I am happy to announce that The Jerrys' "D and Me" received an honorable mention in the Rockin' Moms Songwriting Contest 2010 today. Winners were chosen by a panel of music industry professionals and Rockin' Moms staff who judged entries on originality, melody and composition, lyrics, and theme relevance (parenthood theme). Songs were then ranked using a points-based scoring system.
"D and Me" originally appeared on The Jerrys' debut album, Pop Go The Jerrys, in 2001 (give it a listen). The song came to me while looking at a photo on my bookshelf. Here are the lyrics:
D and Me
Take a look around you girl,
There's nothing much to see.
Not much going on round here,
Just you and little D and me.
On my shelf a picture, girl,
Of city scenery:
A picture that you took in Lincoln Park
Of Johnny D and me.
He got groovy shades it's cool
He says and I believe that
I can hang in there if I know
You are here with D and me.
As the result of receiving the honorable mention, the song will appear on Rockin' Moms Compilation CD 2011.
It is difficult to name only ten, as I have many faves. Also, for the purpose of this list, I only considered riffs that drive songs, that is, I did not consider riffs from guitar solos. Here are some of my faves that did not make the top 10:
All Day and All of the Night (The Kinks)
Pleasant Valley Sunday (The Monkees)
My Sharona (The Knack)
What Is Life (George Harrison)
You Really Got Me (The Kinks)
Curse of the Frontierland (Game Theory)
Are any of these your favorites? Feel free to comment on the list or share YOUR top 10 riffs!
The Jerrys are featured in a new novel, Pixels of Young Mueller, now available at Amazon. Pixels of Young Mueller is the story of the development of an artist.
Klaus Mueller dreams of leaving tiny Southland someday to be a rock star. When he chooses stardom over college, however, he learns that his education is just beginning. He endures a series of god-awful jobs while his music is repeatedly rejected, and he wonders how he will ever achieve success. After moving to the city, where he finds a career and becomes a father, he is torn between the great happiness he has found and the success he still craves. Klaus must reconcile his dreams with reality or spend the rest of his life lamenting what might have been.
Pixels of Young Mueller is the story of an artist's growth to maturity and of his revolt against his family's values. The tale of Klaus Mueller, as told in this modern coming-of-age novel, provides new perspectives on classic themes when Klaus confronts the forces that threaten his existence.
The book is available in both paperback and Kindle versions.
Yesterday, I created and posted a book trailer for my novel, Pixels of Young Mueller, to be published this summer by All Things That Matter Press. The trailer contains unreleased music from The Jerrys' as-yet-untitled album scheduled for release in early 2011, and you can check it out here. The music is from "Love Thang (Instrumental version)." I am currently working on the vocals version of that tune.
As of this writing, everything is on schedule for the new album. After recording this Saturday at Rumble House, eight songs will have been completely recorded--four of which have already been mixed and mastered.
Incidentally, The Jerrys are not only featured in the book trailer for Pixels of Young Mueller--they actually appear in the novel itself! More details as those become available.
Download "My Love in Her Attire," (mp3) from The Jerrys' debut album, Pop Go The Jerrys (2000), or listen to it here:
The song is based on a poem I came across while reading The Top 500 Poems. "My Love in Her Attire" was penned by an anonymous poet sometime between 1400 and 1600, and while it is an awesome poem as is, it needed a little work before it could be a Jerrys tune. Below is the original poem as it appears in the anthology, followed by the words to the song by The Jerrys.
My Love in Her Attire
My love in her attire doth show her wit,
It doth so well become her:
For every season she hath dressings fit,
For winter, spring, and summer,
No beauty she doth miss,
When all her robes are on;
But Beauty's self she is,
When all her robes are gone.
My Love in Her Attire
My love in her attire does show her wit;
It does so become her, this is true.
For every season she has dressings fit.
For winter, spring, and summer too.
No beauty does she miss
When all her clothes are on,
But Beauty's self she is
When all her clothes are gone.
My love in her black dress is such a hit;
It does so become her, what a view!
In every color she has dressings fit.
In red and green and purple too.
No beauty does she miss
When all her clothes are on,
But Beauty's self she is
When all her clothes are gone.
Trivia alert! This song marks the first time someone besides yours truly played on a Jerrys recording--in this case, Robert Porche (drums).
When I realized that I had not posted an entry since June (actually, I had help with that realization, as seen in a previous comment on this blog), it occurred to me to check Twitter to see what I had been up to. Usually the first thing I would do is check the notebook that I use to track progress in various matters, so the thought of turning first to Twitter seemed funny to me.
It seems Twitter is as good or better than this blog at keeping up with The Jerrys, and why shouldn't it be? Like millions of other people, I have a busy lifestyle, and microblogging allows me to post updates more easily and more quickly. While blogs will always have their place in some form or another, it is a luxury to be able to deliver timely bits of information without even having to compose a complete sentence. That said, here are the updates I found that I think are worth mentioning here:
Jul 8
Digging my new Epiphone Dot guitar--played three hours last night (tonight I will actually plug it into my amp)!
