Nick Takenobu Ogawa

This week I wrote a song about my friend Splinter. Some of this song is imaginary, but there’s plenty of real stuff in it too. Especially the part about him driving. That guy was one crazy driver. He had this old subaru that he would just go flying around in. If you are a skier you’ll know what I’m talking about. At 16, Splinter was the highest ranked skier in the world for his age. I once saw him jump off an 80 foot cliff into lake George like it was nothing. I think there’s some correlation between driving, skiing, and jumping off insane cliffs.  Splinter also loved speaking German and reading Hegel, but that’s not in the song. He disappeared to Eastern Europe a few years ago.

The Day that Splinter Died

Lyrics 

Last week Mike Chris and I drove up to Albany to record a radio interview/set for WAMC Northeast Public Radio’s Performance Place with Michael Eck. The show went extremely well and will air Monday 1/21 at 11:23 am EST. Please tune to your local NPR station if you are in New England, or go to wamc.org  and click on “Listen Live” in the upper right hand corner. Hope you can tune in!

(Update 1/22/08)

In case you missed it you can listen to the whole show right here

I’m a big fan of HBO’s the Wire. The show’s title theme is Way Down in the Hole, written by Tom Waits, however the recording artist changes from season to season. Steve Earle’s interpretation is used this season, and past performers include the Blind Boys of Alabama, The Neville Brothers, and DoMaJe. This week I thought I’d post my newly arranged and recorded take on it. It’s too bad that this is the show’s fifth and final season, but I can appreciate David Simon’s decision if he feels his work is complete after creating such a rich and encompassing portrayal of the city of Baltimore. 

Listen

Okay, after many hours of poring over my newly acquired logic software, here it is - the same song I posted before. I know what you’re thinking, jeez, couldn’t he write a new flipping song for a change?! but pleeease listen to it and tell me what you think. The production makes a big difference and the drums on the first one are pretty dopey by comparison. Seriously, I would like any and all feedback, anything - do you like it? Is it better/worse than the earlier version? What does it make you think of? Is one part too loud? Is this something that I should continue to spend this much freaking time doing??? I mean, I’m going to keep doing it anyway, but some honest objective criticism would be appreciated

Listen to the Song

Learn How to Play it

Lyrics 

(1/20 update) Mike Weiser just sent me his remixed version of the song, which he has posted on his website. You can listen to it here 

Ok, so I’ve been busy with the holidays, which were actually really fun. How was everyone else’s? I got to go skiing up in Vermont and spend some quality time with the fam. It was pretty nice. I also just got Logic, which I’m finding is really enhancing the sound quality and depth of the recordings I’m working on. I haven’t been able to move on from Fooling Yourself, and I should have a finalized version up here in the next couple days.

 In the meantime here’s a link to a pretty nifty company that makes reusable shopping bags that have their own little self contained pouches so you can carry them around in your pocket or what have you. They claim that one of these things will reduce 1500 plastic bags over its lifetime. If you live in NYC you know what I’m talking about - every deli and bodega will give you a bag for anything, for a soda even! I’m about to drink it, is a bag really necessary? Please check this out, I’m buying some right now! acmebags.com