re-production of an older song
I suppose I’ll tell you a little bit about the history of this album. It goes way back to my NYC days when I was putting on my musical, Fun Wearing Underwear. My roommate, Rose, was dating this guy Shayne who lived in C-Squat and used to play in the punk band Choking Victim. Rose was in my musical along with a ton of other friends from Purchase College and brought Shayne out to a show. He loved it and started coming regularly to the shows which were happening every weekend at Surf Reality, a truly unique and amazingly free theater where really anything was possible. After becoming closer with Shayne and meeting his friend Josh, I decided to accept his offer to move into C-Squat (aka See Skwat) and live the squatter lifestyle. It was great and horrible. I wouldn’t trade the experience away, but I’ve moved from that lifestyle for my mental and physical health. The squat has since become a co-op and some of my old friends still live there, but it is definitely changing.
Anyway, I met Josh Gura in those years and was always fascinated by how weird and wonderful his mind and his art were. I’m still amazed and awe inspired by his work. I wish I was in a position to make him famous because I really think he’s got incredible skills and an ingenious mind.
After my daughter was born in 2007, I moved up to Rochester from Ithaca and became less present in the NYC scene. Josh reached out to me not too long after and said he wanted to collaborate on an album together. He only had a short time to work with me, but he brought his studio up to my apartment in Rochester and we worked day and night producing these tracks. I was insistent that I not play to a click track, so we did painstaking beat-mapping, which is a difficult process involving looking at wave forms to place where each beat hits. Not easy. This is why you’ll hear the rhythm of this album waver and move, slower and faster at points. I hope you’ll enjoy this new production of this old song and take the time to listen to the full album, maybe even download it from bandcamp! The full album can be found HERE.
Certain People lyrics:
Certain people have certain smiles
some are awkwardly like a frown
with creases in cracks go on for miles
carry the water all further down
sometimes people show love strangely
like when we own each other
holding love inside of a cage deranged
withers and weathers a nursing mother
leafs are pages
the pages are leaving
a sage is receiving a leaflet
with pictures and captions
muses are destined
to humbly stumble
tumbling dumbly
fall into the lap of the all mind
d’al bange has taken your hand
d’al bange is stroking your head
everywhere in every town
people are dressing in what they’ve made
with their own hands
others they gather
tar and feather the naked clowns
get their reward
retire and fade away
on their own land
sometimes equal doesn’t explain things
innocent mother
held inside the cage of a rage deranged man
withers and weathers a nursing daughter
leafs are pages
the pages are leaving
a sage is receiving a leaflet
with pictures and captions
muses are destined
to humbly stumble
tumbling dumbly
fall into the lap of the all mind
d’al bange has taken your hand
d’al bange is stroking your head
put it down in a safe place
out of sight out of mind
weary head, enter the safe place
out of sight out of mind
Devil in the Washtub performance for NPR Tiny Desk Contest
This was a lot of fun… Neeti Fidurko of Tree in the Sky did the filming for Multibird… Enjoy!
Winter Tour
we have a super duper awesome 4 piece band traveling up north this February!!! Stoked.
Poster design by Patrick Ishi Ishi
The quartet Multibird consists of Faergolzia (acoustic guitar, vox), Shaun Jones (electric guitar, vox, percussion), Emily DiPaola (vox, trumpet, percussion) Luke Cornwell (bass guitar, vox, percussion). The quartet will headline performances in Albany, Buffalo, Winooski, Burlington, Portland, Montréal, Northampton and Boston.
Individual facebook events can be found here:
Happy Holy Daze!!
this one’s a few years old, but still holds it’s own as a silly xmas rap song….
!!! Puppet Movie – Scene 2 !!!
Hello Beautiful People!
I’m feeling really well today, firstly because it’s Halloween, but also because I’ve finally finished the second chapter in my PUPPET OPERA MOVIE!!!