Jul 12
The Jerrys will consider any and all new song ideas through December for new album. Be creative!
Aug 1
Earlier today, recorded 15 tracks (12 vocal, 3 tambourine) in 5 hours for new album from The Jerrys--whew!
Aug 6
Just finished mixing and mastering "Emily," first song completed for a new album by The Jerrys. On to postproduction. And more music!
Aug 10
After recording a guitar track yesterday for (as-yet-untitled) tune for new CD, I'm off to the beach!
The vocal tracks included lead vocals for "Love in Action" (a Utopia tune) and lead and backing vocals for "Emily." As soon as time allows, I will try to make sense of some ideas that I recorded on my mp3 player, as well as the lyrics on sticky notes in my desk. Hopefully I will have more on that next time--until then, look for The Jerrys on Twitter.
Having recently canceled my satellite radio subscription, I began rediscovering all the great sounds on the Internet that I had listened to before my three-year stint with Sirius--including my favorite audio stream of them all: Beyond the Beat Generation is a veritable museum containing "long forgotten 'wild' musical gems out of the great years of the sixties (1965-1969)." Ninety-five percent of the music on the site was recorded right from the original discs, and the sheer amount of musical gems alone is astonishing.
I could go on all day about the site (there's even a SHOUTcast song history so you can see what is playing or what you just heard), but I won't. If you are into great music, you owe it to yourself to give it a listen.
The Jerrys have been played on a couple dozen podcasts, but one podcast in particular stands out as having played The Jerrys more than any other: The Word Nerds. The Word Nerds is "a program about words, language, and why we say the things we do."
In more of their own words, "The Word Nerds is a podcast exploring language. Three language teachers share ideas about the roots of everyday language. Each edition explores a Rude Word of the Week. In addition to looking at language change, the show features new music by independent artists."
Shout out to The Word Nerds. Thanks for playing The Jerrys!
Happy New Year from The Jerrys! Before we go any further, here's a look at my favorite albums of 2008 in order of preference.
Arena (Todd Rundgren)
Without a doubt, my most-listened-to album of 2008. Todd is God once again (the fact that Rundgren is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame just serves to show you how shallow that place can be). Some of my fave moments on the album remind me of P.O.V. (Utopia), and I enjoy all the rest as well.
Earth to the Dandy Warhols (The Dandy Warhols)
Great stuff, and like Arena, a pleasant mix of old sounds and new in terms of the respective artists and their output. With the exception of "Mis Amigos," I gave these tracks lots of plays. It seems like I waited forever for this album, but the Dandys made it worth the wait.
Funplex (The B-52's)
The B-52's have always been a guilty pleasure of mine, and this album was no exception. I would have preferred more of the distinctive guitar sounds I have come to enjoy from this group, but that did not detract from the fun.
Brown Submarine (Boston Spaceships)
This debut CD from Robert Pollard's new band gets my vote for Surprise of the Year. I sometimes listen over and over to a song I really like, and "Two Girl Area" (track 5) was one of those in 2008.
The Jerrys' new five-song CD, What the World Could Use a Lot More Of, is now available at CD Baby (there are samples of each of the songs there as well). Here is the track listing:
Earlier today I returned from a 5-day trip to San Francisco, where I made it a point to stop in at City Lights Bookstore (City Lights, the first all-paperbound bookshop in the country, was co-founded by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, whose A Coney Island of the Mind greatly influenced me as a teen). While there, I picked up the latest copy of Ugly Things.
For the uninitiated, Ugly Things is dedicated to "bringing you wild sounds from past dimensions, from times when rock 'n 'roll was young, daring, dangerous and vital," and few if any fanzines are as informative. Back issues are hot--in 2006, the first issue sold on eBay for more than $460! Unfortunately, subscriptions are still not available. Check out the Ugly Things website for more information.
Welcome to my blog about The Jerrys, a British-influenced guitar pop band from Chicago, Illinois. I'm Jerry Schwartz, and I write, play, produce, and sing the Jerrys' music. Be sure to visit The Jerrys Web Site to listen to and download their music, or head over to iTunes or CD Baby to purchase. Here are the types of things you can expect to find in this blog:
News News big and small concerning The Jerrys
Gear/Recording For those types who pay attention to such things--you know who you are
Trivia Everything you ever wanted to know about The Jerrys, probably more
Cool stuff Miscellaneous cool things
As my time to devote to this blog is limited (I would rather make music than write about it), I don't envision daily entries at any point, but I will post something new at least every few weeks for the sake of fresh content.
Thanks for visiting The Jerrys Blog. Don't forget to subscribe to the RSS feed to have Jerrys updates automatically delivered to your computer.
