"Say It's Possible", copies

I've been watching a spate of youtube, and one of the most wondrous discoveries, apart from some amazing lip-synching, are videos of every boy/girl and his/her guitar rocking out to cover their favourite songs, and dumping them onto youtube for all the world to see.

Now I know this phenomena because I play guitar, and I've had my dreams of being a guitar rock god. However, I've disabused myself of this notion, now facing the third decade of my life, as I now possess a more measured appreciation of skills that I have not. I know that I do not have a good voice. Yet that never stopped me from belting out my songs as if I did.

I'm sure there are thousands of covers on youtube, but I'm interested in this one song, because the song is so new, it's not even been released. The original could even be classed as a homegrown amateur song. The song, "Say It's Possible" was written by one of my favourite californian songmeister, the effervescent Terra Naomi, a singer from Los Angeles, who I discovered from browsing the jungle of music known as cdbaby. I'd even had the pleasure of seeing Terra play live in San Francisco, admittedly not a difficult feat since she is still not so widely known, so much so that all 10 of us showed up to her gig at the Red Devil Lounge in San Francisco. So if you go to her website, you will find that she is unable to tour the States this summer, and instead, she's exploited the technology available now, in our it wonderland, with youtube, and dls, and digital cameras, and she's put together a virutal tour.

It's a seductively simple idea, Naomi records a song every few days for the whole of summer and putting it on the web. It sounds so simple, but it is probably one of the most fiendlishly ambitious projects an artist can think of: recording in the bedroom, using workable but by no means fancy equipment: this is exposing the singer in all her nakedness - no mixing, no processing, just her voice, her guitar and a digital camera.

One of her songs "Say It's Possible" (and at this moment of counting, she's recorded 14) has managed to make it viral, hitting the front page of youtube at one point, and has received 300000+ page views.



So listening to it, I was surprised to find that within days, had attracted the cover efforts of a bunch of people.

Here's PJsurfs, June 24:



Here's Mac1302, June 26:



Here's briennalauryn June 24:



Here's kol28, on June 27:



Added on June 27, 2006, 11:45 PM
by tlee0129 (3 videos)




Indeed, the youtube flowering of the song has even encouraged the indefatigable Naomi to record a "How to Play" video for the song, and as she says, "It's a really simple song, and some of you have been kind enough to point out..."



Expect to see more attempts in the future. Hmmm, I need a digital camera so I can try my version ... I'm thinking a reggae version, which, it must be said, requires a big hit of the ganga ...

Update: I've created a page to store all the videos, and I'm going to keep it current...

A Rose by any other Name

I was at a bbq yesterday in SF with a bunch of musicians. Asking one of them what band he was in, he said he was in the "Poontang Wranglers."

"The Poo.. what?" I ask.

"The Poontang Wranglers."

"The KooKang Bunglers?" I ask.

"No. The Poontang Wranglers."

"I still didn't get it?" I ask.

"The Poontang Wranglers."

"Oh. The Poontang Wranglers." I finally said.

Then he added, "I think our band name recently got voted onto the AV list of worst band-names."

Colbert's Advice for the Young (tm)

"Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blinder, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us."

"Cynics always say no. But saying yes begins things. Saying yes is how things grow. Saying yes leads to knowledge. Yes is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes."

~ Stephen Colbert, 2006 Commencement Speech at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill.