Category: True Life Adventures
Puppet Up! Tour Diary – March 21, 2015 – Kirk Douglas Closing Night
And so it begins. The adrenaline fades away, and all I’m left with is the feeling…the NEED t do more Puppet Up! shows. Singing the final lines of the closing song make me the happiest and saddest I can be. Doing this show is my absolute favorite thing to do. Even when I do shows, like tonight, where I feel I’m a little off my game.
I think it was because I didn’t get enough sleep that I felt a little off tonight. Even with the afternoon nap I had. Anyway, I just felt a little off my game. That being said, tonight was a fantastic show. The crowd loved every moment and a lot of fun was had.
I got to puppeteer and improvise with some of my favorite people, Allan, Colleen, Ted and Peggy and got to do my first show with Jordan Black, which was awesome. There were some really, funny moments in the show. Peggy, Colleen and Jordan did a fantastic carpool scene. Allan’s Usher is always inspiring and Ted’s Biography is Pia Zadora was hilarious.
For me, personally, the highlight was performing I’ve Grown Accustomed To Your Face. The first time I did the show after the recreations were added, I really wanted to do Java. Face was a second choice. But now that I’ve done both, Face has really become something special and I just live to do it. I will say that when it’s done, I feel like I’ve just come off the sports field because I really do strive to get every little move right. It’s a pleasure to do always and was especially fun to do tonight on the World Puppetry Day.
As far as being off my game, I just didn’t feel that I my improv was as strong tonight as it could be. My Jamboree song, though funny in spots was not as good, in my mind, as the previous two I’ve done. And my improv in the few scenes I was in, wasn’t as good as I would of hoped. I just didn’t feel like I was in the groove as much as I normally in while in these shows. At intermission I spoke briefly with Patrick about it and he sort of gave me a challenge for the second act that was really spot on and it brought me out of the funk I was feeling and allowed me to have some fun and feel better about the improv.
The crowd was amazing. Their suggestions ranged from really funny to things I would never type here, lest they become preeminently part of some google search engine and therefore permanently attached to my name. The Puppet Up crew, Cameron, Aaron and Sean were incredible, as always, for the full run. The Kirk Douglas Theatre is a great theatre to run in and the crew is top notch. It’s fun place to perform and hopefully we’ll be back soon. Finally, the crowd all four nights were incredible and we had an absolute blast performing for them.
Part of the reason it’s always hard to close Puppet Up is that we never really know when the next run of shows will be. That’s true in this case. Hopefully, world will come soon and we’ll be back creating the puppet anarchy we all know and love in the not too distant future.
Puppet Up! Tour Diary – March 18, 2015 – Kirk Douglas Opening Night
Puppet Up returned, once again, to the Kirk Douglas Theatre for four shows in March of 2015. I was lucky enough to be cast in two of those four show, the opening and the closing. As, I’m sure, you know, I love being in Puppet Up. It’s, really, my favorite thing to do, so to say I was excited was an understatement.
Since it was opening night of the show, our call time was early because there was a little bit of tech to go through. I never mind tech because it does give us a little chance to practice technique and our crew, and the crew of the Kirk Douglas Theatre, are fantastic, so it’s never a chore.
Once we we sure all the tech end of things was running smoothly, we broke for dinner and to get changed into out ‘puppet blacks’ for the show. Eight o’clock rolled around and the Kirk Douglas was packed with folks ready for some puppet anarchy. There was an empty seat or two, but the place was pretty full, especially for a Wednesday night.
The show was a big ball of fun. The suggestions were ‘out there’ and that made it even more fun. Right off the bat someone shouted pro-wrestling as a suggestion. Glad I was in that scene. Some other suggestions were a carpool in a smart car from Texas to Uzbekistan, sex toy gumball machine, and a scene that had to end with the line ‘Pull my finger.’
We did the mini puppet variety show and Colleeen’s host was as wicked as ever. The suggestion for the first act, that Allan Trautman, Tim Blaney and myself were performing with bunnies was ‘Mid-Air Contortion’. What followed was pretty funny with Allan, Tim and I trying to find ways to put make the puppets appear they were doing mid-air contortion. It devolved into us basically throwing the puppets back and forth to each other. The audience loved it. The next act was Allan and Peggy doing Jazz Dancing and they nailed it. It’s pretty hard to describe what they did, but those puppets were Jazz Dancing for sure! Finally, was the Alien Barbershop. The suggestion was Necrophilia. My initial thought was to do a verse that rhymed ‘wife’ (of formaldehyde) with the word stiff. But then I tried to come up with a rhyme for formaldehyde. The result, for Necrophilia was:
I love the smell
Of formaldehyde,
Because that means,
I’m going for a ride.
I actually liked this one a little better because in my mind, it left the audience to connect the dots of what I mean meant by ‘going for a ride.’
