A Seasonista Wrote This...stuff



Another week, another song that's not right for the Seasons but that I wanted to share.
 
This should be in the "play other instruments" tag I guess but I also wrote it.
Improv DADGAD tune for some new lyrics.
 
Echoes in the Dark - Performed by The Racket Downstairs

No time for a Seasons video this week, but here is a song I wrote for pabrizzer's excellent eight keys challenge last fall, performed by The Racket Downstairs at our recent gig at Best Video in Hamden, Connecticut. We are playing a free gig this Friday at the beach in my neighborhood. This song was inspired by the story of Daniel Kish who, although blind since the age of one, has learned to "see" via echolocation. You can read about him here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kish

 
Here's one from one of our youngest Seasonistas. Em came up to me while I was washing dishes yesterday evening and asked to borrow my ukulele. I (very reluctantly) let her because she didn't seem to be in a destructive mood :eek:. Ashley came in a few minutes later and told me that she was writing a Halloween song. She doesn't know any chords (something we'll have to change very soon, I think), but she was just strumming and singing as the words came to her.

After a little while, she had a song and asked me to sing it with her. I slapped some chords on there that seemed ok with the tune she had made up, and this is what we came up with.



Her song is pretty catchy and I was looking for Halloween songs to sing with preschool classes in the next few weeks!
 
Not on a par with with the Macca/Lennon feud but if you get a song written about you
then it is only fair to make a video response... with adverts of course. Duelling Grandads.
 
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Not on a par with with the Macca/Lennon feud but if you get a song written about you
then it is only fair to make a video response... with adverts of course. Duelling Grandads.


I'd love to watch your witty response video Rob but I've decided not to contribute to your youtube profits.
And that means I'll be missing out because you do great stuff imho.
I have included it here though so you might get a few more tenths of a cent.
How much do you actually make out of inflicting those ads on those who choose to watch?
Are we comrades or customers?
 
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I'd love to watch your witty response video Rob but I've decided not to contribute to your youtube profits.
And that means I'll be missing out because you do great stuff imho.
I have included it here though so you might get a few more tenths of a cent.
How much do you actually make out of inflicting those ads on those who choose to watch?
Are we comrades or customers?

If somebody does something you do not like then you can say so
But what you can't say is stop doing that because it bothers me
If you use a browser like BRAVE it will punch ads in the dick
and they will never bother you again. If you use Adblocker your ad
problems will be gone forever. That could be a solution for you if you
are irked by ads so much. However I would not be so presumptive as to tell you
to use them. But I think it goes deeper than that.

What I don't like is this 60's folky mentality typified by the audiences
that booed Dylan when he switched from acoustic to electric. I have felt
that some folks on UU view it as an anathema if the Ukulele is played
in any way that is different from the traditional acoustic island style,
and heaven forbid if you have been tempted by the god of mammon
and monetised your youtube channel. You are then classified as a heretic
and a sellout. Selling your soul for a cent. We set up a dichotomy of the
pure against the impure. Hello Aloha out there.

I do not subscribe to the concept that there is a style police who will
monitor and dictate whether or not you can be a member of the holy
acoustic ukulele church, and their modus operandi is to SHAME
How dare you make me look at ads. How dare you you monetize your videos
Then then they slip into social justice warrior mode and cry SHAME SHAME SHAME,
and the music gets forgotten.

Being the high priest of the seasons (you once had the beard for it) I suppose it is your
prerogative to make demands on the members of the holy ukulele church and if
we step out of line then we are admonished for it. So I guess I will have to
retire to my Essene cave in the desert and become a hermit, and consider myself
excommunicated.

End of story.
 
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I've never had to sit through an ad before one of Robs videos and it wouldn't bother me if I did. It's a 30 second (max) video that if you had an ounce of willpower won't make any impact on your life. I'm pretty sure Rob's channel has a lot more content in it beyond our own little corner of uke covers so he should monetise it if he chooses. End of the day any money comes out of YouTube's pocket, not ours, and they take a far bigger take for what is a commercial platform, not a public service. Some people seem to misunderstand that point. YouTube (and their owners Google) have one goal, to make money, if they provide useful tools such as search engines and video hosting sites in the process, great for us, but I don't understand the point of moaning about a way for them to keep the service free of charge for us. Much rather have to sit through the odd ad in front of a video than pay a subscription fee to keep my insignificant covers on the internet.

Hell I'd probably end up owing Google money if I chose to put ads on my videos.

But beyond all that, there's no need to get personal to each other when you clearly respect each other's work.

