“Johnsburg, Illinois* / Birds and Balloons / Break My Hands (Live Performance in Studio / Medley)”
Unearthed this live 2009 studio medley from the Silent Kit coffin. Starts with a take on Tom Waits’ beautiful song, “Johnsburg, Illinois”, from the 1983 album, “Swordfishtrombones,” and ends with two of my original songs—”Birds and Balloons,” and “Break My Hands”—which morphed into an unexpected medley on the spot.
Thanks to the boys (credits, scroll down) for being pros and unknowingly following me wherever those elementary major chords took us. Always liked how this turned out because there was no heads up, no practice, and I didn’t know which songs to play until engineer, Mark Gustafson, wondered if it was okay to start recording.
Major props to all who caught the moment; and I ask, where did the last 13 years go?
This particular live performance of one of my favorite Waits songs had zero preparation. Hell, I made up the arrangement on the spot with a few G/C/D chords. The guys helped me out with showing up to the recording in late 2009 for the now-defunct but successful SockMonkeySound Podcast production.
They were years ahead of the podcasting trend—grassroots DIY, all passion, sweat equity and a genuine joy of music and culture combined with taking a shit on our hometown, Rockford, Illinois, but at the same time, giving the midwest arts and music community the props it deserved that regional wouldn’t (because this entire region is marketed by conservative hillbilly-targeted media amateurs with no respect for most of us working artists)—but the lack of support in our region to generate revenue support to keep it going combined with youthful distractions and career goals put an early end to the show after 200+ episodes.
Major props to all who caught the moment, and I ask, where did the last 13 years go?Note that this is the first and last time I’ve played live with anyone in any setting. Not sure I could do it again without making an ass out of myself with regards to not knowing the names of chords I’m playing on the guitar or piano, the arrangements and rhythm changes are a foreign language, and the technical aspects that go into capturing a song in the right moment and light is a wonder to me. I know when a song is good or not, no matter how it’s recorded and with any given device. There’s so much more to it all that makes collaboration key— I envy the incredible magic-making musical skills that audio producers, engineers, mixers, mastering pros—all of you—do to provide our lives a soundtrack to discover and enjoy. It’s magical, take a bow.
Anyway, thank you to all who made this memory. Still grateful that anyone gave a shit to capture a past life where I was clearly producing creative work across all media at a focused and chaotic pace that I’ll never enjoy the energy of happening again. That’s youth and ambition for ya, or foolishness. Okay, time to go tell myself to fuck off again.
Have a nice day on the internet,
Dave is Andy is Lord Derby / Silent Kit
"Johnsburg, Illinois*/Birds and Balloons/Break My Hands (Medley)"
Performed by Silent Kit
Live @ SockMonkeySound
November 19, 2009
SILENT KIT IS and NEVER WAS:
Dave DeCastris, Vocals and Acoustic Guitar
Daniel James McMahon,Accordion and Drums
Mark Muraski, Lead Guitar
Zach Staas, Hammond B3 Organ
Audio Recording by
Mark Gustafson
Video Recording by
Chip Copeland
Words and Music © 2009 Dave DeCastris (Silent Kit);
*Except "Johnsburg, Illinois", Words © 1983 Tom Waits.
Notes: The full-hour interview episode that accompanies these live, in-studio performances is available from SockMonkeySound and via their Podcast channel in the Apple Music Store. Click below for the direct links.
EPISODES UNAVAILABLE TO STREAM, but that can change at any moment if one of the four podcast production founders hands the audio archive over to make it available again through a new distribution channel / host provider to resubmit the RSS feeds to Apple and many podcast app platforms etc.
Stream Silent Kit on SoundCloud
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