Goodbye Aughts, Hello Tens

It's the last day of 2009.
Time to take down the tree, shave my beard and learn to speak Mandarin Chinese.
I managed to get one more song in before the decade ended.


There's many more to come as well as a few other surprises just around the bend.

新年快乐
Miles

Bah Humbug

I've been listening to Christmas songs on the radio for the past day or so.
This is akin to Chinese water torture.
Sure it's fun for awhile...
but after you hear "Let it Snow" or "Baby It's Cold Outside" for the 500th time, you're ready to commit Hari Kari.
They play the same hundred Christmas songs over and over and over.
Sure there's different versions but I have to turn it off now before I have a conniption.
Also, lyrically these songs are all written from the point of view of someone who's actually seen...snow.
"Let it Snow" "Frosty the Snowman" "Walking in a Winter Wonderland". etc.
I live in Austin Texas.
It snows here maybe once a decade.
When it does, everything shuts down.
There's a panic run on the grocery stores that resembles Russia during World War One.
By noon the next day, all the snow has melted.
So snow is a non-event and a pain in the ass.
Sort of like the Fourth of July.

Working for tips

A few people said they'd be happy to buy the Mp3's I'm posting.
I didn't want to bother with all the rigamarole of putting these tunes up on I-tunes and they really are just demos and what have you.
I enjoy sharing them with you.
I've decided the best solution is to set up a tip jar of sorts.
If you like what you hear and want to tip me for the mp3, please do.
If you want to give me a bunch of money for no reason, that's cool too.

Songs! Songs! Give Me Songs!

Hello all.
It's December. Time to drink Brandy, grow a beard and watch a Wonderful Life.
I've also found time to write some songs.
The songwriting game is in full effect.
This time I had the choice of combining any of these two words:
Junkie
Gymnast
Spirit
School
Busy
Hands

Somewhat predictably, I gravitated toward the word Junkie.
Here is the result:

Happy Xmas

I wrote a Xmas song (my first one ever) with a Danish musician named Niels Christian.
He plays in a band called "Leaving a Small Town".
The song is called Christmas Day and it's their new single in Denmark.
You can check it out here:www.myspace.com/leavingasmalltown

Don't try this at home

I don't know how old you are but I'm definitely past the age where I'll do something that might prompt a trip to the emergency room.
When I was a kid I liked to ride my skateboard down this big hill (coincidentally, the hill was close to a hospital).
There were little pebbles all over the place and inevitably I'd hit one, the skateboard would come to an abrupt halt and I'd fly through the air and land on the gravel, scraping a knee or opening up a big gash on my elbow.
I didn't care. I was a kid.
About ten years ago I was hanging out in Colorado in the summertime. It was the off season but the gondolas were still running and that meant you could take a bike up and then come bombing down the mountain (Cue Jane's Addiction).
The first time I did it, I rode the brakes the whole way down because it was raining a little bit and I didn't want to crash.
I went back to my cabin had a nice tall Vodka Cranberry and then decided to go back up for one last ride down.
Everything went fine until about halfway through when I hit a bump way too fast and went flying through the air.
I got all cut up and destroyed the front wheel of the bike (it was a rental and I had to pay for the damages).
I had to limp the rest of the way down the mountain holding the bike like a wheelbarrow.
I didn't care. I was drunk.
Luckily those days are far behind me now. And there's no way I would ever get on a skateboard without the actual board.
But that's exactly what this cat did:

Hundred Dollar Bill

That was the title for the last songwriting game challenge.

The natives are getting restless so I guess I should make good on my promise.

Enjoy.