The new Davey G and the Office Supply Store E.P is available now!

The new Davey G and the Office Supply Store E.P is available now!

Visit www.daveygandthekeyboard.com and click on the PayPal icon, or send 2 dollars to
Dave Cookson (not Davey G--they don’t cash my checks when it says that!) P.O. Box 23568, Baltimore, MD 21203.
This CD is about 10 minutes long with 5 songs, and it contains a song from the forthcoming Chairman of the Keyboard CD (out this November), a B-side, and 3 live tracks. It was made for you, the fan, so if you’re jonesing for the new album, this will tide you over!

To follow the progress, or just to find out anything about the road to the fourth Davey G and the Keyboard CD, check back here!

http://daveygandthekeyboard.blogspot.com/

Thanks! See you soon!
Davey G and the Keyboard

Recap: Smartish Pace Issue 14 release party @ The Whole Gallery

www.flickr.com/photos/ashleysauers

This show had some casualties: too late did I realize, as I was rolling around on the floor in my lotion, that in my back pocket was my main set of glasses.
As this was a release party for a poetry journal, it opened with 3 poets reading from their work. Poetry really isn’t my thing, but it brought back memories of when I first came to Baltimore and went out to read my stories for audiences who had no idea what to make of me (I even recognized at least one of the people in the crowd as an old school poet from those days). Then the opening band--the bass player from Mr. Moccasin and a drummer doing minimal-Sebadoh/maybe little Nirvana style songs, which I enjoyed. Gauging the audience, it seemed like it would be a really hard room to get people’s attention. I really just wanted to relax and do the best show possible for whoever was paying attention.
I got up, did a cursory sound level check, then took off with it. I feel like it went okay. When I got to the lotion bit I definitely overdid it--there was such a nice wood floor with clear space in front of me it was hard to resist the urge to just use that space to maximum effect. And, as I mentioned, my glasses were in my back pocket, and they got bent out of shape as the result of this (gonna have a funny story for the people at For Eyes).
I am lousy at determining who will like my stuff. People that I think look like they will be totally offended by me are the ones who come up and tell me how great it was. Here, it seemed like if you were my age or more, you liked me, if you were younger (as most were) you were kind of scratching your head and smiling. I had fun.

Davey G and the Office Supply Store E.P. tomorrow!




www.daveygandthekeyboard.com

Davey G and the Office Supply Store E.P.

Tuesday...
www.daveygandthekeyboard.com

Davey G and the Keyboard at the Whole Gallery this Saturday!

This is a copy of the e-mail my subscribers got this morning. If you want to get on my mailing list, visit my website and click on the "Contact Me" link, and I will add you.



Hi Everyone,

My next lotion-filled keyboard fun fest will be this Saturday, at the following time and coordinates:

Saturday, April 28, 8 p.m.
405 W Franklin St, Third Floor
Baltimore, Maryland 21201
$10
Smartish Pace Issue 14 release party @ The Whole Gallery, with Mr. Moccasin!

For more info, click here!

http://www.smartishpace.com/home/release.html

*
And secondly, the new Davey G and the Office Supply Store E.P will be available Tuesday, on my website. It will contain a song from the forthcoming Chairman of the Keyboard CD (out this November), a B-side, and 3 live tracks. Get it, if you're jonesing for the new album, this will tide you over!

*
Speaking of the new album--I am close to finishing laying down all the tracks for Chairman of the Keyboard, and I truly, truly feel like this is my best effort yet. To follow the progress, or just to find out anything about the road to the fourth Davey G and the Keyboard CD, visit my blog, which I update regularly (and plug all the time).

http://daveygandthekeyboard.blogspot.com/

Thanks! See you soon!
Davey G and the Keyboard



www.daveygandthekeyboard.com




(unwilling subscribers to this e-mail list put UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line and I will take you off, with my apologies)

I think I may have an album here…

Fourth recording session today, and 5 songs later I kind of think I just about have an album’s worth. I threw in a cover of an old Minor Threat song that just killed me--way better than I thought it was going to be, if I may say so myself. And now, Chairman of the Keyboard seems like it is coming to completion, as far as the song recording goes. I re-recorded a song I did last week, learning the lessons of the past: when you make one bad recording, or bad copy, or whatever, every copy you make amplifies it. So get it right the first time.
That picture is a close-up of my crusted, lotioned-up kawai X20 keyboard, with “x’s” I wrote on the keys so I would not mess up one of my songs.


