The Roman numeral “L” means “fifty,” which means I’ve been writing these Open Mic Adventures posts for nearly a year now. It also means I couldn’t pass up the alliterative opportunity to have the Lth edition feature “Lament of the Lizardman,” which will appear on my next album, Spooky Season II: Rise of the Cryptids, due out on Bandcamp this Friday, 6 October 2023, and on all streaming services one week later, Friday the 13th (mwahahahaha!).
For those that don’t know, the Lizardman of Lee County is a local cryptid here in the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. He is most strongly associated with Bishopville, South Carolina, which is a mere twenty-minute drive from my place.
This past Friday, 22 September 2023, I played a gig at a local coffee shop with my buddy John. I was recovering from a sinus infection, but through a combination of cough drops, water, and tea, I soldiered through and managed to hit quite a few high notes—woooooot! It also helped having John there to carry lead vocals on several tunes.
It was a sloppy performance on my end—I mixed up the lyrics to a song I have been singing for eleven years!—but I’m chalking that up to the sinus congestion and my slowly diminishing mental faculties. The result, regardless, was an absurd, self-indulgent, over-the-top, ridiculous, long closing number to a very fun show.
While working on Spooky Season II: Rise of the Cryptids (coming to Bandcamp on Friday, 6 October 2023), I composed a couple of tracks that only somewhat related, “Meandering” and “Plodder.” These were pieces I’d written snippets of in my composing journal, but which were more or less experiments in unusual meters and concepts. “Plodder,” for example, is written to be intentionally muddy—lots of low-end bass notes and tight tone clusters, producing something akin to the effect of a small child or a cat leaning on the low keys of the piano:
I added in tuba and bass clarinet (the latter is quickly becoming my favorite, spooky sound) to drive home that thick, sludgy low-end sound.
“Plodder” fits the cryptid theme of the album a bit better of these two “movement”-inspired pieces. One could imagine Bigfoot or some zombie (are zombies cryptids?; maybe some variations would be considered as such) plodding slowly through the forests, although all the “footage” of “Bigfoot” I’ve seen seems to indicate he’s a fairly fast fellow.
Regardless, I found these two pieces particularly unusual and unorthodox, and opted to share them with you, my faithful subscribers, ahead of the album’s release.
I’ve been composing like a madman while I still have a free demo subscription to Noteflight. I’ve already composed Spooky Season, and have a sequel composed and set to release on 6 October 2023 on Bandcamp, then to all other streaming platforms on 13 October 2023. The sequel, Spooky Season II: Rise of the Cryptids, is ten tracks, and will be loaded with bonus features, including the videos featured in today’s post.
One of my favorite pieces from Spooky Season is “Bavarian Bop,” a short piece for small instrumental ensemble that I also rearranged for solo piano. It’s a little Oktoberfest-inspired bit of musical whimsy.
As I’ve delved deeper into YouTube, I’ve discovered the platform has a little blog for creators that points out the major Internet trends of the moment. The Internet is constantly evolving, with new trends and memes coming and going the shifting tides—but faster! Apparently, Gen Zers are running around calling charisma “rizz.” We have always been at war with Eurasia!
One meme doing the rounds is the “canon event” meme. The meme comes from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), where multiple Peter Parkers (or their equivalents) from multiple universes all experience certain “canon events,” which are (allegedly) unalterable: the bite from the radioactive spider; the death of a beloved family member; the loss of the love interest; etc. In meme form, YouTubers and TikTok(k?)ers will feature milestone or rite-of-passage events as “canon events,” often remarking, “I cannot interfere.” These events are typically something cringe-inducing or silly, like picking a weird name for PlayStation online.
I find the concept of “canon events”—what we used to call a “rite of passage”—interesting, and thought I’d hop on the Internet bandwagon with a little piano piece called “Canon Event.”
No worries—there will (probably) be more sweaty, robust live performances soon. But as we endure the heat and misery of August, I’m already looking ahead to the coolness and fun of Halloween.
So, what better way to get in the spooky mood than with a little skeletal gyrating?
There is little I love more than playing and singing my humorous original songs. But a close second is subjecting my readers to my bizarre short piano compositions. So, why not look at back at some of my weird piano music?
“Open Mic Adventures XXXI: ‘Carousel’” – I wrote this piece one afternoon and my Middle School Music Ensemble students nominated and voted on a title. “Carousel” won the day! It’s inspired by Franz Joseph Haydn’s Seven German Dances, specifically the first one.
“Open Mic Adventures XXXIV: ‘Chase’s Dilemma’” – A very simple sightreading exercise for one of my piano students, “Chase’s Dilemma” throws in a playful and slightly dissonant F# major to keep the player on his (or her) toes.
Back on Thursday, 20 July 2023 I made a pilgrimage back to Lula’s Coffee Company, which for several years before The Age of The Virus was the epicenter of a flourishing of musical and cultural activity in Florence, South Carolina. Then the management dragged its feet on resuming open mic post-pandemic, and I largely wrote it off as a venue.
Fortunately, I am overcame my stubborn resistance and occasionally make it out there for open mic night. It is a long way from my home now, so I don’t get out there much, but I found my most recent visit to be quite rewarding.
My buddy John Pickett and I played “Greek Fair“; I regard this song as the best I have ever written. Others have proven more popular, but I’m really proud of this one.
The Portly Politico 