Category: Music

Feline Matchmaking

Timothy Price62 Comments

Resa, who has the Art Gowns blog, and Spunk have had a thing going for a while now. When I posted The Persistence of Spunkery a couple of weeks ago, Holly and Marina got confused and thought that Resa’s cat Jeep* and Spunk had a thing going. With inspiration from Holly and Marina and collaboration with Resa, I wrote a song about our feline matchmaking and creating a modern, virtual, long-distance romance during these times of Covid cooties between Jeep and Spunk.

Feline Matchmaking
Music & Lyrics by Timothy Price
Inspired by Holly and Marina
Collaboration between Resa and Timothy

Intro
Can we have long-distance love
For kitties locked down, locked in, Zoomed?

Verse
Jeep’s up north to the east
Spunk’s down south to the west

Jeep says meuw, not meow
Spunk says mew followed by a growl

Jeep is four dimensions in three
Spunk’s dimensions? Egyptian eyes
Jeep is a sweet girly whirly
Spunk has his destructive manly ways

Bridge
Girly/Manly ways attract
Equals
Virtual romance for a matter-of-fact

Chorus
Feline matchmaking during Covid cooties
Long-distance love-making, feline beauties
Purring, growling, rubbing screens
Jeep and Spunk have hit the scene

Bridge
Virtual love and Covid Cooties
Modern romance oh so beauti…
Full of screen-time Zoom Zoom Zoomed

Chorus
Feline matchmaking, Covid cooties
Long-distance love-making, feline beauties
Purring, growling, rubbing screens
Jeep and Spunk have hit the scene

*Jeep is named after Eugene the Jeep in the Popeye comic strip[1]. The vehicle we know of as a Jeep was also named after Eugene the Jeep by soldiers during WWII who thought the Willys MB light utility vehicle was “small, able to move between dimensions and could solve seemingly impossible problems”[2].

Non-Tubular Bells

Timothy Price70 Comments

John at Las Vegas Photo Blog posted a video of church bells ringing in Banff, Canada, which reminded me that I had recorded the bells ringing while on the bell towers at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, in 2018. I found the video and decided it was boring by itself because the bells at Notre Dame were very loud standing in the bell tower, and they didn’t have any variation other than a bunch of bells ringing at once. Therefore, I wrote a piece of music to go with the bells and put together a rather strange music video called Non-Tubular Bells. I include photos from Notre Dame in 2018 before the fire, pictures of Paris taken from the bell towers, video of the American Flag at our neighbor’s house, video of our neighbor’s dogs playing in the Rio Grande, and video of the Owlets flapping their wings and flying a little.

Wet Coachwhip Snake

Timothy Price44 Comments

I got a video of a Coachwhip Snake (Masticophis flagellum testaceous) swimming in the irrigation ditch. I know a lot of people have trouble with snakes, but they are really quite beautiful. It’s not often I see a Coachwhip Snake taking a swim. After we got back from checking on the owls and walking in the bosque this morning, I wrote a song to go with the video, appropriately named Coachwhip Snake. I recorded the song and put it all together in the above video this afternoon. Enjoy!

Coachwhip Snake
Lyrics: Timothy Price
Music: Timothy Price

Verse
Slither swimming in the ditch
Sloppy sine wave between the wake
Slips the bank scales in cross-stitch
Stops and eyes me with suspicion

Bridge
We stand we stare he and me
Paparazzo and snake admiration

Chorus
Masticophis flagellum testaceous
That’s what I said
Beautiful snake, braided scales
Colubrid whipped up in western red

Verse
Slither swimming in the ditch
Sloppy sine wave between the wake

Bridge
We stand we stare he and me
Paparazzo and snake admiration

Chorus
Masticophis flagellum testaceous
That’s what I said
Beautiful snake, braided scales
Colubrid whipped up in western red

Sphingidae — Sphinx Moth

Timothy Price44 Comments

A Sphingidae — Spinx Moth, AKA Hummingbird Hawk-Moth, was fluttering around feeding on our Purple Salvia with the bees and the butterflies. I made a short video of it and added one of our recordings of Caña for background music (I’m playing and Laurie’s dancing). The only sound on the original video was the wind.

