Ringo Starr on Drumming

I'm just on a Ringo phase, as I saw him doing his new song recently on tv....

Too Funny...

Music VIdeo - The Drums "Let's Go Surfing"

10 January 2010

My friend was talking about videos that are both home-made, but cool...and I just found this, and wrote to her:


this is the kind of video you mean

I found it on a site that links performers and record companies and video makers - I put this review (below) down, before looking at it on youtube - wow, almost half a million views...I bet this worked for them! It was made in one evening, obviously, very cheap - yet it is cool - here's the review i put:

it's like a spike jonez video without a payoff.

where are the dogs?

why aren't they on fire?

it's so close....there is just some really cool mood that pervades it...it kind of doesn't make sense, in a way that is compelling...it's enigmatic...it just looks cool...and again, there is a randomness about it - like, it makes sense, or would, in a dream.

but there is no payoff...also, the SURFING graphic doesn't quite do it for me...i don't know what would, though...

it's really close...really really close...really close...it needs something, but i'm not sure what...but it's good! really good - just not brilliant, but i'm sure this director is easily capable of brilliance...just not yet, or not in this one..

I Don't Want to Make Music - I'm Compelled....

I don't want to make music - I'm compelled. Begged for a piano when 3 - read music before words -

My ability to make music scares me sometimes. Words - I'll get - I used to, like, in school, after having to learn a poem - I'd get a rhyming pattern stuck in my head, and write, literally, 15, 20, 30 pages - endlessly - with Dr. Seuss rock-solid meter, nonsense! I can write rhyming iambic pentameter couplets faster - really - than prose. I once wrote 75 or so Christmas cards that way - rhyming -

As for music (when I make songs, now, I often just make up the words as I sing - it's usually better that way - though there is some refinement, winnowing...)

But music itself - the song - In My Song - from my next LP (first full-length album! - mid 2010  - yeah!!!!)  - I literally and seriously sat down and played it, from beginning to end, with most of the lyrics - never having heard, imagined, written, thought it - it didn't exist, I sat down and played it through, straight through - it scares me when I think about it. It scares me.

I know that people like Lennon/McCartney, Michael Jackson - all sorts of people - Tom Petty, I read in a book someplace - feel that songs come from some magical place - like, God or something.

I feel different, somewhat.

For one - almost every song - well, some come just when I'm dreamy - but a large number came when despondent. It worries me about being happy - will I ever write another? Well, I've got enough to last several lifetimes!

And - say, with In My Song - I feel - I know - I don't know - aaaugh!!! I was despondent, I sat down and played straight through a never-before-heard song - and when done - was at peace with myself and the universe.

So - I don't feel that songs come from a magical place - not at all - I feel I'm in a magical place - I once, literally, saw a golden light suffuse a room I was in - when the song Know No Fear came to me.

I don't write songs.

And songs don't come to me from elsewhere.

Magic happens - I feel better - and a song exists - that, apparently, seems to have that same effect on others.

I'll never forget someone who wrote this, back in the day:

"Your music really made me think. I've been in some trouble, and haven't been able to decide what to do. After listening to Falling Out of Time it clicked. I know what to do! Thank you so much!

I'll be one of the first to buy your CD's!

Love and Cookies,"

- dimples


That makes it all worthwhile -

It's okay if they're stupid, or catchy, or fun, or anything else they might be - these songs have the power to change lives, as they've changed mine, and other people's lives, too. They're fun - they're cool - but they're magic, too - -

AW

Fly Like a Bird by Austin Washington

Fly Like a Bird
by Austin Washington



itunes
(2 more Fly Like a Bird videos here)

Sometimes I walk to the edge of a tall building, and I look down, and I tell myself, if I just took one more step, just one more little step, I could...

I took a ride without using a plane
Some say I'm crazy others say I'm insane
But I think it's more that my real life sucks
I'm more at home with the chickens and ducks

Yeah

Oh, sometimes I
I fly like a bird, yeah
Aw no
Oh, sometimes I
I fly like a bird, yeah
Aw no

My friends on the ground keep on calling me back
They say I'm crazy say it's sense that I lack
But I think it's more that life on the ground
Just seems so dumb in my dumb one-horse town, yeah

Oh, sometimes I
I fly like a bird, yeah
Aw no
Oh, sometimes I
I fly like a bird, yeah
Aw no

'Cause if you dare to dream, yeah
Be ready to fall
But if you never let your heart soar
You ain't got nothing - ain't got nothing at all

(This is the part where you picture yourself flying...hey - wanna tee-shirt! They're cool!!!:) (that link is somewhere! well, on spreadshirt, at least...!)

get Fly Like a Bird at iTunes NOW!