This is HUGE! It has taken quite some time to reach this point. This piece of sight and sound somehow feels like it was meant for this time, this climate, our political, social and everchanging lives as humans of earth. Wow. Have you been paying attention? Things are charged and wild. I’ve been finding messages in the lyrics written 14 years ago during a completely different life I was leading in Ithaca, NY. Times have changed, but the problems remain the same, now as in the distant past, but the weapons are more dangerous, the population is out of control, and the stakes seem to be getting close to all or nothing…
DOWN TO BUSINESS: This was quite a process. As many of you know, I wrote the music for this 14 years ago using a stream of consciousness method wherein I sat with guitar and voice, recording into a cassette the ideas I had that day, stitching each beginning to the previous ending. Each day, when I returned to my writing, I would listen first to the end of the previous day then build off that. After I had done this long enough to fill 23 full pages of paper with lyrics (about 6 months), I took the tapes and reviewed them over and over, learning the whole thing as I went.
After learning it, I began scoring it for four parts, meant to be played in choirs, groups of instruments.
After scoring it, I started recording many people in my home studio (Whenland) and making the soundtrack.
After finishing a soundtrack piece, I take the audio and put it into my video software. I take the synopsis written using lyrics from the music and I make storyboards. From the storyboards I come up with the directions for my puppets and film them. Then I sift through the film and put it in my computer, edit it, move it, colorize it and smooth it over. That is what I’m handing you today.
I have a feeling once I get to the end of this I’ll want to go back and spruce up the beginning, but I’m going to make it first in these small clips for you, then I will put them all together and fix, reshape things. Anyway, I know people like to hear about the process…
This section is about the meeting of the Beast. He was awakened in the last chapter and now the three brothers are coming to see if they can keep the Beast from turning totally sour and messing up the world. Enjoy!!!
with love and thanks,
Seth
Grande Sceme one shot video
Well, well, well, here we are again, me talking to you from the lofty position of my attic studio space. It’s snowing outside, and I’ve got a rare moment alone in the house with no children, no partner, no house guests, no friends. I’ve always loved solitude, ever since I was a little kid. If I don’t get it, I get really crabby. Last week, last weekend was a busy one in which I had my first art show in many years (it is hung and looks great over at Photo City Improv), and at that show my band Multibird performed. The next day I flew to Boston for a video shoot with my friend Emilie Stark-Menneg who is an incredible artist I’ve been lucky to know for 10 years or so now. She and her partner John Bisbee, an excellent sculptor put together a crazy plan (involving a bunch of goats and artists) and had me and about 10 other people trek out to a farm in a town I don’t even know the name of… It features my song, Holy Mother, which is from the #100songs project. On the night after this video shoot, I played a small house show in Boston then got on a plane back home the next day.
I was quite inspired by this video shoot, realizing magic can really happen in a short span of time if the energy is right. We shot this video the night after I got back from the trip. None of my bandmates knew the song previous to this night, and we threw it all together with this loose script I wrote, pressed record and watched it unfold. I believe I’m going to make more and more videos in this manner because of the personal aspect it maintains. I love small events, like house shows or hanging out with friends and getting weird. I want to show this beauty to those in the world who do not have this in their day to day lives. I have a love for this video similar to that of loving a gift you’ve made for someone you care about.
I hope you’ll enjoy it too! It’s a Patreon patron exclusive. I want to THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM TO THE TOP OF MY HEART!!! Seriously, I know it might be tough for some of you, so thanks a ton. I wouldn’t be able to work as hard as I do creating all these odd pieces of art without you. Here’s the song if you’d like to just listen to it, or click on the link above to watch the video and listen!
Big love to y’all, keep fighting the good fight!
Seth
People With Power protest video
I’d prefer to let this video speak for itself. I will say this, I’m very very proud of the giant crew of people involved in the making of this and inspired to no end by the progress we are making as a team over here.
This video is meant to be empowering to the people in a difficult time, bring inspiration to others to not only continue on, but to thrive in the face of adversity.
Holy Mother / Lucky Kids video collaboration