This is blog post number 101, by the way, and unfortunately, I didn’t high five very much today, to celebrate National High Five day--I only interacted with three other human beings and I totally forgot about it. Next year.

I’m playing a show next week, at the Whole Gallery. Just in case you’re interested.

www.daveygandthekeyboard.com

National High Five Day Tomorrow!!!

I feel like I must get on board with National High Five Day, the Third Thursday in April, (since, you know, I have a song called “High Five.” Actually, I also have a song called “Handshake.” Maybe I should do a whole album with songs about greetings, like maybe with songs called “Hug” or “Friendly Wave” or “Polite Nod” or whatever. )
This site explains it all. The video is sort of rambling, but amusing. At any rate, the concept of just randomly hi-fiving people amuses me to no end. So tomorrow, put your hands up and just go for it.
High Five.



www.daveygandthekeyboard.com

They Call Me Chairman of the Keyboard.

I completed the third day of Davey G and the Keyboard: Chairman of the Keyboard recording, so now I’m up to 11 songs (10 for the album, 1 for the e.p). It’s very exciting to have this new album taking shape--I just did “Be My Friend” (which I’ve played out at 2 different shows), plus “Chairman of the Keyboard” : the theme song for the new album. A minimal, minor chord using rag with low notes and very few words (unusual for me, I know) and “You Triumph When You Quit.” I swear, I never thought this song would be so much trouble--it’s an idea I’ve had for so long--the anti-inspirational song--but I could never settle on lyrics, or a tune, or anything about it. I just had a few lines that I knew I wanted to use:
“the last time I failed I heard someone say
‘it’s a good thing that you failed ‘cause your dreams were stupid anyway.’ ”
And until a few days ago, I had nothing that made me happy. But now I do, and it will appear on the CD.
So I’m 11 songs in. I’m sorry if sometimes my blog is just a big wet promotion for this new CD, but it’s going to be really good. I’m hitting a stride with this whole “Davey G” thing and I think by the time I finish I will have something I’m very proud of.

A few more things: a few more blog posts and I will have done 100 (give or take). I may do a “clip show” gimmick for number 100, but I thank everyone who reads and hope you keep doing so!
The next show is coming up in about 2 weeks. I will start another 2 week training period but not subject you to the pain of reading about it…at least not like the last show! At any rate, I’m still fresh from the last performance, so it might not be as intense.


www.daveygandthekeyboard.com

Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007

What can I say that others aren’t already saying? But I can’t let the death of Kurt Vonnegut pass without a few words. Welcome to the Monkeyhouse, Slaughterhouse 5, Breakfast of Champions, all brilliant books, of course. I got the chance to hear him speak at the University of Massachusetts many years ago as he examined the greatest work in the English language (Hamlet) and plotted the course of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis on a blackboard--drawing a straight line that drops immediately after the first sentence: “Oh s-----!”
The story that he told that stuck with me is this: someone asked him if he had a word processor (this was 1992, BTW) and he said no, and went off on a long description of how he writes up his work, goes to the drug store to buy an envelope, hangs out and farts around with the people in line at the drug store, goes to the post office to buy a stamp, hangs out and farts around with the people in line at the post office, then mails it to his secretary in upstate New York, a process that takes about an hour. Why does he do it this way and not just have stamps and envelopes on hand? Because doing all that gave him the opportunity to hang out and fart around: “life is all about hanging out and farting around and don’t let anybody tell you any differently!”

