Howdy All,

We thought it would be good to compile a ‘Best of 2007′ list before February hits (when we’re REALLY into 2008). The idea was to list things that were new to us in 2007 (though not necessarily new IN 2007). The list!

Andrew Smith-

Food:
Christos’ Falafel

John Ringhofer-

Music:
- Hansadutta, ‘The Vision’
- Beethoven, ‘Late String Quartets’
- The Motifs, ‘Away’

Books:
- Jason Roberts, A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveler
- Alan Moore, The Watchmen
- Barry Miles, Many Years From Now
- Ellis Jones, The Better World Shopping Guide

Films:
- Robert Bresson, Balthazar
- Bong Joon-ho, The Host

Restaurant:
-Herbivore, now in Berkeley!

Activities:
-Routinely falling asleep to quiet records
-Playing bass for The Curtains
-Sitting on the couch in the morning at the precise moment that sunlight enters the window (favorite)

Dan Zimmerman -

Reading:
- Teilhard de Chardin at the Jersey Shore

Recording:
- with Daniel Smith and other amazing familyre folk

Playing out:
- with Tony Jones and Joshua Stamper

Watching:
- Robin Z’s brilliant kitchen design take shape

Rediscovering:
-cherished Golden Age of American Rock’n'Roll 1954-1963
-Jackson Pollock
-Charles Burchfield and the way my own painting is evolving

-Dylan, always Dylan

Seeing:
- I’m Not There in Princeton with Robin
- first Broadway show (Spamelot) with Robin, Michael, and Elizabeth Z

Talking:
- to Robin about the marvelous memoir writing process

Joshua Stamper -

Music:
- Robert Wyatt, Rock Bottom; Ruth is Stranger Than Richard; Shleep; Cuckooland

Films:
- Thomas Riedelsheimer, Touch the Sound (documentary about percussionist Evelyn Glennie)

Books:
- Anton Chekov, Lady With Lapdog and Other Stories

Food:
- Monk’s Burger
- St. Bernardus Abt. 12

Places:
- Collingswood, NJ

Elin Smith -

Music:
- Margo Guryan

Food:
- Black olives on pizza

Book:
- Vera Henriksen, Dronningsagaen

Yarn:
- Baby Alpaca

Glaze:
- “Metallic Awesomeness”

New friends:
- Josh & Kory

Anita Santiago -

Films:
- Grey Gardens
- Tears of the Black Tiger

Books:
- Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

TV:
- Madmen

Online:
- etsy
- wardrobe_remix
- jezebel

Ted Velykis -

Music:
- Calypso music (especially the Lion)
- Pascal Comelade, The Oblique Sessions

Books:
- Lord Berners, A Distant Prospect

Films:
- Marco Ferreri, La Grande Bouffe

Concepts:
- The concept of entrepreneurialiizationalism and it’s sweet reward

Ken Fabianovicz -

Event of the Year:
- The birth of my son.

2nd best event of the year:
- Joshua Stamper joining the Sounds Familyre Famile.

Music (in no particular order):
Robert Wyatt, Comicopera
- Blues Control, Blues Control
- Yeasayer, All Hour Cymbals
- Ben + Vesper, All This Could Kill You
- Dirty Projectors, Rise Above
- Burial, Untrue
- Nick Lowe, At My Age
- Trolleyvox, Your Secret Safe/Luzerne
- Jens Lekman, Night Falls Over Kortedala
- The Return of Siltbreeze Records, Times New Viking; Sapat; Pink Reason
- Von Sudenfed, Tromatic Reflexxions
- Tinariwen, Aman Iman
- Rob Crow, Living Well
- Panda Bear, Person Pitch
- Ortolan (demos)
- Brenda Ray, Walatta
- Wooden Shjips, Wooden Shjips
- Skream, Skream!
- Meg Baird, Dear Companion

Reissues:
- The Return of STAX Records!
- Jim Ford, The Sounds of Our Time
- Bobb Trimble, Iron Curtain Innocence and
Harvest of Dreams-Reissues on Secretly Canadian
- Rhys Chatham, multiple reissues on
Table of the Elements
- Tully, Sea of Joy Soundtrack
- Yatha Sidhra, A Meditation Mass
- Loren Connors, As Roses Bow: Collected Airs 1992-2000
Dorothy Ashby - Rubaiyat of Dorothy Ashby
- Henry Flynt & Nova’ Billy, Henry Flynt & Nova’ Billy
- Richard Crandell, Oregon Hill ; In the Flower of Our Youth
- Keith Hudson, Reissues on Pressure Sounds
- Everything on the Dust-To-Digital label
- Philip Cohran, Singles
- Telegraph Ave, Telegraph Ave
- Trees Community, The Christ Tree
- Lee Hazelwood, Reissues on Water Records & Rhino Handmade
- Moussa Doumbia, Keleya
- Noah Howard, The Black Ark

What’s on your ‘Best of 2007′ list? Feel free to leave a comment!

