Tag: indie music

April Bandcamp Friday: Péchés d’âge moyen II: One Week in March

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Today’s post is no April Fool’s joke:  I managed to eke out another release in time for the April Bandcamp Friday:  Péchés d’âge moyen II: One Week in March.

It’s half the tracks of Péchés d’âge moyen, which was not my original intent.  I’d hoped to record at least another ten, but with time dwindling, I opted instead to record the five pieces I wrote the week of 14-18 March 2022.

I managed to compose one piece each day that week, and it was an eventful one:  Pi Day (14 March), The Ides of March (15 March), and Saint Patrick’s Day (17 March) all fell within days of one another.

The track listing is as follows:

  1. “Pi Day” (Monday, 14 March 2022)
  2. “The Ides of March” (Tuesday, 15 March 2022)
  3. “Downpour” (Wednesday, 16 March 2022)
  4. “Saint Patrick’s Day Jig” (Thursday, 17 March 2022)
  5. “An Impressionist’s Friday Afternoon” (Friday, 18 March 2022)

There’s also a bonus track version of “Pi Day,” which I recorded at school on a Baldwin Acrosonic spinet piano (the same piano used in Péchés d’âge moyen.  Again, I’d hoped to record the whole thing on there, but it just wasn’t possible given time constraints and work commitments.  Instead, I played the tracks on my Casio CDP-S100.

And, if you’re feeling really generous—or would like something pretty to hang on your walls—I’m selling the one-of-kind painting I used for the album cover.  It’s called “Springtime.”

Finally, there’s all of my other great music.

Happy Listening!

—TPP

March Bandcamp Friday: New Release!

The Portly Politico6 Comments

After a lot of frantic composing and sloppy recording, it’s here: Péchés d’âge moyen, my short collection of twelve original piano miniatures.

My self-imposed deadline was today, the March 2022 Bandcamp Friday.  I made it—barely!

The total recording clocks in at just six minutes and thirty-five seconds, but I’ve jam-packed this release with bonus features:  videos, original manuscripts of each piece, and a PDF booklet detailing the origins of the project.  It’s not bad for $5 (although that comes out to approximately $1.43 per minute if you just listen to the album once).

I also had a blast putting this recording together.  The feel of putting pen to paper is just so satisfying, and each little bit of written music is like its own little work of art.  One reason I included the manuscripts with the recording is because they’re beautiful to look at—even with my poor penmanship.

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Supporting Friends Friday: Frederick Ingram’s “Yesterday’s Weather”

The Portly Politico9 Comments

My good friend and fellow musician Frederick Ingram released a hot new LP (really a “double EP”), Initial Exposure, back in December.  It’s a great album, and I’m going to review it soon(ish).

But today, I wanted to look back at one of his older songs, from Frederick’s Elements.  This single/EP has always held a warm place in my heart.  I remember playing some Christmastime gigs with Frederick when he released this little recording, and I still find it enjoyable.

It’s not just nostalgia for younger, slimmer days and more musically ambitious times.  It’s a good recording.  The lead-off single, “Carolina Sands,” is a highly listenable song about the beauty of South Carolina.  But for all of its radio-friendly qualities, I find it is now my least favorite track on the release (which, to be clear, does not mean it is a bad song—it’s very good!).

That distinction likely goes to “Yesterday’s Weather.”  The track features Frederick’s characteristically enigmatic songwriting and ability to craft hypnotic grooves against naturalistic metaphors.

It’s a song about lost love, all framed in terms of hot (or cold?) fronts and currents:

I highly recommend listening with good headphones; it really captures the sonic subtleties of the piece, as well as the droning, persistent bass line.

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The End of Bancamp Friday

The Portly Politico25 Comments

Well, all good things must come to an end:  much to my readers’ relief, I’m sure, Bandcamp Friday has come to an end.

Since March 2020, Bandcamp has dedicated the first Friday of most months to Bandcamp Friday, a day when the service waived its share of proceeds paid for musicians’ music.  That meant that musicians got almost the full value of the sale, minus whatever PayPal takes out.  In other words, a musician who sold his entire discography for $19.98 (like yours portly) would receive almost all of that amount, as Bandcamp waived its customary 15%.  That’s $3 more going to the musician; over, say, ten transactions, that adds up to real money.

For now, though, it looks like it’s over.  Bandcamp introduced Bandcamp Friday as a way to help musicians during The Age of The Virus, when most venues were shuttered and musicians couldn’t play gigs.  No gigs, no merch and CD sales.  No sales, no money.  My performance royalties—never a huge source of income, but a nice extra couple of hundred bucks, dried up almost completely in 2021 (royalties are paid on such a long delay, it wasn’t until 2021 that I experienced the effects of having not played my original music live in 2020).

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Supporting Friends Friday: Frederick Ingram’s “Initial Exposure”

The Portly Politico3 Comments

Just last week I wrote about my friend Frederick Ingram‘s new Christmas jam, “Jesus of Nazareth (Walked into a Bar).”  What I didn’t realize is that the tune was a part of a new album—really a double EP—that Frederick has been quietly assembling.

(Note that I’ll refer to Frederick Ingram as “Frederick” here on out, as I know him personally and consider him a friend.  I know the standard is to use the artist’s last name in subsequent mentions, and if some big city alternative paper picks up this review, I’ll happily edit it accordingly.  For this blog, though, I’m keeping it on a the first-name basis. —TPP)

The record—which drops today!—is Initial Exposure, and it combines tracks from two EPs from earlier this year:  June 2021’s Initial Exposure and November 2021’s Culture Exposure (which features the song about Jesus delivering His Message in a hopping nightspot).

