charliecheney's blog

2 Hour Charlie Cheney Interview on State Controlled Radio (Part 2)

Audio: 

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

In December 2009 during my West Coast tour I was interviewed by Jon Kanis of State Controlled Radio in San Diego CA. I met John in 2006 at Steel Bridge Songfest and we struck up a mutual admiration society and friendship that I've cherished ever since. We played a great show in San Diego together with Mike Keneally of "DethClok" fame, and Jon asked me to give him as many of my recordings as I could find so he could piece together a radio show. The job he's done is amazing.

2 Hour Charlie Cheney Interview on State Controlled Radio (Part 1)

Audio: 

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

In December 2009 during my West Coast tour I was interviewed by Jon Kanis of State Controlled Radio in San Diego CA. I met John in 2006 at Steel Bridge Songfest and we struck up a mutual admiration society and friendship that I've cherished ever since. We played a great show in San Diego together with Mike Keneally of "DethClok" fame, and Jon asked me to give him as many of my recordings as I could find so he could piece together a radio show. The job he's done is amazing.

Radio Interview May 10th, 2010

Audio: 

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

I was interviewed today by Scott McKenna on his radio show, it was cool, Scott's a great guy and had his questions prepared in advance and kept the show moving with a few songs as well. Big thanks to Scott! Take a listen in the audio player above.

We talked about touring, performing, Amtrak tours, Indie Band Manager, songwriting, and he played "Pie" and "Overgrown Piano" from my Giant Chicken CD.

  • 174 reads

Shuga Records Live Show Recording

Audio: 

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

On Friday April 16th we recorded alive show at Shuga Records in Minneapolis and I think it turned out pretty darn well, so here it is. Shuga has a fantastic little stage if you're in the area, and they sell vinyl like crazy, really cool store.

Anyways, it's a 45 minute solo set... Here are the songs:

Ooh-Ahh --Cheney
The Sutherland Sampson Sitdown --Quatorze
Judy --Cheney
Giant Chicken --Cheney
See You Soon --Cheney/Spencer
What's Jimmy Doogan Doing? --Cheney
Fortune Teller --Cheney/Lubahn
We Can Have Pie --Cheney
Palmer Johnson Yacht --Cheney/Bleck
What Is Love --Cheney
Bridezilla --Expendable Friend
Call You When I Land --Cheney/Roteik
Psycho Killer --Byrne

Enjoy...

  • 176 reads

Adding Songs to my blogs...

Audio: 

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

So I've been toying with my website to see if I can add songs inline into my blogs so you can hear new songs as you're reading. Kinda cool.

So, here's a test, to see how it works...

The song in the player above is called "This Patch Of Ground" and the lyrics are below. I recorded it in New Orleans with my friend Steffan Pitzel and was originally posted on the fawm.org site here: http://fawm.org/songs/7265/

Enjoy.

This patch of ground
Is going to tide this family over
This patch of ground
Is going to save us, save us

I know we're struggling, know we're broken
This year's been hard this year's been lean
We've got a shovel, hoe, and bucket
We've got each other, count on me

This patch of ground
Is going to tide this family over
This patch of ground

Song Critique Worksheet

My friend TC Elliott found a copy of the nsai critique sheet from around 1993 and I thought it was awesome. It has two spots for a check on each line.
[strong] [needs work]

--Basic Alerts--
Tell one interesting story
Have an angle-hook
Clear changes between parts
Are words out-of-date
Beginning/opening line is strong
Power and placement of hook
Rhyme scheme change between

--Fine Tuning Lyric--
Universal them
Unique fresh approach
Rhymes too predicitable

--Verse and Chorus--
Familiar surprise
Believable plot/characters
Conversational writing/poetry
Shift of viewpoint/voice
Too repetitive
Third person (he/she) for angry/sad/loser
Consistent metaphors

--Melody--

Tour Blog South take 1 (New Orleans)

Riding on the Amtrak into New Orleans from Jackson, currently 2pm on Feb 22. We're riding right alongside I-55 skirting along the western edge of lake Ponchitrain and the interstate has been up on stilts above the swamp for AT LEAST the last 30 miles. The idea of maintaining that highway is mind-boggling to me, the costs to re-pave it must be astronomical. At this point we're almost completely surrounded by water with miles and miles of swamp land to the west and miles and miles of lake to the east. I can't see the opposite shore. I keep thinking of a Cormac McCarthy novel I read once that took place primarily in Georgia and the Florida Everglades, I'll have to find that book in a 2nd hand store in NOLA this week.

TOUR BLOG EAST TAKE 2

Charlie's Tour Blog 1/31/2010
On the Metro North train from NYC to Beacon, heading up to spend some time at Chez KETP with Kelly and Tim, play some songs, eat some food, laugh a bunch, excited. The train is skirting the Hudson River and the sky is bright blue today, sunshine glittering off the ripples in the center of the river and ice chunks on the sides. Beautiful day.

Tour Blog East take 1

Today I'm outside of Philadelphia. I've been doing the radio show now for 11 straight days, played two shows in Cleveland, writing code on the train rides. Stayed in Pittsburgh with Burr & Natalie Settles Sun/Mon and visited the Carnegie-Mellon and Pitt campuses.

The part of these tours that I truly enjoy the most is when I get to have these cool discussions with artists and thinkers along the way. I've discovered from previous tours that the best discussions generally last about three hours each, and cover topics like artist lifestyle, faith, or the process of creating art or some other craft (like software for example).

ArtistData.com goes Pro

A few days ago http://artistdata.com launched a complete revamp of their website. Fo those of you who don't know about ArtistData it's a REALLY awesome service for musicians and performers who need to enter their performances onto calendars all over the web, I mean, it ROCKS. I've been using the beta for months and have been telling anyone who will listen to go use it too. Look at my Tour calendar and MySpace page as examples of what it can do.

