksgiving

Credits:

Andrew: vocals, Bass(most of it), keyboard, moog (the long, cool solo in the penultimate section), drums, wailing and clapping
Michael: vocals, guitar (acoustic, electric), bass (only in one part), moog (only the crappy first moog part), drums, programmed beats, clapping and moaning.

Music by Andrew and Michael, and pretty evenly I'd say. And Andrew can sure tweak a weak chord progression into a good one! Lyrics by Michael, Andrew, and Maggie (!!--she helped with a couple of lines, some of the best ones, too...) Produced by the dudes and recorded at Michael's Octopoidland Studio, Austin TX. All apologies to homeless people, we don't really think you're just lazy and we do think you deserve thanksgiving too. It's a joke, man, ease on up.