I’ll confess that, at the time of writing, I have not listened to all of the ten tracks on the LP (but I did buy it on Bandcamp!), though I have heard several of them before, both live and recorded versions.  As such, this post is not a review of the album, per se, but instead a way to help give Initial Exposure some, uh, initial exposure.

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Supporting Friends Friday: Frederick Ingram’s Christmas Groove

The Portly Politico11 Comments

Today is the day of the big Christmas concert at school, and despite some moments of despair earlier in the week, I am feeling cautiously optimistic about the whole thing.  The kids are going to do a wonderful job, I am sure; I’m more worried about getting all of the tech stuff done in time, but it will happen, one way or another.

That said, it’s going to be a short Supporting Friends Friday this week—at least for me.  You, dear reader, get to listen to six minutes and twenty-four seconds of an excellent new Christmas track from my good buddy Frederick Ingram.

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Lazy Sunday CXXX: Friends, Part II

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The friendship rolls on this Sunday, as I continue to look back at past editions of Supporting Friends Friday (read last week’s here).  Introducing the (nearly) weekly feature has been a real joy, and it’s quickly become one of my favorite of my regularly recurring series.

The three installments featured this Sunday are a bit of a mixed-bag, unlike last week’s heavily musical selection.  We’ve got a professor and her book of poetry; an organization dedicated to helping bull terriers; and another musician buddy of mine:

Well, that’s it for another Lazy Sunday.  Thank you for being a friend!

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

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The Return of Bandcamp Friday

The Portly Politico3 Comments

After taking off during the long summer months, Bandcamp is bringing back Bandcamp Friday today, and continuing it the first Friday of every month through the end of 2021.

For those that have forgotten—or steadfastly ignored my many, many, many, many, many posts about it—Bandcamp Friday is when Bandcamp waives the 15% commission they usually take on sales through the site.  So, if you buy, say, Electrock EP: The Four Unicorns of the Apocalypse for $4, I get almost the full $4 (PayPal takes a small cut still), instead of $4 minus $0.60 to Bandcamp.

Another, more dramatic example:  if you buy my full discography at $19.98, Bandcamp doesn’t take their $3 cut, so most of that goes directly to me (again, minus the transaction fee PayPal assesses).

Bandcamp began doing Bandcamp Fridays during The Age of The Virus, when most musicians (myself included) witnessed a catastrophic drop in their revenue.  Venues closed or stopped live music; parents withdrew students from one-on-one lessons; and private parties were cancelled, meaning fewer of those lucrative gigs.  Also, fewer live performances meant fewer royalties for songwriters.

Fortunately, that situation is improving, and people are eager to get out and hear live music again.  Still, pitching in a few bucks helps immensely—and you get some good music in the process, too!

So, on with the sales pitch!  Here are my seven releases, in chronological order:

  • Electrock Music (2006, $5) – Twelve tracks from my senior year of college, all instrumental MIDI tunes.  I gave physical copies to my Fiction Writing Workshop class; I wonder if they still have those little homemade copies.
  • Electrock II: Space Rock (2007, $7) – I’m obsessed with the idea of the sci-fi rock opera (I actually tried to write one for piano and vocals back in 2012-2013, but never finished it)—it’s the most decadent, self-indulgent form of musical expression.  That was the driving spirit behind this rockin’ collection of out-of-this-world jams.
  • Electrock EP: The Four Unicorns of the Apocalypse (2012, $4) – My younger brother introduced me to a song call “Biomachinery” by some melodic death metal band, and the rhythm of that word inspired the lead-off track of this four-song cycle, “Cyborg Unicorn.”  Of course, the instrumental chorus of that track is basically Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll,” so it’s true what they say:  composers swipe from each other all the time.
  • Electrock Retrospective, Volume I: Dance Party (2013, $3.60) – I had a number of tracks stored up for a never-completed Electrock III, so I thought I would begin dribbling them out as part of repackaged “retrospectives.”  This first one, Dance Party, features “Robobop,” which is also a perk for $5 subscribers to my SubscribeStar page.
  • Electrock Retrospective, Volume II: Technological Romance (2013, $2.14) – Technological Romance features “Pwrblld (Ballad II)“—with apologies to Chicago’s “You’re the Inspiration.”
  • Contest Winner EP (2015, $5) – This album is my tour de force.  I recorded it in a real-life studio, overdubbing my vocals with my piano part.  It was an amazing experience, and these tunes are staples of my live shows (especially fan favorites “Hipster Girl Next Door” and “Greek Fair“).
  • The Lo-Fi Hymnal (2020, $4) – I started playing piano at my little Free Will Baptist Church a couple of years ago, and I began taking little recordings of offertory, invitational, etc.  I compiled the four very lo-fi recordings into a short compilation.  I’m hoping to record a second volume at some point.

An easy (and free) way to support me is to “follow” my Bandcamp page and my Amazon author page.  I post updates about new merchandise, new music, and other interesting offers about once a month to the Bandcamp page, and new books will pop up on my Amazon page as they’re published.  It’s a good way to keep up with the latest news on my musical adventures.

Another free way to support me is to turn off your ad-blocker.  The site delivers several thousand ad impressions monthly, but most of those are blocked, which means they don’t pay out.  You can usually find the ad-blocker as a little widget or icon in the upper-right-hand side of your browser; click on it and it will usually give you the option to “pause” or stop the blocker from running on this site.  I know ads are annoying, but seeing a few DuckDuckGo ads helps out in an incremental way.

Even if none of that entices you, no worries!  I’m just glad to have you here, reading my self-indulgent garbage and my lengthy advertisement posts.

Happy Friday!

—TPP