I've been flying around
Since the day I was born
Though I lost a few years
When my insides were torn
But now I am back
Floating high on the breeze
The tips of my toes
Are on the tops of the trees

Sometimes I
I fly like a bird, yeah
Aw no
Oh sometimes I
I fly like a bird, yeah
Aw no

Oh
Sometimes I
Fly like a bird
Yeah

Up in the sky
Just you and I
Under the clouds
That are far below
Up above the sun
We can have fun
Just you and I

Alright

They're never gonna see (Aw!)
The thing that's so obvious
Obvious to you and me (Aw!)

They can't fly
They're stuck on the ground

Glory Alleluiah
Let me sock it to ya (Huh!)

Alleluiah
Let me sock it to ya...

etc...

Livin' in the land of the spirit
With our hearts in the land of the free

They're never gonna know
They don't even want to let their hearts grow

Gonna sing this song
'Til the end of time, and beyond...
credits
released 03 April 2009
Austin Washington, a puff of air, and wind (lots of it...)
�

Here is a video I made when making Fly Like a Bird...
(SKIP TO 1.24 IF YA WANNA SEE THE REALLY COOL BIT!!)




from facebook:

Found on iPod last night - totally forgot. 2 years ago,learning to edit video w/ iMovie, same time, recording Fly Like a Bird (on iTunes now, btw!) So, this was me,practising editing.The sad part of Fly Like a Bird, in video, not in final song, (on iTunes!)

Maybe I should make another version of the song?! With the sad bit?!

I am embarrassed I called myself an "artist". It sounds really stupid, I think!

I'm embarrassed that I referred to myself as an "artist" - it sounds a bit grandiose - what I like to be, and aspire to be, is a normal person who transforms my actual life into music - which is why I want an actual life, not one of a pop star! (Not that it wouldn't be - won't be (!)  - think positive, Austin! - uber super fun to perform, at, like, Glastonbury someday, or something like that. I'd LOVE that. 

But I think I'd be infinitely better than most people, because my aspiration is to be a normal person (quite a stretch for me, I gotta say! ;) - who...yeah, I'm repeating myself, now - how can Britney Spears make a song anyone but someone like her can relate to? That's my point.

That's why the video was, literally, (the one at the top of the page) made while waiting for my hair to dry...haha...)

Okay, here's the original video, made whilst the song was being made - and here's the description, first, from my fan page at Facebook
 

Here is a video of me, chatting about the song, and then...you get to here the whole tune if ya like! Groovy....(and you get download it here!)

Pop Music Songs by Austin Washington, President of Pop

Austin Washington

"The greatest song-writer in pop music history. Combining the word-play and wit of Cole Porter, the imagination of John Lennon, the depth of feeling of Kurt Cobain, harmonies better than any boy band, the skillz of Dr Dre, and the catchiness of a bad head cold, Austin Washington's songs capture the true depth and breadth of all that is good about Pop Music."

Now, if only someone else had said that! ha ha...but other people did say this stuff, and it makes me feel so good...

"Your music really made me think. I've been in some trouble, and haven't been able to decide what to do. After listening to Falling Out of Time it clicked. I know what to do! Thank you so much!


I'll be one of the first to buy your CD's!


Love and Cookies,"


- dimples


* * *


"WOW! I just heard that song and-WOW!- it really moved me. I think you guys are fab! Don't change ANYthing! Keep up the fanTAStic work, sugar!


P.S. If you ever go on tour, pleeeeaaaaaassse try to make it to Georgia, honey!


Love and kisses!"


- Lynda


* * *


"[Austin Washington] rulez! i think u r tottally cool!! work on your album and release it soon!!


i really like your music! put more on this site i will visit it often now !"


- webSURFER


* * *


"Can I have an autograph? You guys are going to big!"


- Sarah


* * *


"Hi my name is elise and im 11 years old. i think you guyz are so talented and you rock! i hope you guyz make a cd so i can buy it and listen to it everyday! bye peace out~ELISE~"


- Elise


* * *


"the more i listen the more i like!! :) "


- webSURFER


* * *


" i love you music ”
- Ciara Bennet
United States


* * *


“ so johnlennonesque! ”
- Rsevchuk


* * *
“ you are cool ”
- Daliza
fl Falkland Island


* * *
“ its really good ”
- Monikangkana


* * *


“ I'm hoping for some good songs.. and i just found it here! "
- kristoffer


* * *


“ Austin Washington love youuuuu ”
- Sevaloli

BIOGRAPHY

Most mere mortals, it seems, aspire to be pop stars. Well, a lot do, at least.

Austin Washington - or, the magnificent, marvellous Austino, as his friends call him (actually, no) - is anything but mortal. Standing at over 11 feet tall, he was blessed at birth with a preternatural ability to shatter glass at the length of two football fields.

His tones are anything but mellifluous.


However, with modern studio trickery, his out-of-tune screeches and warbles have been transformed to almost sound human.

"Almost" is the key word, here, as no 11 foot tall, helium-filled (did we mention that? that's why we must keep him tethered to the ground, lest he float away) - luminescent (he was genetically modified with lightning bugs) boy can be said to be fully human.


His songs, though, speak for themselves...