Advice we can all take to heart.

Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007

31 Days: Stuff I'm Reading

31 Days by Barry Werth


is about the first 31 days of the Ford administration, after Richard Nixon resigned over the Watergate scandal. The chapters are all one day in this series, and it is interesting to see the events played out that mention future characters (Donald Rumsfeld, Cheney, etc.) but only as their roles were in 1974. The immediacy of this writing appeals to me, and then it ties it up in the end by explaining how these events shaped the government today. I think more than anything this book explains the thought process that went behind Ford’s decision to pardon Nixon--politically ruinous, but given Ford’s own personal history (his father was a jerk who didn’t pay child support and was involved in a long-running court dispute over this) his desire to forgive and put things behind him was understandable.

www.daveygandthekeyboard.com

New Show Announcement!

You heard it here first: the next Davey G and the Keyboard Show!

Saturday, April 28, 8 p.m.
405 W Franklin St, Third Floor
Baltimore, Maryland 21201
US
Cost: $10
Description: Smartish Pace Issue 14 release party @ The Whole Gallery, with Mr. Moccasin!

For more info, click here!


And maybe I will have the new Davey G and the Office Supply E.P available? A whole 3 days before its’ scheduled release? You’ll just have to come out and see!




www.daveygandthekeyboard.com

Giuliani Time, Revisited

As fans know, two years go I wrote a song called “Giuliani Time.” Specifically, this song was about how I tried to go to a baseball game with a “New York Sucks” T-shirt and they wouldn’t let me in, but more generally about how as a Baltimore Orioles Baseball fan, we are consistently pooped upon (note: trying to swear less in the blog) by the ownership and management of Camden Yards.
It is now two days into the new baseball season, the Orioles have lost two in a row, but part of me is already not caring. Opening Day is one of the most revered day in sports. No matter how awful your team is (and mine’s been pretty awful for the last 9 years) there is always this magical event all throughout the baseball world where all the sins of the last years are washed away, at least for a while. It dissipates, of course, but for one brief day the world is right, my team is at .500 (0-0) and I feel good about being a fan, either attending the game, or watching it on TV.

So imagine my disappointment and disgust with the management of the Peter Angelos-run Mid Atlantic Sports Network when I discovered that Opening Day would NOT be broadcast on free TV, as it should be. Please, please give a moment to think about how utterly silly this is: Opening Day! It would be as if they put the Super Bowl on cable (which I imagine is not far off, actually). The only way I could watch my team lose to Minnesota (7-4) would be to either have cable, or go somewhere with cable. And to be honest, I don’t have the money to drink at a sports bar any time I want to watch a ballgame (loyal readers will note that I have already declared myself to be a proud cheapskate) and I sure as heck (“heck?”) don’t want to spend the money on cable just to watch baseball. So for the first day in many, many years, I missed Opening Day.

And finally, there is no relief: the TV schedule has painfully few free games I can watch. There are games on Sunday, and the occasional Saturday, but for the most part, I will be stuck listening on the radio as baseball goes the way of professional boxing (as in, the only way to follow it is to pay through the nose for special “pay-per-view” fights) That is, of course, if I still care enough to be following the O’s.

(all right, who am I kidding? I’ll still be a fan, because I love Baltimore and by now I’m used to the abuse.)

I came out to support my team but my team won't support me.

Special Announcement for Fans who Can’t Wait for the New Album!!!

I have decided to release a Davey G and the Keyboard 4 song EP, on May 1 of this year. Partly as a result of the feedback from the Sidebar show, and also knowing that November is a long time for people to wait for the new album, this project will be assembled with the fan in mind.
It will include “Office Supply Store” (from the new album) and one B-side song, plus two songs from a live show. This will all be available on my site, which I dutifully provide the link for at the end of every post. So keep your eye out: May 1!
www.daveygandthekeyboard.com