Farmertan

We at farmertan are hoping everyone had a wonderful holiday and that a safe and happy new year will be shared by all.  We are in the midst of finishing the latest in our album releases.  The title isn’t definite yet.  With that being said, one of the songs on it is named No Reservations,  which coincidently is the name of the Travel Channel food program starring Anthony Bourdain.  Now,  apparently Mr. Bourdain is an indie rock fan.  It has been suggested to us that we try to attract his attention and have our song considered for the shows theme.  Farmertan,  never one to overindulge in shameless self promotion,  has agreed to give it a shot.  So sign up for the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/#/group.php?gid=211427194042 and pass it along to the show and Anthony Bourdain.  Food,  Fun, and Farmertan,  the ultimate triple threat.

 FRIDAY NOVEMBER 27TH MCFAIRLAWN’S TAVERN, WATERBURY, CT  9:30PM  PLEASE BRING A NON-PERISHABLE FOOD ITEM INSTEAD OF A COVER.

We’ve been doing this rock music gig for some time and it really has gotten to the point that international stardom is less and less likely.  It isn’t even our motivation to become famous but we do enjoy writing music so it’s only natural that we enjoy people listening to it and hopefully enjoying it too.  Strangely enough this here Jamendo site has provided us with unforseen exposure in many different countries.  We’ve come to find out that our songs are being broadcast in Subway food franchises, hotels, auto parts stores and internet sports documentaries throughout Europe, Asia, and Australia.  Countries like Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, France, Germany, And the United States,  have used our songs to make their businesses more entertaining.  Every time I’m at a store I am aware of what’s on their Muzak system,  and now Farmertan is one of those bands.  So,  it’s been a really cool experience to think we’ve helped people enjoy the everyday aspects of their days and hopefully sold a few Subway sandwiches as well.  Here is one of the most popular songs currently spinning on the other side of the planet.

Well,  the summer has come to an end.  The kids are back to school,  some for the first time,  others advancing to greater heights in education.  We hope everyone had a great summer,  we’ve been very busy recording some new songs and are feeling pretty good about how they are developing.  This November we are planning a show which should coincide with Holy Cross High school’s class of 1989 reunion.  Paul is a graduate of this class and is possibly attending.  Who would have imagined 20years has gone by.  Mike and Jim will be next,  and Matt rounds the foursome out in 2011.  A special Farmertan milestone also approaches in 2012 as we hit 20 years as a band,  god willing.  But for now, we digress.  Here is a song which we recorded with Mike Arafeh at Coffeehouse Records or 3C studios( who is also turning twenty this year) in the year 1997 and released on the Female album / Serendipity DoDa records.  It’s an old song that some may remember. 

FARMERTAN-FRIDAY NOVEMBER 27TH/ MCFAIRLAWN’S TAVERN,  FROST RD WATERBURY

The Knife

http://www.divshare.com/download/8483326-920

this is our first official youtube video.

The podcast. Named for a popular device from the Apple Computer company, it has become America, and perhaps the world’s favorite single serving out of the freezer save for later entertainment source. From Comedy, (Ricky Gervais has an excellent show)- to music, to news and information, the podcast is here to stay.  The podcast is todays college radio.  The correct podshow can let you discover new bands and musical forms.  They run the spectrum from very professional to completely amatuerish.  The spirit of the program is always the same,  to create a show that is influenced by an everyday individual’s personality.  It can be an audio blog or a demo to attract bigger and better things for it’s maker.  Whatever the motivation podcasts are ambitious works that deserve to be heard.  Here are 2 podcasts playing Farmertan:

http://music.podshow.com/music/listeners/podshow_details.php?ShowHash=e7970c08cd9fd7839335ff0f5531fd27#

http://music.podshow.com/music/listeners/podshow_details.php?ShowHash=23d5a7e129c6ed5e4eef489d6c636620#

Once in a while, the ideas for Farmertan lyrics come from external sources and just find their way into the songs. Songs about cars and motorcycles and movies and subliminal product placement. Every once in awhile it gets a bit political, and this weeks selection is called “General Strike.” You have heard of a union strike, and the general strike is the similar  concept of all working class people just not showing up for work- (perhaps this is quite timely given the Wall Street greed Debacle)- and then certain people saying- wait, we need those people..etc. but really this song is about all the ads on TV about the National Guard and how they pay for your school- but guess what- you better know what you are doing because the price of college may be your life.

On a non-political note,  its a pretty song- with a nice lead guitar melody.

http://www.divshare.com/download/7469992-e06

Everyone loves Canada, and if they don’t admit it, it is because they have fell in love with it yet; from comedians, to wonderful cities, to the home of Santa Claus and the North Pole- its a big white wonderland.  And it is home to some of the finest music that the planet has to offer; from Bruce Cockburn to the Barenaked ladies, to RUSH, Triumph, The  Tragically Hip to Bryan Adams, Sloan to Hot Hot Heat to the Constantines, Sam Roberts to many many more- the CBC radio station, and programming are unmatched.

