Ghosts of christmas presence

As has become the custom over the past five years, the mustard room has produced yet another holiday offering as a gift to all those who have chosen to join those associated or "in cahoots" with this particular room. This year of 2007 has not necessarily been one of which we look back on with particular fondness. It's been a year of great celebration and devastating heartbreak for us. Yet, in four short weeks, I was struck with the ridiculous idea of simultaneously writing and recording on four-track tape the sounds and songs what have become "Ghosts of Christmas Presence." It's our little audible christmas card to you our family and friends. The songs here were forged among painful memories and hopeful futures. They have become very dear to us. Thanks for listening. We love you. Here's wishing you a joyous new year!

-joel & miranda

The immaculate Concepcion

An aural supplement, episode 10

Running Time: 1:17:24| File Size 71 MB
Download: .mp3
To subscribe to this podcast: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ARockeyHomeCompanionPodcast

November has come and gone and the frigid winter greets us with a harsh wind as we pull those whom we love nearer. Somehow, the over saturation of holiday music piping through the aroma of sweet espresso while sipping gingernog has left us wanting. Now it is time for that which brings us to a refreshing place of meditation during this seasonally sacred moment before the christening of a new year of opportunity. We missed you. We hope you missed us as well.

1. Blind Boys of Alabama w/ Tom Waits “Go Tell It on the Mountain”
2. Otis Redding “White Christmas”
3. Okkervil River “Listening to Otis Redding at Home During Christmas”
4. Death Cab for Cutie “Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)”
5. Feist “Lo, How a Rose E're Blooming”
6. Jill Sobule “Merry Christmas from the Family”
7. Clarence Carter “Back Door Santa”
8. Nicole & the Dreamcatchers “What a Day for a Dog of Gold”
9. Half-handed Cloud “Asian Meteorologists Predicted the Heavens to Snow Down a Child, a Child to Us”
10. Create(!) “Hymn for St. John of Shanghai”
11. Sufjan Stevens “We Three Kings”
12. Lyle Lovett “Christmas Morning”
13. Steve Earle “Christmas in Washington”
14. Tom Waits “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis”
15. Bill Cosby “Christmas Time”
16. Vince Guaraldi Trio “Skating”
17. The Staple Singers “Who Took the Merry Out of Christmas”
18. Marvin Gaye “Purple Snowflakes”
19. Joel Rockey “The Twenty-Fifth Day”
20. The Carpenters “Ave Maria”
21. The Peanuts “Hark, The Herald Angels Sing”
22. Damien Rice “Happy Xmas (War is Over)”
23. Ray Charles “That Spirit of Christmas”

Every man's a liar

"God is the one who made me and gave me everything that's good. I'm friends with him most of the time, but he's friends with me all of the time."

-David Eugene Edwards

Over the past few years, my good friend Chris has turned me on to some artists of song whom I owe him greatly for. Most notably would be Bill Mallonee of Vigilantes of Love and David Eugene Edwards of Sixteen Horsepower and Wovenhand. I've recently been enjoying the Sixteen Horsepower DVD titled 16HP. Found on these two discs are videos with haunting imagery, concert footage and interviews. Most revealing is Edwards' interview with Paul Epstein in which he recalls his boyhood travels with his grandfather, a Nazarene preacher, making visits to the ill and attending funerals and weddings of people he didn't know. He also discusses how he connected profoundly to the somber, simple music of the church. During a break in the interview, Edwards shares a couple of intimate performances, first of the old hymn "Wayfaring Stranger" and second, a beautiful rendition of Bob Dylan's "Nobody 'Cept You".

Lately

drinking much coffee

writing

recordingthinking

drinking more coffee

missing our babies

crying

hoping

drinking more coffee

connecting

listening

giving

drinking more coffee

still learning how to die

still learning how to live

still drinking coffee

Thank you aunt patti.

Look what I inherited over the weekend. Jealous?

An aural supplement, episode 9

Running Time: 1:04:43| File Size 59 MB
Download: .mp3
To subscribe to this podcast: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ARockeyHomeCompanionPodcast

The ground grows colder by the hour as we construct our masks and ask to devour the candy corn cobs turning to dust in the wake of Autumn's final gust. Chilled to the bone, guest host Senor Hector LaVeta tempts the recesses of your ears with hallowed tones of excitable stones being thrown in the dark of night.

1. Violent Femmes “I Hear the Rain”
2. Tom Waits “Cold Cold Ground (Live)”
3. Diana Krall “Temptation”
4. Warren Zevon “Excitable Boy”
5. Duane Eddy “Rebel Rouser”
6. The Coasters “Down in Mexico”
7. Paul McCartney “Why Don't We Do It in the Road (Demo)”
8. Flight of the Conchords “Bowie”
9. David Bowie “Oh! You Pretty Things”
10. The Who “Batman”
11. Donovan “Hurdy Gurdy Man”
12. E.L.O. “Hold On Tight”
13. Elvis Costello “Brilliant Disguise”
14. Jerry Seinfeld “Halloween (Edit)”
15. Ryan Adams “Halloweenhead”
16. Great Lake Swimmers “Moving Pictures Silent Films”
17. Tom Waits “The Pontiac”
18. John Lennon “Look at Me”
19. Billy Bragg “I Don't Need This Pressure Ron”
20. Warren Zevon “I Was in the House When the House Burned Down”

Domestic reparation

This is what our life has resorted to... Miranda and I have three days of Fall vacation and we spent every waking hour working ye ole homestead over...