The highlight of the night, for me, was performing I’ve Grown Accustomed To Your Face with Ted. I’ve done this before but especially now, while reading Jim Henson’s biography, the piece took on a little more meaning. And Ted and I agreed that last night’s version was probably the best we’d ever performed it.
So, a wonderful opening at the Kirk Douglas, we got a standing ovation. I cannot wait to do the show again Saturday!
Puppet Up!
The story behind Frankie
So, I have a new song available for sale today. You can download it at the following locations:
iTunes | Amazon | CDBaby.com | Bandcamp
It’s the first, strictly digital single I’ve released and I’m really proud of how it turned out. It’s called Frankie and it is the story of a sarcastic, talking cat named Frankie. It is based on a true story. And even though I say that before each time I play it live, people don’t believe me. But it’s true, it’s based on a true story.
My good friend, and fellow puppeteer, Alison Mork has a pet cat named Frankie. Yes, that’s Frankie picture as the album art for the single (photo courtesy of Alison Mork at the Frankie Archives). Alison and I talk on the phone regularly and she’ll often update me on something cute that Frankie has done since the last time we spoke.
Back in 2012, she excitedly called me and told me that Frankie had actually spoken to her. Apparently, one morning she had looked at Frankie and said, “You are just a cute little gentleman.” Frankie, meowed in return but his meow, more of a squeak actually, sounded exactly like he was saying, “I am.”
So I laughed and said, “Great, not only does he speak, he’s full of himself.”
A few days later, Alison told me that he had done it again. She had said something complimentary to Frankie, and Frankie had replied with a meow that sounded like he was saying, “I know.”
And the idea for the song was born. I wrote it rather quickly, took me just about a day, sitting at my computer figuring out the lyrics. It was the first song I’ve written on mandolin, a departure from all my other songs which were written on guitar.
I’ve super happy with how the final song turned out. Steve Goodie did an amazing job on the instrumentation on the track. It’s everything a bluegrass fan (me) could hope for. I do wish my vocals were a little better but I’m never happy with how I sound, so that’ll never happen.
Another interesting tidbit about Frankie. A lot of the time authors base characters in their books on real people. Some even write real people into their books. I’ve sort of done that with this song. Of course, Frankie is based on a real cat, but whenever I sing the song I always picture the reporter as being my good friend, author, Mur Lafferty and as far as I’m concerned, that’s who the reporter is! So Mur has a cameo in my song.
Anyway, that’s a little of the backstory on my new song Frankie. I hope you get a chance to check it out.
I’ve also sent the track to Dr. Demento, so if you have a moment, CLICK HERE and request Frankie by Throwing Toasters on The Dr. Demento Show. Please, just one request per week.
Three singles.
It has been a long time coming. Soon, very soon, three brand new Throwing Toasters/Mr. Grant songs will be released. It has been far too long.
My good friend, and funny musician, Carla Ulbrich was out in Los Angeles recently recording songs for her new CD (which you can pre-order HERE). We were talking after one of her recording sessions and it really got me thinking about my own comedy music. I lamented that I had attempted to record some songs in my office, but they just weren’t coming out as good as I would have liked because of my inexperience in recording music featuring anything more that just one guitar and one microphone.
Carla said I should get in touch with a mutual friend of ours named Steve Goodie. Steve is another funny songwriter and a super talented musician. Carla said she had sent him song ideas in the past, he recorded the music and sent it back for her to ad vocals to and the tracks came out great. So, I got in touch with Steve! He was all Carla said he was and more!
Thanks to Steve’s masterful instrument playing, he has fleshed out my demos into really great songs that I’m super proud of and that shall be released shortly! Two of the songs are songs that have been ‘out there’ for awhile now.
Unfriend is a song where I air my grievances regarding Facebook. It was played on the Dr. Demento show once in 2013, but that was just a demo. This new version ROCKS!
Frankie is a song I wrote on mandolin and there’s a video of me playing it on YouTube. Proud to say this version is a bluegrass treat thanks for Steve’s pickin’.
And finally, a brand new, never before heard outside of the one time I played it at Flappers last Saturday, song called Everyone’s Invited. Actually, the official title is going to be longer, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise. This one was written on ukulele but we’ve turned this one into a hoedown that is a lot of fun.
Frankie and Everyone’s Invited are super kid friendly. Unfriend is not blue, but it borders on PG-13 in terms of subject matter.
I’m super excited to get these out into the wild and I’m planning on doing a post about each song when they are released. Unfriend is working its way through the digital distribution pipelines as I type. Frankie will follow suit tomorrow. Everyone’s Invited will be a little bit longer, as I need a special guest to come in and sing parts of it. But it will follow shortly.
Working with Steve has been great and it has really inspired me to write more. Who knows, maybe this is the start of a bunch of new Throwing Toasters songs!