Secret Picnic Spot

Volcano by JoFranna

2010-08-23T23:17:00.000-04:00

It has been awhile boys and girls.
Summertime came and almost went.
Lots of things happened to the people of the world.

Also... JoFranna is releasing an EP and celebrating with a performance at the
Sidewalk Cafe in New York City on September 1st (09012010). Crazy things will happen, like I might remember all the words to Coney Island.

More things to come in a shorter interval of time then before:

Coney Island by Jofranna

2010-04-17T20:52:00.003-04:00

Meet your new summertime jam.

Featuring Mr. Toby Goodshank!

Using the Secret

2010-03-26T18:20:00.000-04:00

"Using the Secret" by LOOH (Ladies of Old Hat)- myself and Deenah Vollmer

A song about secrets of various kinds.
Birds make a special guest appearance!

Found You Dead

2010-03-19T14:41:00.001-04:00

Nobody liked that bird.

Supersonic Man

2010-03-10T23:22:00.000-05:00

Second song from 'JoFranna'?! What's our name...I'm not sure yet.
All I know is that we are really good at rapping together.

Science Fair Face by Preston

2010-02-28T20:22:00.001-05:00

This is a song by Preston Spurlock. It is amazing.
And the more listens you get out of it the better it gets.

Here is my visual tribute to the song.

Tough Girls

2010-02-21T01:04:00.000-05:00

This is the first video and song from a new hit rap group based in Brooklyn, New York.
They don't have a name. The members are Joanna Kelly and myself.
Joanna is a beast on the beats. I just know how to fight.

Not true.

Down By The Shore

2010-02-16T22:04:00.000-05:00

This is part of my practice singing over the drums series. It's like chewing gum and whistling at the same time.

This video was really fun to make actually. I have no idea what I am doing nearly all of the time, but an end product happens anyway.

Killer on the Run

2010-02-07T11:22:00.000-05:00

This song is mostly Austin. But I was there so I take partial credit.
The audio sounds a bit fuzzed out... but you know... imperfection is a good way to live life.

Spaceship Bicycle

2010-01-30T01:47:00.000-05:00

This is song comes from pining over summertime in the cold months of the year.

Park Song

2010-01-17T20:00:00.006-05:00

Another week. Another song.

This song was started on March 25, 2008. It was finished today. It was born when Austin and I were eating lunch in Bryant Park and thought it would be a good idea to quit our lives and go to Tennessee and become country music stars. We also decided to co-author a novel that day. We also have a pilot cooking show under our belts that we have never seen and actually no one has ever seen. We are really good at ideas.

In a way... this song sums up a lot about our friendship.... we are building up a penny collection to reach our dreams.

This was super fun to make and this kind of collaboration is exactly why I started this whole project. I really love the idea of connecting to the people in your life through music. And no lack of ability or know-how can stop that. Proof is in the poorly crafted music video above.

woah...I dropped the ball

2010-01-08T15:47:00.006-05:00

It's pretty impressive how quickly I dropped the ball on this project.

But in 2010 I picked up the ball again. I found it under the couch. Covered in dust and cat hair.

I made this song for a silly contest at my college. You have to pick out an art piece from their collection, get inspired by it, and spit some kind of art work back. This is my dribble.

This dude Xu Bing was sent by the Chinese government on a rustification program where he had to learn to farm. While there he made a wood print of a vegetable field. This was considered a radical piece of art because it didn't say anything about how great the Chinese Government was.

The song is called: The government saw politics, Xu Bing saw a farm

I have noticed that most of the creations I make on my own sound really melancholy...my next song will sound peppier. Oh, and this whole thing was made on a guitar with a broken G-string and I used a drum stick as a slide.

There is a boat going by...

2009-12-08T22:49:00.004-05:00

with a sail on it.

This is a song I co-wrote with a 5 year old named Stella.

The best parts all are hers.

Thanksgiving Drippings

2009-11-28T16:58:00.007-05:00

There is something about the lack of light that brings the gloom out of me. But at least I turned that gloom into something tangible... song of the week #4.

This song is called: "Disaster Song"

3rd Week: Technology Can't Hold Me Back

2009-11-22T23:17:00.006-05:00

Despite many efforts to share this song in a more compelling format. The land of technology kept on failing me. I do enjoy the next song, with or without the video accompaniment I edited...but could not successfully save as shareable file.

This song comes from a great activity I partook in a week or so back with friends.

Which goes as follows:

find a youtube karaoke video with no vocal track.
sing along and record the song the way you think it should sound.
play it back.

This is a song by my youtube karaoke band called Hate... but in actuality the real band that performs is called Hale. If I can ever figure out how to post the video I made...I'll do it!

Members include:

Myself

Heather

Erica

Ben

Here is the song:

If you want to make your own version of the song. Here is the blank karaoke video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIcpQK8O7Ic

the summer is somewhere far away, like montauk or far rockaway

2009-11-15T19:38:00.007-05:00

Song a week.

It's really happening.

Two for two.

This song is a collaboration song. I brought a surprise verse to Max.

And then a series of surprises later this song was born.

I love it. Happy lazy days.

It is called "We're Not Going Anywhere".

It is audio soup for providing comfort and fighting colds.

Song A Week... Here Goes Nothing

2009-11-07T18:54:00.004-05:00

So I have taken up a challenge to myself. To post a new song a week. It's totally possible.

It would have been even easier if I hadn't lost the digital voice recorder I invested in.

But I did. So the format will exclusively be low-end music videos.

