Michael: Guitar, Vocals
Jason: Harmonica, Vocals
Sarah: Vocals
Virginia: Rattles, Intro Vocal
Arthur: Percussion, *Plastic*

Appalachian Valley, 1965. It was a difficult summer. I killed a man there once. There was red red blood all over the white white January snow, which was the cause of death. He knew he would take his clothes off in the whitest snow he had ever seen, amidst the hypothermia and the cocaine that hung out together like two bums on a train, doing January snow.

(This is our murder ballad soaked in heavy reverb. The incredibly apt gunshot sound at 0:16 was unplanned and came out of nowhere!)

Sarah: Vocals
Jason: Slide Guitar, Harmonica, Vocals
Jon: Guitar, Vocals
Michael: Microphone Holding, Distant Vocals

A very quiet version of this Beatles tune that Sarah and Jon liked so much they started playing the song over right after we finished playing it, hence the two endings going on here.

Sarah: Vocals
Natasha: Piano
Jason: Vocals, Ukulele, Harmonica
Michael: Vocals, Bass
Virginia: Accordion
Mike P: Guitar

This was a melodramatic Tom Waits-style polka that we did, which not surprisingly turned out to be a lot of fun. Lyrics are all over the place, but basically, Michael is in a restaurant where paintings are walking around talking about him. They don`t like his belt. Jason then describes a corpse he is looking for. Sarah can`t find her Antonio. We tell her that we saw his corpse in the field yesterday. Jason says some things in Spanish, and then there are ice sculptures of dead swans. The end.

Virginia: Guitar
Michael & Steve: Vocals

Steve is our resident Canadian, and a big fans of the blues. The microphone wire kept shorting out during this recording, so there are random blasts of static going on while we sang about milkshakes.

(image courtesy of NickSS)

Sarah: Vocals
Michael: Keyboard

A monologue where Sarah plays a therapist who manipulates their patients into doing violent things…

Sarah: Vocals
Jon: Guitar, Distant Vocals
Mike P: Guitar
Michael: Percussion, Backing Vocals
Natasha: Piano
Jason: Ukulele, Harmonica

Our cover of the first track from 69 Love Songs, which we did with little forethought to rehearse, hence it sounding endearingly sloppy and loose. That’s kind of the norm around here, you know.

Jason: Guitar, Vocals, Beatbox
Sarah: Vocals
Michael: Synths, Vocals, Beatbox

There was a knot of microphone cables lying on the floor, prompting Sarah to start singing about it. Jason throws in some percussive guitar and gets in a two bar rap in at the end, while Michael beatboxes and overdubs a synth-bass in later. Everyone get out your, Swiss army knives now.

Jason: Lead Vocals, Guitar
Michael: Backing Vocals
Virginia: Backing Vocals, Percussion

It has become a running joke that we can not have a jam session without doing a doo-wop song, or at least a song with the I-vi-IV-V chord progression. This one started with all of us joking around that we were all lying on Michael`s bed, and Jason, pitched down an octave, then started singing about cold fronts, sleep apnea, and banana levies.

Jason: Vocals
Virginia: Vocals, Shaker
Michael: Keyboards

Michael was playing some half-sung/half-spoken Stax records like I’ll Be The Other Woman by The Soul Children and Woman to Woman by Shirley Brown and asked if Virginia and Jason could reproduce something similar, and what came out was an old married couple arguing about a 10-cent wedding ring and some soul food…

Sarah and Briana: Vocals
Michael: Guitar
Jason: Distant Ukulele
Christopher: Microphone Holding, Backing Vocals
Arthur: Percussion, Vocals

Our sing-along cover of the bubblegum classic by Edison Lighthouse.