Edit: turns out viewing a video embedded on the forum doesn't show an ad. Viewing it in the YouTube app on my phone does. Normally I'll hit 'play' on the videos I want to watch on here and then access them in my history on either my phone app or Xbox app to watch properly and comment etc. But again. A short 30 second ad is no big deal.
 
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Rob,
I've never booed Dylan
I love some of your electrickery vids and reckon you do fantasic stuff here on youtube
I haven't told anyone to do or stop doing anything
I agree with some things and disagree with others and unfortunately for me usually feel the need to say so (I sure wish I wasn't this way sometimes)
I'm certainly not the high priest of this place - it not that kind of place
All power to your journey to become a youtube millionaire
but I won't contribute
and still ask the question
Comrade or customer?
Cheers Brian.
 
All power to your journey to become a youtube millionaire
but I won't contribute
and still ask the question
Comrade or customer?

Let me hold that thought for a second. Are you saying that it is OK for me to earn money on YT?

I do not aspire to be a YT millionaire. The days of making money on YT
are long gone since the adpocalypse. Many big youtubers have had their
whole channels demonitised because the content is deemed to be not
advertiser friendly As Rab has said you don't pay anything... it is
the advertisers who pay. So what you are objecting to is advertising per se
and not the fact that I in particular have monitised my channel.

A comrade is someone who has the same ideology be it moral or ethical, or the
love for the same thing (playing the ukulele). No one can force another person
to be a customer. To be a customer is the personal choice of the individual
(even you) To consume or not to consume that is the question. Customers usually know
the price of everything and the value of nothing. Since you say you have unsubscribed
from my channel, it would appear that you classify yourself as a customer since you
are not buying it anymore which of course is a fallacy since any revenue I get
comes from the advertisers and not you. I do not have my hands in your pockets comrade.

End of the day any money comes out of YouTube's pocket, not ours,

This is true and you have absolutely no say as to what adverts they put on your channel.
Vegans who do what I eat in a day videos are outraged that YT puts ads for BBQ ribs or
McDonalds on their video. But the YT algorithm figures out that this is a food video and they
then slap on an ad from their biggest paying customer which might happen to be a non-vegan
food chain. There is also that little X on ads that allow you to shut them down immediately.

Storm in a teacup really. Since Brian and I have done this blues fuelled video battle it is not so much
the battle of the rappers as the battle of the papas. Old men behaving badly.
 
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Love you both ... so please don't argue! I find the ads. irritating as well, but, then, if you want to listen to Rob (and who doesn't?), you just have to put up with them. And I think Ryan is right ... if you watch the vids on the Forum channel, then you don't see the adverts anyway.
 
Having a bone to to pick

Love you both ... so please don't argue! I find the ads. irritating as well, but, then, if you want to listen to Rob (and who doesn't?), you just have to put up with them. And I think Ryan is right ... if you watch the vids on the Forum channel, then you don't see the adverts anyway.

I can never refuse a lady, but you do realise I am losing 3-2 at the moment. Once I level the score I will call a truce. I should have learnt by now the 5 rule of spiritual power is never to defend yourself, cos we are all much worse than anything anybody can say about us.

 


I’m writing material for two projects right now: Let Us Now Praise Famous Dogs and an EP of songs about Boston True Crime. This is a song about the victims of the Boston Strangler, inspired by the podcast Stranglers. I had written it as the opening for Side Two.

HOWEVER.

- The B section/refrain feels underdone.
- The lyrics seem wordy, and the rhyme scheme kind of lazy.
- The melody is similar to Ghosts of Cocoanut Grove, which I wrote for another songwriting challenge.

Would love to hear from some SOTU songwriters about how to make this better!
 


Well there came a time in my life
when I asked my girlfriend to be my wife
And she took me to her daddy's place to meet all her relatives
I must admit I felt some trepidation
When he engaged me in frank conversation
And began to speak with no superlatives

She's pretty as a picture
She deserves all your applause
(She's enough to give one pause)
And she's worth all the trouble
She's likely to cause

Four or five years had gone past
When a baby girl was born at last
But the labor was long and the birth was hard, she had a couple of broken bones
When she let out a cry of dismay
The nurse smiled and said, "She'll be okay"
And the doctor told me, in a somber tone

Now my baby girl is all up and grown
And ready to head out on her own
And she brought her boyfriend home to meet all her relatives
I handed him a plate of barbecue
And I said, "Son, I need to talk to you
This is the only advice that I can give"

Now I ain't saying she's perfect
Lord knows she's got some flaws
But she is worth every bit of the trouble
That she's definitely gonna cause
 
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