Here is one. "It's Ok, It's Alright"

I am not happy with this one. But I just need to get it out of my life and move on.

I am not happy with the lack of backing instrumentation and the brevity.

This is more like a what-if of a song.

But it still counts as the start of a weekly post.

Happy Halloween (almost)

2009-10-29T20:27:00.000-04:00

Bury that Love

2009-10-23T08:38:00.004-04:00

Well... I am trying to make due with minimal technology. What you will see below is a power point combined with a low-end Kodak digital camera I have yet to return to my mom. With these tools I have composed a visual song. This is hopefully part of a music swap program with my friend Heather. But for now I want to share it with here her.

High School Universe

2009-10-20T20:39:00.006-04:00

It always comes back to space. I think this is because it is an unknown that is real. Unlike the unknown that is fake. Like heaven.

Today in high school while student teaching, a student asked me where I went to college. I told him NYU and now Brooklyn College. Then he asked me if I finished high school. This is not a way humans phrase questions. High school for me has been very much the unknown.

I also float between the world of respectable adult and kid. I float like people float in space because there is no gravity. I am not a real teacher. So they tell me things that don't tell the teacher. But also don't listen that much either. One thing they told me today is that there is a hallway where kids from "other schools, not their school" perform quick sexual acts between classes.

This place is unreal. To represent how high school and space are both unreal. Look at this mural they painted of outer space (notice how the real sun made an appearance). I wonder how outer space would paint a mural of high school?

Parisian Music Exchange Program

2009-10-17T13:29:00.005-04:00

Ana is in Paris. We are starting a weekly exchange of small projects back and forth to stay in touch while she is away.

Assignment number one: A song about subway travel.

I have no means to record music except a digital camera with a sound recorder. The image can't focus while it is recording which makes things blurry.

The people in the song are all real characters from a particular car of the G train I was on this week.

Outer Space as a Screensaver

2009-10-12T17:32:00.008-04:00

A Message from Outer Space. A place where pillars of rock are phallic reminders of W. Alan's wisdom. Or maybe just a coincidence. If this was a video and not a still photograph you could see the image moving kind of like this...my re-creation at home.

Weather & Iowa (The Middle)

2009-10-10T18:42:00.007-04:00

Someone once told me a joke when I complained about it being too hot outside. They said they turned on the air conditioning on but it will take three months to kick in. Today the air conditioning kicked in. With this comes my one complaint about the colder months. I miss the light. I guess a similar joke could be made that the dimmer switch is being turned up but it will take four months to kick in.

Jump cut.

On the road this summer there was a lot of great weather. Notice the random picture of Iowa from out the window. Looks great. Feels great. What a great random day in the middle of America. Iowa a nice host state. There was a university with a food coop in the town. And there was a lot of road that led to Nebraska. I am glad that I have been to these places. They are all colder now too.

Extracurricular Activities

2009-10-09T17:35:00.009-04:00

When I am not playing in the hit band Old Hat or travelling across country, you can find me on the soccer fields of Brooklyn.

I play every Friday night. We mostly lose. In this picture some of my teammates are stretching and probably talking about how "we are going to win this time, really". But really, if they only knew the future they would know we were going to lose. And we did, 5-1.

The way this team works is at the end of a game we have a meeting and talk about what we did wrong. And then we make up something to make ourselves feel better. After losing this game we decided that we actually won the game if you count the second half only. Because in the second half we scored and they didn't. I think we will probably win tonight.

Conceptual Art Camp meets Road Rules

2009-10-06T20:57:00.008-04:00

My time in the car on the drive across country involved a lot of figuring out how to sleep comfortably while sitting. I did a lot of leaning forward and gathering soft things to shove under my head... from spare sleeping bags to loose pieces of clothing. While not sleeping in the van there was a lot of scenery out the window. I saw landscapes that are boring to the people who drive through on their daily commutes. But to me America, is beautiful and ever since I returned to New York I've felt this sense of patriotism that really surprises me.

But beyond the plains, craggily rocks, and deserts. And beyond the rows of corn and bunches of soybean-- I saw a bunch of conceptual art. Specifically in Utah. Before my trip I imagined Utah as a place where ladies wore long denim skirts and blouses and men wore wool underwear to honor Joseph Smith. Where sprite sprouted out of everyone public fountain. But this was not quite my experience. Instead I found art. Weird art. Big, beautiful, absurd art. Maybe the same spirit that inspired the following pieces is what inspired J. Smith go all crazy with the religion thing.

1.) Spiral Jetty. Great Salt Lake

2.) Victory Arch, Zaqistan (formerly Utah)

3.) Tree of Life. Off the side of the road. On the salt flats.

These pictures prove I saw these things.

The Silly Putty of Bands

2009-10-02T19:13:00.006-04:00

Old Hat practiced yesterday for tonight's show.

Sangria.

Pretzels.

A Cat.

A Pot as a drum.

All in a days work.

Old Hat Trick

2009-09-30T16:03:00.010-04:00

Yesterday Old Hat practiced many tricks! Here are pictures of various members doing their best to go into the air. And they are trying even harder not to break through the concrete. Which happens if you pogo too hard.

Road Trip - Join my Journey with an ongoing Selection of Visuals

2009-09-30T13:40:00.001-04:00

We loaded up the car in Brooklyn. And drove all night besides the occasional rest stop. This was our first real stop in the sunlight.

We played Sufjan Stevens "Chicago" but it didn't sound right. So we changed it to something else that was more fitting but it is something I can't remember.

More to come! Plus other things about my life.