Miranda touches up the edges of our babies' beautiful room...

Left handed piggies after hours of strumming my guit 'n' painting white doors even whiter...

This bathroom sink finally gets a swift kick in the ass. No more squeak, no more leak. P.S. We're best of pals now...

Doesn't seem like three days of work, I know.

Supplying the soundtrack to the weekends events...

Even after watching this painful video from his latest album...

I just listen to McCartney or Ram and all is right with the world. These one word titled debut and sophomore solo albums are all the reason you need to call this Paul Sir.

Being for the benefit of the sold project

Recently, I have been acquainted with some folks who are part of an endeavor called The SOLD Project. A group of twenty-somethings spent the summer in South East Asia to shoot a film in hopes of will creating awareness amongst our generation about the world of sex slavery. I am honored to have been asked to perform at a benefit at the Harrison Center for the Arts onOctober 19th which hopes to generate support for this project. The music kicks off at 7:00pm and the cost is ten US dollars. All proceeds will go toward the SOLD Project. Other artists performing will be My Hidden Track, Jascha, Tom Loschiavo and Those Young Lions. Come out and enjoy these local artists and support this movement to bring awareness and eradication to this atrocious crime against humanity which enslaves millions of children today.

An aural supplement, episode 8

Running Time: 1:09:03 | File Size 79 MB
Download: .mp3
To subscribe to this podcast: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ARockeyHomeCompanionPodcast

The end of the season is all upons and the air is getting crispy along with the grass. Crank up the mower one last time and let us keep you company as we empty hand our way through another installment of an aural supplement. Another fine supper time chock full of steak, cake and vegetables. The grub's on us and we're open all night.

1. Michelle Shocked “Can't Take My Joy”
2. Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band “Radio Nowhere”
3. Paul Simon “Learn How to Fall”
4. The Beach Boys “Vegetables”
5. Jim Gaffigan “Steak & Salad”
6. Josh Ritter “Rumors”
7. Cold War Kids “Saint John”
8. Elliott Smith “I Don't Think I'm Ever Gonna Figure It Out”
9. Pixies “Here Comes Your Man”
10. Monty Python “Rock Notes”
11. Crowded House “Mean to Me”
12. Colin Hay “Maggie”
13. Taj Mahal “Cakewalk Into Town”
14. Joel Rockey “Too Little, Too Soon (Live)”
15. Counting Crows “Omaha”
16. R.E.M. “Monty Got a Raw Deal”
17. Bob Dylan “Down in the Flood”
18. The Kinks “End of the Season”
19. Eddie Vedder w/ Corin Tucker “Hard Sun”
20. Bruce Springsteen “Open All Night”

Brew monkies

In celebration of post number one hundred of A Rockey Home Companion, we are pleased to announce the birth of the newest member of the Strange Brew coffee house family delivered by the Mustard Room!

Stayed tuned for episode 8 of An Aural Supplement.

The empty hand

Perhaps one of the greatest stories of personal angst and the triumph over one's own demons can be found in the masterpiece of american cinema titled The Karate Kid. I have - with no shame - seen this film more times than I could dream of calculating. There is no doubt that I owe much of who I am today to the mystic wisdom of the tiny man known as Miyagi. Imagine my joy when uncovering this treasure from the secret cavern of read-along. It is part one of the story which has been given the name "The Empty Hand". Prepare to be dazzled as a couple of possibly australian kids and a handful of presumed inebriated adults awkwardly interpret the first half of this great tale through the lost art of read-along story telling.

Magic

Five years ago, Bruce Springsteen brought the mighty forces of the E Street Band back into the studio to record their first album of new material together since the 1984 phenomenon which was Born In The U.S.A. The result was 2002's The Rising. The album is fueled by the gospel-tinged R&B and straight forward rock & roll which has been the E Street Band's trademark since the early days in Asbury Park. Springsteen himself injected his poetry of abandon, hope and redemption into these songs of reflection on a post-9/11 existence. In the few short years following, Springsteen released another album of intimate, confronting solo work reminiscent of Nebraska and The Ghost of Tom Joad titled Devils & Dust. Shortly after, Springsteen hired a group of lesser-known musicians from New Jersey and New York, augmented by Patti Scialfa, Soozie Tyrell, and The Miami Horns to record in an informal setting the songs made popular by folk musician Pete Seeger. The resulting interpretation, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, became Springsteen's first album of completely non-Springsteen material and won the Grammy award for Best Traditional Folk Album in February.



The Boss has explored many facets of the American musical landscape in the past five years and now he returns accompanied by the E Street Band with the appropriately titled Magic. The album doesn't release until October 2nd, but iTunes is making the opening track and first single "Radio Nowhere" available to download for FREE for a very limited time. It's a tasty helping of straight-on-til-the-dawn American rock & roll as only E Street can bring.