Dave Short

"Mayday" -- new single from The Suckers

05/01/2012

I've just released a new single about what happened in downtown Seattle this morning. It's my attempt to "Born in the USA" the smashers with a chorus that sounds jingoistic but verses that underscore the stupidity of it all. Here it is:

Mayday

There are a couple of B-Sides, too. Really the whole single has a Seattle feel. The first B-Side is a quick ditty called "Give Me a Break" that's about the upcoming vote on gay marriage in the state. The final track is a cover of "Message in a Beer Bottle" by Screeching Weasel and its link to Seattle is a little more tenuous… the narrator of the song describes walking in the rain. It's weak, but I've got to have some sort of theme!

The whole single is available for download on the Music section of the site. I guess this means it will be a part of some new Suckers album at some point in the future. Stay tuned.

Upcoming Projects -- Solo Album, Markovs, and Dr. Horrible Covers

09/26/2011

First, I've finally resumed work on my new album. It's tentatively titled From the Big Sky to the Rainy One, and I will probably finish it by the spring of 2011. I've narrowed down the song list to about ten, and I know a few more will pop up as I work on the others. It looks like it's going to be more folk-influenced than inside, and I think this time the political songs will be kept to a minimum. That's the same thing I said about the last album, though.

I'm also working on a new album from the Markovs, which is going to be straight-ahead punk rock (as opposed to the pop-punk of the Suckers). This record is a bit further along in development than the solo album... I have about five tracks laid town and nearly all of the songs are written, though not yet finalized. I'm looking to finish this one before the end of the year, if at all possible.

Finally, as kind of a fun thing, I'm working on a full-album cover of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. I'm going to employ my friends for the different parts, and if I can find enough singers I won't even be providing vocals at all. It's harder than it sounds to cast the three main parts (Dr. Horrible, Penny, and Captain Hammer) because apparently I don't know any altos or tenors. I might need to 'go public' with it and find some singers on Reddit, for example. Despite the complications, one nice thing about this will be that I can create karaoke tracks by removing.the vocals. I'm working on this in parallel to the albums mentioned above.

It's a lot on my plate, so I'm sure things will slip. As I get closer to finishing each project I'll start nailing down official release dates.

Videos - Jonathan Coulton - "I'm Your Moon", Descendents - "When I Get Old", R.E.M. - "Falls to Climb"

09/23/2011

I was busy last night, playing a lot of acoustic songs for videos. I settled on three.

"I'm Your Moon" (Jonathan Coulton)

First up, an acoustic cover of "I'm Your Moon", which is a beautiful love song between Pluto and Charon. Carrie and I wish that we'd known about this song for our wedding, as it would have been our first dance (it was "The Luckiest" by Ben Folds, which doesn't rally have much of a beat).

"When I Get Old" (Descendents)

Next up is some punk rock introspection from the Descendents.

"Falls to Climb" by R.E.M.

Finally, in honor of their breakup announcement, here's one of my favorite tracks from R.E.M. This is my go-to cheer-up song. I guess the original recording was mostly acoustic and mandolin-based, then Michael Stipe replaced all that with some synthesizers. Crazy Michael!

Video - "Quiet" (Bad Astronaut cover)

09/18/2011

This is what I would call Hangover Music:

Video - "Miles Davis & The Cool"

09/11/2011

I did two at once:

Video - Code Monkey

09/11/2011

An electric cover of "Code Monkey" by Jonathan Coulton. I'm not nearly as cool a sneering musician as that poster frame would indicate.

Video - My Freeze Ray (Dr. Horrible Cover)

09/08/2011

I thought it would be cute to do a cover of "My Freeze Ray" from the fantastic mini-musical Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Then I did a search on YouTube and it turned out that 90 other people had the same great idea. But I went ahead and recorded it... anyway.

Video -- Mary Jane Parker

08/15/2011

Recently I've been playing around with recording videos. Here is an original song, originally written for Nerds With Instruments. True to form, it's about Spider-Man's favorite redhead:



Expect more as I get more comfortable editing video.