Weekend recap.

That was a busy weekend. And that's the way they're going to be until, let's see... Columbus Day, or thereabouts. I was at Giuseppe's on Thursday, where I played an entire show on piano. Nice to get back to that. It made me miss the Dueling Pianos shows in Burlington this past winter. Then it was off to Tony's in Thornton for a rowdy Friday night set. I headed up to Whitefield to the Spalding Inn for my Saturday show, and down to Laconia to play The Broken Spoke for the first time on Sunday afternoon. Here's a song from the Broken Spoke show.

Jim Tyrrell - American Pie (The Broken Spoke, June 6 2010)

It was nice to have so many folks watching online (I was able to broadcast all four shows). The live feed will be up whenever wifi is available at the venue. This Thursday it all starts again, and I'll go over the schedule in detail in tomorrow's post. Cheers!

Song Spotlight: Hey Ruth

Over the next couple weeks, I'll be spotlighting songs from the Onward To Yesterday CD. Today's track is the opener on the album.

Hey Ruth was originally written for Song Fight!, an online songwriting competition. They provide the title, you provide the song (with a 7-10 day deadline). This was one of those wide-open titles; I'm not sure what led me in this particular direction, but the first draft of the song was written more or less front-to back, almost stream-of-consciousness style. A little structural tidying, and the result is a poppy number that seemed destined for the Permanent Record album. I wasn't happy enough with the recording to include it though, so it sat until the Onward To Yesterday sessions in late '09. Things went better this time around, and the song made for a good first track on the album.


Hey Ruth

Hey Ruth, I know you probably didn’t want me to wake you,
But I wasn’t really sure if you were sleeping or dead
Hey Ruth, ‘cause when you sit there barely breathing, what the
Hell am I supposed to do, you got me going out of my head
Hey Ruth, well do you think the boss’ll notice that you’re
Sleeping in your cubicle alone there at the end of the hall
Hey Ruth, with all the meetings and the quotas, do you ever
Stop to think about the reason that you do it at all

I remember when you started back in ‘93
I saw you filing and I knew you were the one for me
I asked you out but you were married to the industry
You traded what you had for what you thought you ought to be

Hey Ruth, if anybody could have seen you twenty years ago
They never would have guessed that you would end up this way
Hey Ruth, They’d probably wonder where the fire went that
Used to light your eyes before you signed up for your permanent stay
Hey Ruth - I’m only trying to survive and I can tell you that
It makes it better just to know that you’ve got a friend
Hey Ruth - I don’t know what it is that drives you but
What good is it to get there just to find yourself alone in the end

You worked your way through all the corporate insanity
To get promoted just to satisfy your vanity
Now you’re the president in charge of all calamities
They moved your desk right underneath the sword of Damocles

I remember when you started back in ‘93
I saw you filing and I knew you were the one for me
I asked you out but you were married to the industry
You traded what you had for what you thought you ought to be

Hey Ruth, I know you probably didn’t want me to wake you,
But I wasn’t really sure if you were sleeping or dead
Hey Ruth, ‘cause when you sit there barely breathing, what the
Hell am I supposed to do, you got me going out of my head
Hey Ruth, I know you probably didn’t want me to wake you,
But I wasn’t really sure if you were sleeping or dead
Hey Ruth, ‘cause when you sit there barely breathing, what the
Hell am I supposed to do, you got me going out of my head

This song (and the rest of Onward To Yesterday) can be heard on the 'MP3' page on this web site.

2 Kings Pub.

In Whitefield NH, there's a place called the Spalding Inn. Apparently it's owned by the two dudes from that Ghost Hunters show on SyFy. Anyway, I will be there tonight (Saturday), playing a solo show in the 2 Kings Pub.

This pub is just the right setting for my drinking songs, so I expect that'll be a large part of the set. And there has been a good wifi signal every time I've been there, so I am planning on webcasting the show. So come on up and check the place out, or watch online!

Downloads.

The Onward To Yesterday album is available for digital download. Individual tracks can be downloaded for 99 cents, or you can grab the whole album for $8.99. Here's where it all happens.

Onward To Yesterday - Digital Download

I'll integrate this into the web site more elegantly when I get a chance. :)

Of course, physical copies of the CD are still available too, along with my drinking songs CD (Time For Another Round - Gold Edition). The 2007 album Permanent Record is currently out of stock, but more are on the way, and mp3 downloads should be available soon on this one as well.

Tony's.

This Friday I'm playing at Tony's in Thornton, NH. The best thing about this show (for me, anyway) is that Tony is a great supporter of original music. My trio played a St. Patrick's Day show there earlier this year, and it was a blast to play my drinking songs for the temporarily Irish crowd. I'll be working a lot of originals into the set this Friday as well (drinking and non-drinking songs included). The show starts at 6:30pm, and it will be watchable online as well.

Giuseppe's.

Tomorrow (Thursday) I'm returning to Giuseppe's in Meredith NH for a solo show. I like this room a lot, as I'm sure I've said before. The PA system is a little tricky to get used to, but the grand piano is a real treat.

I usually go in there intending to play a very piano-heavy set, but the guitar stuff (in particular, the Citizen Cope covers) got the most enthusiastic response last time. So, we'll see. Occasionally I'll get a crowd in there that is interested in the original material, and that's always good.

The show starts at 6pm. I'm going to try to put up a live video feed, so check the web site if you can't make it out to Meredith. :)

Web site update.

The long-overdue update of jimtyrrell.net is finally up! I'll be tweaking it here and there over the next few days, but this is the general idea anyway. A vast improvement over the site's previous iterations, for sure. Big thanks to Stacey Lucas for the Dreamweaver instruction.

In other news, my bass-playing blisters are healing up nicely. They'll get tested on Thursday, when I play piano and guitar at Giuseppe's in Meredith. I don't have another bass gig until a wedding on the 26th, and that'll be a pretty short set.