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Challenges

Timothy Price53 Comments

There seems to be all kinds of challenges in the blogosphere, mostly photo challenges, and writing challenges. Here are a few challenges I recorded.

The first challenge was the song that started out as a drum track that Joel put together. He sent me the track and gave me the challenge to make a song out of it. I laid down a bass track, followed by a rhythm guitar track. I made up a vocal track on the spot, so I have not written down the lyrics, then I laid down the lead guitar track. One take for each track. I named the song  Joel’s Beat.

 

The second challenge was when I was finally able to get my car washed (car washes had been closed under the lockdown). I washed my car and what did I get? Dust and muddy kitty prints all over the lid.

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The third challenge was for Big Baby Owl who had flown over to another branch on the cottonwood tree, then decided to climb the trunk of the tree to get up where Mama Owl was perched high above her. Big Baby Owl climbed and climbed, flapped her wings over the more difficult parts, and finally got into a fork in the tree about 10 feet from Mama Owl. She looked up at Mama Owl and Mama Owl flew off. Big Baby Owl was devastated. She just stood in the fork of the tree with her head bowed (click on the photos for an enlarged slide show).

 

The fourth challenge was photographing black Irises that are bleached purple in our intense sunshine. The irises look almost black to the naked eye, but properly exposed photos show how purple black really is.

 

The fifth challenge was doing super wide-angle photos of Spunk and living to write about it and post the photos.

 

Flamenco in the Old Church

Timothy Price40 Comments

While I was looking for the video file for Bite ‘Em on the Old Shin Bone last night to make a few updates to the video before posting it, I found a video of Laurie (Laura de Corrales) and me (El Cheo) performing Alegrías with Pablo Rodarte in a show we did in the Old Church in Corrales in the mid-1990s. Pablo danced Alegrías, Laura de Corrales is the Palmera, and El Cheo accompanied on guitar. I transferred the video from VHS to m4v several years ago, so the image quality is not very good. However, the sound is not too bad, considering.

In preparing for the show, Laurie and I practiced daily, I practiced with Pablo’s other students several days each week, but when it came to Pablo’s performance our practice together consisted of 15 minutes of Pablo doing a quick run-through of each part of the Alegías a week before the show. I simply had to follow all his leads during the performance.

Laurie and I both studied flamenco dance with Pablo, and I played flamenco guitar for many of his dance classes back in the 1990s before we moved to Spain for almost four years.

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The Old San Ysidro Church in Corrales
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Laura de Corrales dancing Tanguillos. El Cheo providing guitar accompaniment.

Livin’ La Vida Lockdown

Timothy Price60 Comments

Livin’ La Vida Lockdown

Music: Ricky Martin
Lyrics: Timothy Price

From LA to New York City
Canada to the wall
It’s like bad renditions
Of movies like “The Fall”

So many lamentations
News gives us all a fright
Only sick and grave predictions
We are in an awful plight

You can take your clothes off and stand naked in the rain
But there’s no one to see you, now isn’t that a shame?
Isn’t that a shame? Come on.

Inside can’t go out
Livin’ la vida lockdown
Makes us scream and shout
Livin’ la vida lockdown
We can’t earn our bread
Enough to drive us loca
Lockdowns wear us out
Livin’ la vida lockdown (oh man!)
Livin’ la vida lockdown (how sad!)
Livin’ la vida lockdown

Woke up such a pity what a funky nasty spell
We do your part to save some money
But it’s like a living hell

Restless, climbing walls, all this waiting’s such a pain
Now we’re all alone, and it’s driving us insane
Yeah, we’ll never be the same

Inside can’t go out
Livin’ la vida lockdown
Makes us scream and shout
Livin’ la vida lockdown
We can’t earn our bread
Enough to drive us loca
Lockdowns wear us out
Livin’ la vida lockdown (oh man!)
Livin’ la vida lockdown (how sad!)
Livin’ la vida lockdown

Ride a horse naked like Godiva in the rain
But there’s no one to see you, isn’t that a shame?
Isn’t that a shame? Come on.

