What an amazing and freakishly unexpected happening right here at Ringling school of Art in Sarasota.

Amanda Palmer and her husband Neil Gaiman Twitter announce their “Ninja Gig” less than 24 hours ago and about 200 lucky fans showed up.

Amanda played several uke songs and Neil read some unreleased poetry and prose. Videos to come as we got some great footage!

 

 

Do yourself a favor and watch Amanda’s TED speech about The Art of Asking.

 

This is one of my favorite songs she played! Here she is at Occupy Wall Street!

Lyrics:

Here are the song lyrics:

sid vicious played a four-string fender bass guitar and couldn’t sing
and everybody hated him except the ones who loved him
a ukulele has four strings, but sid did did not play ukulele
he did smack and probably killed his girlfriend nancy spungen if only sid had had a ukulele, maybe he could have been happy
maybe he would not have suffered such a sad end
he maybe would have not done all that heroin instead
he maybe would’ve sat around just singing nice songs to his girlfriend so play your favorite cover song, especially if the words are wrong
‘cos even if your grades are bad, it doesn’t mean you’re failing
do your homework with a fork
and eat your fruit loops in the dark
and bring your etch-a-sketch to work
and play your ukulele ukulele small and forceful
brave and peaceful
you can play the ukulele too it is painfully simple
play your ukulele badly, play your ukulele loudly
ukulele banish evil
ukulele save the people
ukulele gleaming golden on the top of every steeple lizzie borden took an axe, and gave her father thirty whacks
then gave her mother thirty-one, and left a tragic puzzle
if only they had given her an instrument, those puritans
had lost the plot completely
see what happens when you muzzle
a person’s creativity
and do not let them sing and scream
and nowadays it’s worse ’cause kids have automatic handguns
it takes about an hour to learn how to play the ukulele
about same to teach someone to build a standard pipe bomb
YOU DO THE MATH so play your favorite cover song, especially if the words are wrong
‘cos even if your grades are bad, it doesn’t mean you’re failing
do your homework with a fork
and eat your fruit loops in the dark
and bring your flask of jack to work
and play your ukulele ukulele, thing of wonder
ukulele, wand of thunder
you can play the ukulele, too
in london and down under
play joan jett, and play jacques brel
and eminem and neutral milk hotel
the children crush the hatred
play your ukulele naked
and if anybody tries to steal your ukulele, let them take it imagine there’s no music, imagine there are no songs
imagine that john lennon wasn’t shot in front of his apartment
imagine if john lennon had composed “imagine” on the ukulele
maybe folks would have more clearly got the message you may think my approach is simple-minded and naïve
like if you want to save the world then why not quit and feed the hungry
but people for millennia have needed music to survive
and that’s why i’ve promised john that i will not feel guilty so play your favorite beatles’ song
and make the subway fall in love
they’re only $19.95, that’s not a lot of money
play until the sun comes up
and play until your fingers suffer
play LCD soundsystem songs on your ukulele
quit the bitching on your blog
and stop pretending art is hard
just limit yourself to three chords
and do not practice daily
you’ll minimize some stranger’s sadness
with a piece of wood and plastic
holy fuck it’s so fantastic, playing ukulele
eat your homework with a fork
and do your fruit loops in the dark
bring your etch-a-sketch to work
your flask of jack
your vibrator
your fear of heights
your nikon lens
your mom and dad
your disco stick
your soundtrack from “karate kid”
your ginsu knives
your rosary
your new rebecca black CD
your favorite room
your bowie knife
your stuffed giraffe
your new glass eye
your sousaphone
your breakfast tea
your nick drake tapes
your giving tree
your ice cream truck
your missing wife
your will to live
your urge to cry
remember we’re all going to die
so PLAY YOUR UKULELE

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

 

We’ve been in the studio recording!!!!! Our latest track, Walk On Water is just about complete!!! Sara Stovall Moone, of Villanova Junction and Passerine has added her incredible musical talent and brilliance to the track!!! We had SUCH a GREAT time working with her!! She brought Tony Bagodonuts (aka  her viola) and Lil Gal (aka her violin) to give the tone and texture we were looking for. As she was recording, there were several times when the hair on the back of my neck stood on end and skin became gooseflesh!!! WAIT TIL YOU HEAR THIS!!! Claire’s laying in drum tracks and Kat’s laying in vocals this weekend!!!! Then it’s a WRAP!!!!! Off it goes to mix down. YAHOOO!!!!!