We’d like to thank you for the pleasure of sharing ‘A Familyre Christmas - Vol. 1′ with you all. It was an exciting project, and so much fun to have everyone involved.

If you missed the download window, don’t despair. There is a high likelihood it will be made available again next Christmas season, along with Vol.2!

The complete track listing for Vol.1:

1: ‘Christmas Eve Nite’ - Danielson
2: ‘For There Is Born A Child’ - Lenny Smith
3: ‘Plant A Little Fir Tree’ - Half-handed Cloud
4: ‘Dayspring From On High’ - Soul-Junk
5: ‘Pat-A-Pan’ - Leopulde
6: ‘In The Bleak Midwinter’ - Dan Zimmerman
7: ‘Lo, How A Rose E’er Blooming’ - The Singing Mechanic
8: ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’ - Sufjan Stevens*
9: ‘What Child Is This’ - Rachel and Jon Galloway
10: ‘I Wonder As I Wander’ - Woven Hand
11. ‘Christmas Is A Holiday’ - Ben + Vesper
12. ‘Immanuel’ - Joshua Stamper
13. ‘O Holy Night’ - Elin

*Recorded with Daniel, Elin, Lilly, and Ida at
the NJ Recreation Rm over Thanksgiving Weekend (2007).

Have a wonderful 2008, folks!

Love,

Everyone at Sounds Familyre

New Year’s Resolutions for 2008!

Daniel Smith:
1) Early mornings.
2) Organize.
3) Blog.
4) Breath deep.

Elin Smith:
1) Answer e-mails.
2) Make more calls.
3) Walk more.

John Ringhofer (Half-handed Cloud):
1) Locate a Boxer dog in the neighborhood that I can visit.
2) Consider one exceptional situation/crisis outside of my ordinary life to pray for each day.
3) Learn how to edit home movies with computer software.
4) Spend less time on emails (is this bad?).
5) Eat more chocolate (dark!).
6) Find Rafter Roberts and draw diagrams of all the stretches he knows that I don’t yet.
7) Walk through each day perceiving.

Lowell Brams (Asthmatic Kitty):
1) Organize my office and keep it that way.
2) Exercise regularly and lose 30 lbs.
3) When confronting a difficult situation, ask myself “What would John Ringhofer do?”
4) If that doesn’t work, “What would Lenny Smith do?”

Dan Zimmerman:
1) Make sense of the mess and mess with what makes sense.
2) Get rid of more clutter and embrace more ambiguity.
3) Reach into the past and mix it with the present.
4) Celebrate my lovely wife. Dance together.
5) Get out of the basement more. Play out. Stretch.

Joshua Stamper:
1) Eat more carrots. They’re good for teeth and eyesight.
2) Don’t turn on the computer until AFTER 9am.
3) Spend more time outside, especially in the winter.

Rachel Galloway:
1) Create what I love.
2) Live in the joy of the now.
3) Remember who I am.
4) Have a grateful heart.

Ted Velykis (Leopulde):
1) Ted resolves to act his age, NOT his shoesize and to quit smoking (again).

Michael Kaufmann (Asthmatic Kitty and Unusual Animals):
1) Learn to throw a punch.
2) Give better hugs.
3) Juggle four objects.

Were you aware that the tradition of making New Year’s resolutions has been around for hundreds of years? We thought it would be interesting to include a resolution that’s “old school” (as the youth would have it).

Here’s one from colonial American preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758):

Resolution #9 (out of seventy): To think much, on all occasions, of my own dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death.

And on THAT note, good luck with your resolutions, everyone, and Happy New Year!

Okay, I have to confess, there are very few lyrics written for this song. Well, there are two (words) and that’s a start.

It was really challenging this week to find a way to etch in the singing parts with no real lyrical material to work from. Was I glad when I ran into the lady who sang the original Star Trek theme? You bet. She agreed to lay down some wordless vocals and she gives the track that Venusian plantation hymn sort of quality that’s been so popular with the kids this year. Whew.