Winter/Spring Tour Jan 20-March 30

Charlie Train Poster

I'll be traveling the USA doing shows, seminars, and a daily call-in radio show for FAWM. Please call in!! I look forward to meeting you and speaking with you while I'm on the road. I'll be traveling almost completely by Amtrak train so please feel free to hop aboard and ride with me on any part of the tour, or make plans to stop by the train station for a quick photo as I pass through. If you'd like to meet with me, set up a seminar or gig in your town, or be on the radio show please contact me anytime at 231-225-0468.

Charlie's Tour Itinerary

1/19 (Tue) Fremont, MI - Kicking off the tour from the home base
1/20 (Wed) Chicago, IL - TBA

Tour blog 3.14 part II

Fri Nov 27th, 2009 4:15pm
Los Angeles Union Station

I just hopped the Gold Line down from Pasadena and I'm waiting for my Amtrak train to Irvine in about an hour. I came down a little early so I could switch some tickets around. Amtrak is so awesome, I had two tickets I didn't use on my way to Seattle and they let me pay for my ticket from Columbus WI to Grand Rapids MI next weekend with the tickets I didn't use last week. They treat unused tickets just like cash for up to a year after the initial reservation date. Can you imagine an airline doing that? Amtrak rules.

Tour blog part 3.14

I'm over half way through my fall tour and wanted to jot down a few memories before they all slip away into the ether. This whole trip has been amazing, I'm so blessed with friends and people I've met along the way, experiences. I figure I'll gaze back in reverse chronological order here for a bit to give myself a few of the memories for later. Right now I'm on the Amtrak "Coast Starlight" train from Seattle to Eugene. The train is stopped for a moment just outside Olympia WA and the trip so far this morning has been quite pretty, as we make our way down along the Puget Sound.

Big Changes, and a Big Tour

I haven't written a blog in forever. For those of you who follow me on Twitter and/or Facebook you've seen the changes happening little by little, and now all the work from the last three months has come to a head and I'm going out on a 6-week tour of the midwest and the west coast with 20 shows set up already and a bunch of seminars too.

Tour Schedule:
Oct 22-24 Green Bay, WI
Oct 25-31 Sturgeon Bay, WI
Nov 1-3 Madison WI
Nov 4-8 Los Angeles, CA
Nov 9-11 Sacramento, CA
Nov 12-14 Portland OR
Nov 15-16 Seattle, WA
Nov 17-18 Eugene, OR
Nov. 19-20 Santa Cruz, CA
Nov 21-23 Los Angeles, CA
Nov 24-26 San Francisco
Nov 28-29 Santa Ana, CA
Nov 29-Dec 2 San Diego, CA
Dec 4 Madison, WI
Dec 6 Grand Rapids, MI

Steel Bridge Songfest 2009 (part 3)


Greg Roteik and Geri X foreground with Lumberjack Cash, Wally Ingram, Travis Kasperbauer, Delaney Davidson (with trombone), and Steve Hamilton background

****************

Steel Bridge Songfest 2009 (part 2)

Monday morning, June 8th

At some point I rolled over to the Finnerty's house (home of Kathleen and Nora) to sleep on their couch. I don't think they were up yet, but it must have been close because Nora had to go to school that morning and I think she left around 7:30am or so. I'm pretty sure I got up around 9:30am or 10am or so and I I may have hung out with Kathleen for a bit over coffee, but I can't remember exactly. Hold on, she may have already left for work because I remember poring some curdled milk onto a bowl of cereal, throwing that all away, and making an omelette for myself. I think I finally rolled down to the Holiday around 11am.

Steel Bridge Songfest 2009 (part 1)

I want to jot down some notes on my recollections from SBSF5 to see if I can start to synthesize it all a bit and remember more. Another spectacular year there, truly the best festival anywhere in the world for me... it's all about the writing and I love that.

Examining how Colbie Caillat sounds "current" by Michael Laskow

I just read this in an email from Michael Laskow the CEO of TAXI and thought it was really good.
Michael runs TAXI at http://www.taxi.com
I'm totally re-posting this without permission, so please understand that all rights are reserved by Michael Laskow and TAXI, and NOT me. Thanks.

*****************
I don't write to you about music and production often enough. I'll try to do that with a little more regularity in the future.

My wife and I went to a fundraising banquet for a charity we donate to every year. Singer/songwriter Colbie Caillat was scheduled to perform, but she didn't show up because she had a throat infection. As we were leaving they were giving away some of Colbie's CD, Coco, that came out last year.

Have you tried Blip.fm yet?

Blip.fm has a cool ability to stream your songs and post your songs to Twitter and Facebook. I also just found twt.fm which appears to do a very similar thing.

In any case, I want to test the blip.fm embed widget, so here it is:

Hitting the road in earnest... Amtrak here we go

FAWM TRIP BLOG

2/14/09 10:25am
I'm on the Amtrak train and just passing through New Buffalo Michigan, the final intermediary stop before I arrive in Chicago. I caught the train in Grand Rapids MI this morning at 7:35am, 2-3 inches of fresh snow on the ground.

I hosted the radio show last night from Allison's uncle and aunt's house in GR and then Ralston picked me up in his SUV (that smelled like radiator fluid) and drove me over to Denny's for a midnight rock n' roll grand slam breakfast and some great conversation. He shared his story with me again of meeting a bunch of UK Fawmers last year at a post FAWM meet-up in a pub in London. It was fascinating to hear his perceptions of the event and of FAWM in general... really set the table for me in a lot of ways for this trip.

Syndicate content