Friday, February 26, 2010

Bed Boat Song with Pizazz!

Here is yesterday's song dressed up a little with the use of Alex P's sweeet mic.

the Bed Boat Song by isaacgillespie

Thursday, February 25, 2010

New Song Applause, vol. 2: I'm On A Boat?

Here's a song I've been trying to write for a while and just did finally today.



Because it deals in part with sea travel on a great ocean liner, it got me thinking about how much I'd really love to cross the ocean in a boat. Preferably work my way across the ocean on a freighter, but only if it's not too hard.

Anyway, this is what I found: http://www.freighter-travel.com/travel-itineraries.html

It's pretty badass and I definitely want to do it at some point. Maybe this summer to kick off a Europe tour? That would be totally rad.

Apologies if this blog has gotten off topic from being about the album, there's actually lots of great news about all that which I promise to post here soon. In the meantime enjoy the new songs.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

New Song Applause!

I wrote this song last night while walking to the sidewalk cafe for my Antifolk Festival show. Then I recorded it last night just before bed. You can tell, I'm like basically asleep.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Hank and Pigeon

Hank and Pigeon is a new group formed by my two good friends (and Due Diligence members) Morgan Hank and Alex Pigeon.

They are awesome.

Here is a video I shot of them on the subway after our Zebulon show the other night:



More video to come, but in the meantime do yourselves a favor and check out their music.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Nuthin'

This is the MIA apology post. Have been busy like a bee, floating all over town like a butterfly. First my dear girlfriend came for Valentine's Day and then stuck around for President's Day and all of a sudden it's Tuesday.

Finally got a hold of the Tea Party recordings and they sound bloody great.

This week is super busy; show at Zebulon tomorrow and then Northeast Kingdom on Thurdsay (roommate Chloe's birthday!)

Shot a whole mess of press photos for Dan Costello and Rachel Devlin's tour today, last night shot a whole bunch for Joe Crow Ryan's new album cover. Now Eric Hinojosa's in town and we're gonna shoot a bunch of video tomorrow.

So there you have it; nothing in a nutshell.




Here's a picture Claire took:

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Cover of the Day: Willie Moore

This one goes out to Aaron Invisible, with whom I recently went out on tour. He was teaching me the folk thumb-picking fundamentals. "It's all about the thumb" he says.

Willie Moore is a song that I first heard from the Kossoy Sisters on this really excellent folk music compilation. I mean really really excellent. Blows the water right out of the Anthology of American Folk Music in my modest opinion.

The Kossoy Sisters original recording of "I'll Fly Away" was featured in "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" (Allison Kraus & Gillian Welch sing it on the CD). Their recording of Willie Moore features supertight harmony and a chilling deadpan delivery of a tragic love story. Mine has a funny shirt:



One quick thing, when I was rehearsing this song my septuagenarian lefty roommate came out and said: "Oh I always knew that song with totally different lyrics. It's supposed to be about the unions." Awesome.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Self-Consciousness

Here is a still frame from the 1995 episode of the Simpsons where Bart dresses in disguise so as not to be recognized at the store where he's been caught shoplifting:



And here is a picture of what I for-real look like when I go outside these icy winter days:

Marie! (Eef Barzelay)

My lovely girlfriend's sister is named Marie, which always makes it kind of awkward to do a cover song about a Marie. Nonetheless, we must press on! We can't banish all "Marie" songs from our repertoire! Especially when they're as good as this one!

Eef Barzelay's original version can be found at the FREE Daytrotter Session. Which, by the way, is bloody amazing. And did I mention free? I've been listening to these recordings pretty much non-stop for a year.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Guest Writer - Gabriel Gall!

Gabriel Gall from the Relatives will be writing today's post. He also played banjo on this video!



i made my way off that achy old subway car and climbed up to the street, where the snow was just starting to blow horizontally across the gridded new york streets. isaac and i met at a near-empty grocery store, gliding from aisle to aisle in search of a few necessary items for the day. soup and bread and hummus made it to the cash register; sadly, the plastic container of chocolate milk i had my eye on did not.

we dodged all the icy puddles and stumbled upstairs to his apartment, warm and ready to consume both food and music. 'i want to show you something' isaac said. 'it's just 6 triplets in a row, i think'.

his guitar was in his lap, 3 fingers on his right hand going at once, droning the tonic note with his thumb while the other two fingers made their way across those triplets. hearing it felt like home to me. he repeated the triplets, and then oddly enough, sang one word over a IV chord: Home.

'try this harmony' he said.

we sat like silhouettes in front of a snowy view of his courtyard and worked through the song a few times, sipping our minestrone while it cooled. added some banjo and some foot taps and there was little else to be done.

'lets record this.'

Monday, February 8, 2010

ACTION SHOTS!

Ok so maybe it's not as action-y as this guy, but thanks again to Scott Rudd for coming out and taking great pix of our recording session on Saturday!









Saturday, February 6, 2010

Wrecked

Back from recording - great great day.

Pretty beat, not just from playing but also carrying tons and tons of things (guitar, camera, acoustic guitar, digital camera, bass guitar, etc.). Scott Rudd took a bunch of really cool pictures, which I hope to post here soon. But for now MANY MANY thanks to: Alex Wernquest, Ben Sadock, Jo Schornikow, and Colin Fahrner as well as Brian Speaker for recording us and Scott and Chloe Philip for taking pictures. Kudos all!

Thanks again, now I'm a go pass out to some netflix

Friday, February 5, 2010

Wrecking a Life Starts With a Single Step

Hello and welcome to my new blog, I Will Wreck Your Life. In this blog, I'll chronicle the ups and downs and ups of the making of the upcoming Isaac Gillespie & the Due Diligence album, "I Will Wreck Your Life". Thanks Justin Remer of the Elastic No-No Band for the idea

If you still haven't heard the first Isaac Gillespie album, 1971, check it out at: http://www.isaacgillespie.com People seem to think it's pretty good.

I'm starting this blog on the eve of the big big recording session with Brian Speaker over at the Brooklyn Tea Party. All the snowcasters and passers-by are predicting the Storm of The Century! for tomorrow morning, but I no worried. This is the first time that all five instrument members of the Due Diligence will be able to get together in one professionally mic'ed room and I don't believe anything will stop us.

We intend to cut the basic instrumental tracks to the albums titular hit single, for which this blog is also named: I Will Wreck Your Life.

More on that later; for now I got to find my guitar picks and get some rest!