We’re really excited to have Sara return this Tuesday to add her magic to Simple Words!!!!

We’ve also been busy little bees, cranking out new material–the creative juices flowing like the Mississippi River. We’re returning to the gig circuit on St.Patty’s Day at the Shamrock.

We look forward to seeing you!!!!!

Peace and blessings,

Waking Giants

Sara, Del, Lova, Pam, Claire Listeing to Playback  click link to view teaser snippet video!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

After a long string of AWESOME gigs with fabulous artists like: Villanova Junction, Pedro Jarquin (Pedro Poeta), Justin Layman, The Sexual Side Effects, Shut Up Lita, Chrissy DaRado and more-we’ve holed up  in the studio. Taking a brief hiatus from live shows to get some tracks down for the upcoming release!!! Currently working on a song called Walk on Water—or WOW as we call it. YAHOO!!!! (not to worry—we’ll be back on the live circuit in March)

It has been REALLY wonderful spending Saturday afternoons and evenings together—creating, laughing, enjoying each others’ company, producing, sharing meals and in the case of New Year’s eve, some dog poo. What?!?!?!

Delilah (pictured above) scares easily. REALLY easily. She’s a rescue dog and gets a “little” nervous around unfamiliars, sudden noises, sudden movements, looking at her (if you don’t live with her), falling napkins…you get the idea. Well, we were gathering on the couch for a quick photo before I (DeLaran) left for Fort Myers. Lilah wanted to be in my lap. In order to do that, she needed to be picked up and passed over to me. So, Kat picks her up gently—seemingly no harm done—until SUDDENLY, Lilah freaks out, turns, snaps at Kat and shits all in the same instant. She had the @%#$ scared out of her—LITERALLY!!!! We proceed with the photo (above)—Lilah and her poo in my lap and Kat’s. BUt hey, what’s a little poo among friends??? I hope you’re laughing as hard at this as I am typing it!!! You can’t make this @%#$ up!!!

But, I digress…THE RECORDING is what I intended to discuss. The Saturday before last was dedicated to getting the guitar tracks in—mine and Lova’s. We thought easy peasy!!! BUt alas!!! Not so much!! What we typically do is initial tracking at our warehouse to get the drums—then overdub everything else to get clean, stereo tracks. We thought, oh overdubbing the guitar will be super easy, as musically, it is not at all complicated. Yeah, no.  Because this song is so organic and dynamic, it was very difficult to play along with previously recorded track and not have it sound jerky and mechanical. The solution…rerecord it altogether with NOTHING, no vocals, no nothing. THAT was really challenging because the vocals are what determine the “feel” and flow of the song. I had to sing it in my head, which is TOTALLY NOT the same as really singing it. BUT… we did it…we got it…and….

This past Saturday we laid in ALL the vocals, save for Evan’s. Kat and I recorded out vocal parts simultaneously to capture the ENERGY of the song. And, that’s EXACTLY what we did!!! The second time we sang it all the way through—the energy was soooo electric, palpable—I felt as though I was coming out  of my skin. Felt as though the house was going to lift of its foundations and shoot off into space, 0 to Mars in 60 seconds. It was AMAZING. We’re SOOOOO excited to share it with you—with the hope that you will hear it and feel it as we did!!!

More later…

Thanks for tuning in!!

Peace and blessings,

Waking Giants