Inside can’t go out
Livin’ la vida lockdown
Makes us scream and shout
Livin’ la vida lockdown
We can’t earn our bread
Enough to drive us loca
Lockdowns wear us out
Livin’ la vida lockdown (Yeah!)

Livin’ la vida lockdown

Livin’ la vida lockdown
Livin’ la vida lockdown
Livin’ la vida lockdown

Lola Limp

Timothy Price50 Comments

Lola has degenerative arthritis in her right paw. The bones got separated so the Vet splined Lola’s leg. We hope her bones will fuse back together with her paw stabilized by the splint. Lola feels so much better with the splint and she gets around really well it. I couldn’t resent writing a song for her.

Lola Limp

Music and Lyrics by Timothy Price
Vocals: AWB
Guitars: Timothy Price
Bass: Timothy Price
Percussion: Assembled by Timothy Price

Lola has a nasty limp
The doctor put her in a splint
It’s enough to make you shiver
Now she looks like she’s Long John Silver

Come on Come on
Do the Lola limp with me
Stiffen up one leg
Like a limb on a tree
Limp once forward
Un pasito adelante
Limp side right
Shake it make it kinda funky
Limp once backward
un pasito a la trás
Limp side left
Lola limp is like a box

Flying Felines

Timothy Price51 Comments

While people are wringing their hands, gnashing their teeth, and hoarding toilet paper over all the happenings in the world right now, our kitties headed for the sky and did some feline flying to stay above it all. Kitties know how to have fun in times of trouble.

Flying Felines

Music and Lyrics by Timothy Price
Guitars: Timothy Price
Bass: Timothy Price
Percussion arranged by Timothy Price

Felines flying one by one
Felines in the sky today
Here they come having fun

Felines flying

Felines walking on the air
Flying up, down and all around
They found a way to fly away

Felines flying in the air
Going high in the sky
Going nowhere

They’re going nowhere fast

Felines flying in the air
Through the sky they walk on air

Felines flying in the sky
Felines in the air so fine
They know where they are going
Up with the birds in the air

Felines flying in the sky walking on air
In the air they are so fine walking on the line

Space Herpes

Timothy Price29 Comments

With all the attention on the Coronavirus, everyone seems to have forgotten about space herpes (https://news.sky.com/story/nasa-issues-space-herpes-warning-as-virus-reactivates-in-astronauts-11669335). Space Herpes is a parody of Deep Purple’s Space Truckin’ off their Machine Head album released 48 years ago this month.

Space Herpes

Music: Deep Purple
Lyrics: Timothy Price
Guitars: Timothy Price
Bass: Timothy Price
Drums: Ian Paice

Well we lip locked with the Vals on Venus
We were making out a lot on Mars
We’re smooching with the groovy aliens
Kissed across the universe a far

We messed around with Borealis
We got space herpes from the stars

Oh no oh no oh no
we got space herpes
oh no oh no oh no
space herpes

Remember when we kissed the moon rocks
Swinging around the Milky Way
We found Uranus was a rude shock
Pluto doesn’t see the light of day

We’re messin’ round in the solar system
And got space herpes along the way

Oh no oh no oh no
we got space herpes
oh no oh no oh no
space herpes

The Fireball we drank was burning
And now we have a new routine
Yeah yeah yeah yeah Marline said
They can kiss, but they cannot sing

We’re messin’ round in the solar system
Swinging around the Milky Way
We messed around with Borealis
Got space herpes everyday

Oh no oh no oh no
we got space herpes
oh no oh no oh no
space herpes

Oh no oh no oh no
we got space herpes
oh no oh no oh no
space herpes