February 2009
Steering Wheel features 11 new songs that rose up from the dirt scraped from the floor of the Pemigewasset Dump, with songs written even though the actual words and notes were only enjoying a connubial visit. With ideas ripped out of the ground by the handful of used sixteenth notes and old words.
This year the Boys didn't dig with flimsy shovels, but have toughened their skins to penetrate the first order barriers that prevent true music. Using musical shovels the Boys flung western notes into the air with the rest of their swirling ideas. In the real world true music is rolled flat by ambition and greed, while at the Pemi Dump, true music was freed to be unwanted and ignored in the present tense, which is actual art, not the cover tunes of yesterday’s flood. The electrical impulses, although captured and caged, were free and easy to become digits of recorded evenings, excited about being ones and zeroes. According to the Boys, "We don't know if it sounds good, but it sure is fun to play!"
So take a ride on the old tracks and read about the SWB's further exploits by heading on over to the Music Section for a free listen, download, etc., of their 2009 CD:
"The Sidewalk Boys, "Steering Wheel."
November 29, 2007
Six years in the making, “You are Invited to Brian” is Brian Goetz's newest solo release. The CD covers his spectrum of influences that range from Neil Young, John Prine, Tom Waits and John Hiatt to Dave Mathews and Pat Metheny. Brian melds these influences with his own personal take on “Wood, Light, Love, and Dirt.” Employing the help of numerous guest appearances by long-time musician friends, Brian has created and fourteen track autobiographical tour of his life experiences and loves. Organic and electric -- “You are Invited to Brian.”
Head on over to the Music section of this site and check out some of the mp3s, download all the songs, read the Credits or order your very own copy from CDBaby. It will also be available on iTunes in the near future.
June, 2007
Steinway Dave
The Sidewalk Boys announce the addition of Steinway Dave Lemieux to the band. Dave just happened to strike up a conversation with Sidewalk Tom and the Chunkman at the RPM World Party, where he had released his own "Home Grown String Theory" release. Tom and Dave go way back, but not musically. Unbeknownst to Tom, Dave had been tooling away all these years on mandolin and guitar. He most recently acquired "Bessy the Bass" and is warming her up for the band. He likes to tell it this way:
So I went to the dump/recycling center on Saturday. That's probably the second time I've been to the dump in a year. While there I ran into a bud and shot the breeze for a few minutes. As we talked a gentleman drove in in a pickup truck loaded with yard waste- and perched precariously on top of the pile was a stand-up double bass! WTF?
So I asked the man "You throwin that away?" to which he replied "Yep. Neck's broke but was glued. Wife has another one so we don't need this one any more."
OK so I'm crapping my pants. I take the thing home, tune it up to about 2/3 pitch and the glued neck held!!! Found out the bridge was on backwards so de-tuned, 180'ed the bridge and tuned her up to full pitch and viola- it's still holding now!!!! I've played it several times-- enough to learn that my plucking fingers aren't tough enough for any extended playing! What a riot though, huh???? I could probably put 5 mandolins into the body of this thing! Fun to play though!!!
The Boys are glad to have Dave, Bessy and his mandolin strumming along for their summer tour. Check them out or head on over for some of Dave's own Homegrown stuff at the RPMChallenge.com site:
http://www.rpmchallenge.com/component/option,com_comprofiler/task,userProfile/user,539/Itemid,296/
March, 2007
The Sidewalk Boys are back with Grundles and Trinkets. They've got lawnmowers and weed whackers flinging around... Now and then they made it onto tape, voicemail or some other form of analog or digital audio realm.
Sidewalk Tom and Chunkabilly Brian are back at it following their much heralded (is that really a word or just something we mispelled?) 2006 RPM release of "Something Shiny." Hey, don't laugh, it really sold 8 copies on CDBaby (we have the receipts to prove it) and two of them even went international... one to some guy named Louis in Spain and another to TAKASHI in Japan... So, on their behalf they thought it necessary to do a follow-up release and meet the Challenge.
