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[unwashedmass]

One of the very oldest songs in my repertoire, this #seashanty, dating back to 1635, was picked up for the @creakingplanks' "Pirates of the Seabus" flash mob gig. We learned #theTurkishRevelry from Loudon Wainwright III's rendition on the Pirates of the Caribbean Rogues Gallery compilation.

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I can't improve on my write-up on this song's author provided in my earlier cover three years ago of his "Till the Wine Is Gone", so if you'd like a little context, you can find it gushing all over that video. But "This Is Not My Life" was one of Rick Keating's other hits, standouts among a repertoire of many, many extremely solid original folksongs. Who among us never feels from time to time that we've drifted out of the intended lane for our life and have been spinning our wheels living someone else's? I have been slipping my pace this year, so I put in a cram session the other day and recorded ten tunes that I ought to get around to enshrining in the record, sharing for no particular reason and apropos of nothing. This is the first of them.

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One week ago I loaded my family into the car and we went on a 3 hour round trip for the rare privilege of hearing the music of Prince George's philosopher-king Raghu Lokanathan at a punk house in Chilliwack. Now, of course I wasn't together enough to record another Raghu cover in time to promote this show, but while he's still rattling around in my brain, I can process him by interpreting another one of his eternal classics. This was his top-tier material when I met him at ArtsWells in the late noughties, and it's a tour de force of something it's hard to put your finger on. The meat of the song is a dead simple two-chord progression, the text a tale of plucky perseverence in the face of adversity, the chorus a gratifying concession to intrusive thoughts. The amazing thing about Raghu's songs is that you may be hanging on every word expecting to learn something about the writer's biography, but unless you are privy to his between-song banter, you will never have any idea what any of the songs are about, because to the best of my knowledge none of them are biographical in any kind of straightforward fashion. Instead, he's spinning yarns, sometimes allegorical, sometimes adaptations of the experiences of other people or tales from thousands of years ago. But it's great!

[unwashedmass]

Both my kids had birthdays last month, and for their birthdays I try to make them private recordings of my takes on songs that are special to them in some way. Shortly after recording the second song, my kids got carried off on a wave of viral hype surrounding the conclusion of the Amazing Digital Circus series. This song plays a big role in the series and ever since hearing it my youngest has slipped it into the mix every time they are handed the aux, so I'm hoping that perhaps be enshrining it in this way possibly I can exorcise the song. I can't speak to the song's broader role in the wider series, as I haven't watched it, though I think it's amazing to live through a time where I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream (explicitly referenced in the lyrics) is subject to a popular remake using an early "Mind's Eye" CGI aesthetic. Musically I've heard arrangements like this before, because I made them myself -- placeholder arrangements that'll simply have to do until you have a chance to write a real tune, but you never quite get around to it. But it gets the job done! Whether or not it is personally my cup of tea definitely it seems to be resonating with the masses. I like to have a cooloff period before engaging popular works so I can keep my integrity of irrelevance and avoid being seen to be chasing virality (resurfacing forgotten classics is more my speed) but in this case I tried to jump on it with relative punctuality just so I can share this thing with my kids while it's still meaningful to them.

[unwashedmass]

A truly unlikely cover of a song that barely exists itself, in promotion of the #LeonardCohen night at The Heatley this Sunday evening, where I will be performing (though not this song), this #StupidAccordionTrick is my cover of #wasnotwas' 1990 song #ElvisRollsRoyce, sung by Leonard Cohen himself. A real B side!

[unwashedmass]

This ("The Abandoned Brain") is really a fragment of someone else's musical taste I inherited: founding Creaking Plank Ole taught it to Heather and I, and it just sat around in the songbook gathering dust until we briefly pulled it out of deep storage for Bryce-Thing's "Gutter Punk Space Opera" art opening at the Gallery Gachet way back in 2009. I don't know annnyyyyything about Robyn Hitchcock (well, I just skimmed his Wikipedia article before writing this blurb, but in the 23 years between learning the song and just now I gleaned no further details about the songwriter and felt no urge to find out more) and the song, well, is just a pleasant enough piece of melancholic whimsy.

[unwashedmass]

I'm part of a #LeonardCohen tribute concert taking place at the Heatley the night of Sun Jun 28! So for this week's #StupidAccordionTrick I recorded one of his songs that I will not be playing that night, just to get everyone in the mood.

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For complex and ultimately irrelevant reasons I took on the #GrandFunkRailroad version of #SomeKindOfWonderful for this week's #StupidAccordionTrick

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Because I have fallen behind, I have pulled a canned recording out of storage: my #StupidAccordionTricks version of #JacquesBrel's #Amsterdam... en français épouvantable!

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Just had to break out of my silent #StupidAccordionTricks rut with a sloppy squeezy rendition of Santo & Johnny's 1959 steel guitar instrumental #SleepWalk

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Keeping my weekly #StupidAccordionTricks cover songs a little explicitly silly this month for April Fool's, here's #Trooper's 1976 #TheBoysInTheBrightWhiteSportsCar

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Keeping April's foolishness going for my #StupidAccordionTricks this month, here's my take on #JimStafford's thirsty 1974 country tune #SpidersAndSnakes.

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For this week's #StupidAccordionTrick, I persist in my April folly of covering humorous songs by going all the way back to 1939 to this number #GrouchoMarx sang in #AtTheCircus: #LydiaTheTattooedLady.

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I guess I was taking it for granted that I could just play silly songs for April but an emergency recording session was convened after someone threatened to immolate an ancient civilization, big vibe killer. So at a loss, here's #FlandersAndSwann's 1964 anti-nuclear-arms #20TonsOfTNT

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Here's a brief funny #StupidAccordionTrick for my April of Foolishness - from 1962, #BernardCribbins' #TheHoleInTheGround, championing class war. Why not?

[unwashedmass]

Ok, the first day of April is here, meaning I get to turn over a new leaf and be explicitly silly in my #StupidAccordionTricks selections all month long in honor of #AprilFools. (I know, you're wondering... What were his excuses for doing it all the other months before?) I've done a deep dive into the history of musical comedy and the novelty single, and begin the program this month with this crown jewel from the genre's late grand master, #TomLehrer's 1959 #PoisoningPigeonsInThePark. (No animals were harmed in the making of this video.)

[unwashedmass]

My #StupidAccordionTricks spree of iconic songs by women winds up with my running #TammyWynette's 1968 #StandByYourMan through the squeezebox