Seriously though, ‘finishing’ the demo forced me to really think about the vocal melody in a new way and although the results were fairly obvious from the existing material, I’m excited to fill in the blanks with words and their syllables and see how that changes things.

I had a great time participating in “Works in Progress Month”. Feeling the emotions, getting really frustrated, not throwing my sitar against the wall - it was all worth it. Thanks for listening.

by Anita Santiago

This week I decided to work on the other significant character of the book; my sister’s little house in the woods where she and her little dog live. The challenge was trying to find a way to illustrate a house with some personality. I was looking for a stylized image that captured the character of an Arts & Crafts bungalow in a silhouette style. The silhouette lends itself to the cut paper techniques I’m planning on experimenting with next. Still need to work on the style of the house some more, but it’s getting there.

I’ve really enjoyed ‘Works in Progress Month’. It’s been great fun spending time sketching Mr. Bean and I even learned something - doing lots of preliminary sketches really does help you to gain insight into your subject. Sometimes the simplest things are pretty easy to forget. I look forward to sketching lots of trees and houses over the next few weeks.

Hope you enjoy these last sketches. Thanks for looking!

In week one of this series, I mentioned that the catalyst for writing ‘Piggy-Back’ was a particular rhythm that kept popping up in all sorts of unexpected places.

1 & 2 3, 1 & 2 (3), 1 & 2 3, 1 & 2 (3) . . .

Exhibit A:
This is a short clip from a demo (called ‘Red Scare’) that I recorded last spring. It starts out innocently enough, but then that same insidious 3/4 figure crops up again. It has a happy ending though, as our mazurka-rhythm serves as an effective transition into the next section of the piece.

That rhythm sure is catchy. . .

Now, onto ‘Piggy-Back’. A few subtle changes this week. At the behest of our resident composer, Joshua Stamper, I tried to find a counter-melody to compliment the rhythmic insistence of the principal melody. After quite a few failed attempts (and a downright disaster with a sitar), this hesitant, late-night toy piano line stuck - at least it’s stuck for the time being. I also added a scrapey sound to the transitional section in the middle and some “wow-wow” organ in the chorus at the end.

Here you go. . .enjoy.

Well, for two weeks I’ve been studying Mr. Bean and it’s been so worthwhile. This week I took up a brush and some ink, and began the difficult but enjoyable task of working towards a style that might suit the illustrations for ”There Lives In A Little Wood”. I call this series of drawings JOY because that’s what I’ve tried to capture in these illustrations: the joyful, exuberant, sly, crazy, and stubborn nature of Dachshunds in general, and of Mr. Bean in particular. If there is a particular style that suits your fancy, let me know. Comments welcome and helpful!!!

Hey Everyone,

Here are my sketches for this week. I captured a little bit more action than last week . . . and made a few observations . . .

1. Dachshunds are “jacked-up” in the back like suped-up race cars… does this make them speedier?–see below . . .





2. Dachshunds are demanding–for example . . .






Mr. Bean has grown accustomed to me following him around and seems to enjoy the extra attention - shocking!

I’m definitely getting a handle on capturing all his weiner-doggy goodness . . . next week I’m going to go for action all the way!

Anita

Gear list:
From last week:
1920’s Supertone parlour guitar
egg shaker drenched in reverb
Fender Musicmaster shortscale bass recorded direct

Added this week!
Moroccan clay drum
old Supro with really high action for lap steel parts
Penco Les Paul thru zvex fuzz factory recorded direct





Enjoy!

By Leopulde (Ted Velykis)

1 & 2 3, 1 & 2 (3), 1 & 2 3, 1 & 2 (3) . . .

This rhythm will not leave me alone. I think it’s a mazurka, of all things! It’s been popping up all over the place: in songs I’ve been experimenting with, in my improvising . . . I’ve even been strutting down the street in 3/4 time. So, I decided to use it as the basis for its own song. The idea is to find a way to give it credit for its persistence while allowing other patterns to step forward.

I hope you enjoy this first draft. I’m hearing a lot more happening with it. We’ll see how it develops. Let’s hope it develops before the waltz goes out of style . . .

Gear list:
1920’s Supertone parlour guitar
egg shaker - drenched in reverb
Fender Musicmaster shortscale bass - recorded direct

Piggy-Back