So, loaded with Chili and Lentil, they headed out on the Organic Fringe, all the way to the Bordertown before ending up at the World Party in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Check out their new tunes on the music page or catch them for their CD release party at the Press Room in Portsmouth on July 12, 2007.
the Bernoulli Sailors
In the basement, with the bare light bulb blaring down on
the cracks in the old concrete floor “Sidewalk” Tom Richter
tells tall tales with his guitars, banjo, piano and voice. Accompanying
Tom on this crazy ride are true-blue Sailors that come prepared for all
weather conditions: Ace “Tip-Toe” Yates on 5-string bass and
electric guitar, Greg “Zenman” Zaino on the zendrum, Dale
“Other Room” Orr playing a mean muted trumpet in the open
spaces, and Brian “Chunkabilly” Goetz shaking the shakers,
recording, mixing, and producing the whole shebang for chunkabillymusic.
“Abandoned Appliances” is an interesting blend of folk and
blues style songwriting borrowing elements of Hiatt, Waits, Dylan, Prine
as well as Eric Anderson, Stan Rogers, and Woody Guthrie. Not to mention
Robert Johnson…Tommy Johnson…Lonnie Johnson…
This music was recorded spontaneously and remains relatively unedited. Unpolished and perhaps, more raw bar than deep fry. Still, the Sailors took to the basement and hunkered down to create "Abandoned Appliances," while waiting for the chance to mobilize for their next sail. Take a ride with the Sailors as they crest the waves between the notes of their guitars, banjo, bass, drums, keys and horn.
The RPM Challenge - Record an album in 28 days - February, 2006:
From The Sidewalk Boys RPM Weblog:
Sunday, 29 January 2006
Well, you walk down the road sometimes and find stuff that people throw
away. So you take it home and find a use for it. We're a work in progress
but we hope to find enough trash along the side of the road by February
so we'll have enough material to cut 10 tunes. Probably pull an all-nighter
or something like that.
Had a Garage Sale The Other Night
Friday, 17 February 2006
Worked on eight tunes. The night ended up more like a garage sale than a trip to the landfill. You know, as a guitar player you always dream of stopping at a garage sale and see an old Gibson or Martin sitting over in the corner. The woman having the sale says, "Oh yeah, that was my son's. He bought that about 25 or 30 years ago because he wanted to learn to play guitar. It's been sitting in his closet for years. Needs new strings I think. I'll sell it to you for $25.00."
We swapped old ditties and came up with some new licks. Traded "Tall Tales" about bands and gigs gone by. They got taller as the night progressed, with the help of some local brews.
Tom had the best quote; "The guitar gives you the planet to populate
your lyrics."
Need a trip to the woodshed
Tuesday, 21 February 2006
Recorded nine tunes last night. Just over 35 minutes running right now. Tom thinks we need to "rough it up a bit Brian... things went too smooth." We're thinking that a trip to the woodshed might get the job done.
Something Shiny
Saturday, 25 February 2006
Didn’t quite make it out to the woodshed last night but we cleaned out a few closets and got the dogs together to wrestle over the bones. They slammed about and interupted a song or two but were as well behaved as a yellow and black labrador retriever can be when they get together.
Tom’s digging this project because he say’s “everybody’s dragging their own prison around. You need something like this to get you out of the rut. Finding something shiny is the challenge.”
Just Under "The Wire"
Tuesday, 28 February 2006
We were worried that we’d have to take some of the tunes out with the trash, but we came in two minutes under "The Wire." Even Phil’s tracks from Brooklyn lined up pretty well.
Now it’s time to get back to the real projects at hand: Tom Richter’s Bernoulli Sailors CD, “Abandoned Appliances,” and Brian Goetz’s Chunkabilly CD, “You Are Invited to Brian.” More info on those releases will be up soon @ www.Chunkabillymusic.com or check out www.MySpace.com/chunkabillymusic
There are a lot of mysteries out there. The biggest one just might be the song that happens when you hit record.
The Sidewalk Boys, RPMChallenge Album Release Party.
Brian Goetz andTom Richter @ The Press Room - March 9, 2006
Home | What's New | Artists | Music | Media | Other Stuff | Contact
(c) copyright 2006 by Chunkabillymusic.com - Brian F. Goetz