But the undisputed jewel atop the golden crown of Canadian pop and folk music is certainly, none other than Gordon Lightfoot. Who can name a more haunting melody than “The  Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”  But for this weeks selection we have an acoustic version of a crossover folk and country hit “Sundown.” As a bonus, we are including a Farmertan original acoustic song called “Pieces,” a rip-roaring tale of betrayal in the modern internet age.

“Sundown” Gordon Lightfoot, performed by Farmertan

http://www.divshare.com/download/7262146-49a

“Pieces” by Farmertan

http://www.divshare.com/download/7261995-bff

For a very long time, the Pixies Trompe le Monde was in my college CD changer. Perhaps that was because the album was brand new at the time;  but an album that got at least as much play was certainly “Doolittle”- the undisputed Zenith of the Pixies phenomenon. Kurt Cobain listed the Pixies as one of his greatest influences, especially the dynamics of quiet verse juxtaposed against hammering choruses. “Debaser,” “Monkey Gone to heaven,” “Hey,” and “Wave of Mutilation” were bonafide classics, but perhaps the hit and often maligned standout was “Here comes your man.” It has been said that the Pixies did not like the song and refused to play it; but a  live show and several DVD’s of other concerts disprove this myth.

“Here comes your man” is not a love song; its a song about dropping the atomic bomb on Japan. This confusion is eerily  similar to REM’s “The one I love”- also not a love song but misconstrued as one for years.

Enjoy

“Here comes you man” the Pixies; Performed by Farmertan

http://www.divshare.com/download/7153256-444

We have skipped a bunch of weeks, but we have been busy. We have been diligently been distracted by cover songs and are loading up the stockpiles for week after week ear assaults.

If you looked on a notebook in high school you may see “Led Zeppelin” or AC-DC; or maybe the Police, definitely U2 but just as likely, the CURE. Robert Smith Was every bit effeminate as any of the American Hair Bands, he was 100% all English man of the eighties. Right as the first wave of pink subsided and new wave was kicking in, Robert said, let me do it my own way, so in the seventies, at the age of 18 years,  he went his own way and wrote Boys Don’t Cry.

In these covers we try to extract the power in the songs, and serve them up with a heaping help of Farmertan sauce.

The Cure, Boys DOn’t CRY. performed by Farmertan.

http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?track=03-boys-dont-cry-3-28

This cover of the week takes a couple influences down with one stone. The Jesus and Mary chain hit the scene in a similar fashion to many brit new wave style post punk bands, and being from the same part of Glasgow, Scotland as the famed CT musical entrepeneur Brian Sinclair, as well as Aztec Camera and Lloyd Cole, they had to be good. Often JMC was compared to a cross between the Velvet underground and the Ramones. They could drone like crazy over fast or slow melodic fuzz induced jams.  They seemed to be out of time, spanning decades through the 80’s 90’s and new millenium with reinvented and listenable grace.

And then we take a left turn….

In college I had a 5CD changer that had a cartridge to fill, you would then stick the hunk of plastic back into the player and it would sputter and have fits as it delivered the CD of choice to the laser. For lack of lubricant, it was whine and rub and sound like a braying donkey and you went from disc to disc. But for much of the end of my college days, The PIxies “Trompe le monde” occupied that opening slot. And on that disc was a cover of “Head on” by JMC.  This cover was a rip roaring return to loud guitars and punk sounds that injected musical steroids into the song from which it could never look back.

Perhaps this song is what a “cover” is all about, the Pixies, take a song from a great band, and make it their own- do it their own way. They don’t try to copy the tempo, the feel, the notes, arrangement- it doesn’t matter. They make it their style. Their own; That is what Farmertan is trying to do with the cover of the weeks we post- Give a Farmertan filter to a bunch of great songs.

When we do this song, we sound more like the pixies version,  and as Bono from U2 once said about Helter Skelter…       The Pixies stole this one from the Jesus and Mary Chain; and we are not stealing it back, but just buying it back from a pawn shop.

“Head on” by the Jesus and Mary Chain; performed by Farmertan.

http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?track=01-head-on-3-28&amp;show_comments=true&amp;auto_play=false&amp;color=ff7700″></param

Neil Young is one of those iconic figures that is ever present in the music mind of gen x americans, who were able to hitch on to the Young train after his all aboard but way before his cab ride home. Perhaps a tier below some of the rock and roll’s biggest hitters, but still in the dugout with them, fully able to carry their jockstraps, and especially relevant as an influence to the indie rock, grunge and alt country jet setters.  

There was a time in the 90’s when Neil reached what alcoholics might have termed “a moment of clarity,” an epiphany, perhaps the denoument of the novel that is Neil’s career. He strapped on the old Les Paul and got up on stage with none other than Pearl Jam, singing “(Keep on) Rocking in the free world.” A terrific song and built for farmertan with its easy chord changes, limited vocal range, and plodding arrangement, but no, that would be to trite and easy, so we switch it up. We choose to cover a song about a stripper, a very tan good time girl, and the man that falls in love with her for his whole life, or at least for one night???.

Neil Young,   “Cinnamon Girl” performed by Farmertan

http://www.divshare.com/download/6805660-8b8