Christmas in July

Santa's Got a Brand New Bag Tom Ciurczak  male vocals, similar timbre as Bruce Springsteen, rock band with horns. This song is about Santa getting a new bag. The first few notes sound like James Brown's "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," but the song swings into theatrical rock. It mentions the children all over the world, way up in the sky.'' 

Christmastime in Hollywood Tom Ciurczak  upbeat rock with sleighbells, male vocals, looking for the soul of Christmas, thinking of "It's a Wonderful Life." trying to imagine life with snow in Hollywood, "None of this is real in tinsel town." "I just want my Christmas to be with you" jingle bells interludes. 

A Million Matzoh Balls Dean Friedman acoustic guitar with male singer and children, humorous folk-show tune, tall story about his mama making a million matzoh balls, and everywhere they were at his home! "There were so many matzoh balls I didn't know what to do!"

A Million Matzoh Balls | Dean Friedman

 Ave Maria (Instrumental)  Stephen Melillo instrumental, slow, strings of classical piece, “Ave Maria.” 

Glogg Emily Hurd  Clever lyrics like “Let’s go shovel the sidewalk in a relative sense.” There is an underpinning lyric “Because there’s wine” throughout the song. bells and electric guitar.    

 I Ruined Christmas  Refestramus  Contemporary art-rock band, female fronted-vocals like Miley Cyrus, bells, "I ruined Christmas this year...It's like I told you before, it won't happen again, my dear."  This is a list of things she's done to reindeer, family members, and the eggnog! 

Never Take Love For Granted Dan Berggren Shopping in the malls for Christmas. “You’ll never take love for granted if you always give love in return.”  Male bass/baritone and acoustic guitar.  Folk styled. 

 

"Iguana," the new album by Joe Olnick

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Avant fusionist available for all media
Joe Olnick’s new avant-fusion album, IGUANA is out, and available on every major streaming/download platform online in the world: Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, Tidal, Deezer, Amazon, Google, CD Baby. Look for the album on Bandcamp, plus CDs through CDBaby. Here's the SmartUrl: http://smarturl.it/4a8362   
The media is giving a thumbs up to IGUANA, which is Joe’s 7^th album.  

Jeff Collins, host of Hard Rock Hell’s radio show, The Rock Jukebox” calls IGUANA “one of the best of the year!  a magnificent album!” KOCF Eugene, Oregon’s Andy Goldfinger says Joe’s album has “that feel of cool. It crosses the boundaries of genre and lets the listener just feel the music." Vents Magazine’s Steve Kinrade offers an eclectic comparison in his review of the album, mentioning its range from musical styles from Yes, Ian Dury, James Brown to an obscure British singer-songwriter named Peter Greenwood. He writes that the album is “worth a thorough investigation.”

Olnick, and bandmates—bassist Jamie Aston and drummer Stew Bradley are performing live, "Our live shows have become a really cool multimedia experience, with custom videos being projected during most of the show. And our concerts have always expanded on themes from the recordings, using exciting improvisational techniques that come from playing for many years. Every concert is unique, and a lot of fun.”   

Along with the album release, the group's second track is “Don’s Theme,” an introspective instrumental based on the Iguana (from the album cover) walking into the room in a slow and thoughtful way.  

Designed by artist Ron Good (of the horror series, God-Awful Comics), the album art tells the story of a misunderstood iguana named Don, who struggles to find his own hot rock to rest on. Joe says there are parallels of the animal’s life and his career, as it’s a struggle to find support for creating original, instrumental music!     

Joe calls his music “avant-jam” and fusion like Medeski, Martin & Wood and New Mastersounds. In addition to guitar, Joe plays sax and bass, plus works as a recording engineer. In 2012, he released his first CD, and continued self-producing with albums from ambient to jazz/rock genres.  

 

Spirited Instrumentals

 Spirited music is our name and game and work! :)

All my New York City-area friends are invited to the Cutting Room, on Friday, April 27, at 7:30 PM for  Legends of Boston.

Who are these Boston musicians? Two different acts: Magic Dick & Shun Ng AND Johnny A. (and his guitars.)

Magic Dick is J. Geils' harmonica player and Shun is an entertaining acoustic guitar player, and he reminds me of an acoustic Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Van Halen rolled into one with a voice inspired by Michael Jackson. In fact, Quincy Jones says he was blown away by both Shun's  "soul and his science – his creativity and his uniqueness is astounding.” 

This is their song: SPACE, which is available for licensing. 

Follow the link for their cover of "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxAZ3YyjtPg

Johnny A. and his guitars cover the Left Banke's “Walk Away Renee”: https://youtu.be/9IRetoeEecc

He'll be doing a set of British Invasion SongBook.  

This is the link to order tickets for Magic Dick & Shun Ng and Johnny A.. https://tickets.thecuttingroomnyc.com/event/1655553

The Cutting Room is at 44 East 32nd Street, in New York, and the phone number is 212-691-1900. The website is http://thecuttingroomnyc.com.

Quick heads up about Holiday music including Halloween songs like the Gentle Giant instrumental, SPOOKY BOOGIE.  Hammond organ and great horror cues!

  

TOWER OF POWER

If you're on Facebook, Tower of Power's web outreach folks would love for you to join the Official TOP Facebook Fan page
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Official-Tower-of-Power-FAN-Page

New guitarist in Tower of Power is Jerry Cortez, and the band is playing songs off its Great American Soulbook album.   “Me and Mrs. Jones” and “The James Brown” medley, “Star Time” are favorites live.   Visit the band's web site for show info.

http://www.towerofpower.com