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Comedy Special coming this summer!

The American Songbook: Redacted Comedy Special will be coming out this summer!

I’m very excited to be putting all of the work from the live show and the studio album together into one cohesive film available to anyone who can click on a video. Soon everyone can see the material as I envisioned it: funny songs—with intricate, genre-specific arrangements—and joke-filled monologues giving background and context on the topics covered!

I’ve been working diligently on the project all winter, putting together new animated characters, new videos, and the monologues that were honed over the festival performances last year! I’m happy to report that I’m in the home stretch, or at least the home stretch for completing the video. Getting the word out will be an entire project unto itself, but I’m excited about the possibilities of self-released comedy specials and I’m optimistic the special will find a receptive audience.

It will be a little bit different from traditional standup specials, the ones that are shot in a theater or comedy club with an over-hyped crowd. This one is going to be filled with music videos and in-studio intros and monologues—it’ll be part Schoolhouse Rock, part The Daily Show, part Friday Night Videos. At first I was calling the project a “video album” but after consideration I think “comedy special” is more accurate. It is, after all, nearly an hour of comedy presented as a cohesive whole. A friend of mine said it best: “it’s a comedy special. It’s a weird special, but it’s a special.”

So stay tuned for my weird special featuring a set of satirical songs inspired by lesser-known history and cultural trends. And here’s a sneak peak at a couple of the new characters!

Crowd work clips are all the rage!

If you, like me, follow a lot of comedians on instagram or tiktok, you’re seeing tons of clips of comics doing crowd work at their shows. It’s almost to the point that anytime someone in the audience coughs the comic rushes to react so they can post the clip on their socials, just to keep the flow of ‘content’ going.

Crowd work clips are so prevalent the Washington Post even mentions them in their article about tiktok and standup! (That’s a gift link to get you through the paywall, because I’m a giver!)

Crowd work has never really been my thing but I can’t resist making fun of a trend so I wrote a song called “Crowd Work” and left it at that. Enjoy!

Great Big Beautiful World guitar tutorials

Jazz Guitar tutorial

One of my favorite songs on the new album is Great Big Beautiful World, a bossa nova inspired mellow ballad that I really like playing. I like playing it so much I want to teach people how to do it!

This is the jazz/electric guitar version, which is the featured instrument on the recording. I also made a tutorial for an acoustic guitar version, which is a little simpler and has more open chords that sound good on acoustic. That’s below.

To help with the chords I made lead sheets that have guitar chord diagrams, here’s the jazz guitar lead sheet, and the acoustic lead sheet.

This is my first attempt at a legit guitar tutorial, let me know what you think!

Acoustic Guitar tutorial

Great Big Beautiful World live in studio

One of my favorite songs on The Opposite of Afterglow, the new album from The Green L.E.D.s project, is the bossa nova infused ballad Great Big Beautiful World. It’s probably the one I’m the most proud of too. I really like the chord progression and I think the melody weaves through it and ties it together nicely.

I’m also really happy with the lyrics. Not only do they match the feel of the music, they express something I’ve been feeling a lot the last several years—a peaceful awe of being in the moment infused with a dose of melancholy from being aware of the absolute shit-show we humans make of this place.

Anyway, enough of me talking about it, lemme play it:

Learn how to play the song here!

Back in the day whenever I would post a clip of me playing something, someone would inevitably comment “tabs,” demanding guitar tabs for whatever I played. Since I like this song so much and would be beyond flattered and thrilled if anyone else wanted to play it, I made not 1 but 2 guitar tutorials for it! The first tutorial is for the jazz guitar version I play here, the second is an acoustic guitar version that uses more open chords and is a little simpler. (It’s the acoustic guitar part layered in the background of the studio recording). Check ’em out and play along!

It Begins! (pre-sales, that is)

Pre-sales for The Opposite of Afterglow, The Green L.E.D.s second full-length album, are now live on Apple Music and bandcamp! Any orders between now and the release date of Nov 17 come with immediate download of the preview single “Celebrity’s Kid” and count toward release day purchase stats, which is important to all the algorithm bots and such.

To celebrate, I posted this video of me doing a 4-part a cappella version of “Celebrity’s Kid!”

I’m also excited to announce that instead of being a digital-only release, I decided to get a limited number of actual CDs made!

The good people at Atomic Disc do such good work (and they do it frighteningly fast) I couldn’t resist getting a few actual CDs made. It’s just so much more fun to have a tangible product in hand after all of the work I put into the album. They’ll be available at my online store starting the week of Nov. 17!

And with the pre-sales officially started over at bandcamp, you can stream Celebrity’s Kid right now! I’ll even embed a player right here!

I can’t wait for you to hear the whole album, I’m really loving how it sounds and proud of the writing and arranging. Let me know what you think!

Masters have been delivered!

The Green LEDs logoThe mixes have been mixed, the masters are mastered, and the files have been sent through the net-o-sphere to all the digital music sites in the known universe! That means The Green L.E.D.s’ new album will be available to everyone on Nov. 17, 2023!

And did you notice that link above, on the name The Green L.E.D.s? That’s right, to celebrate the new album I put together a new website [ooh, aah]. I figured that with a second full-length album coming out I might as well make the project web-official and secure a domain. And thanks to the ease of WYSIWYG cloud-based design tools the site was up and running lickety-split!

If you’re a Spotify user and want to support the album right now, you can pre-save it to your library with this link.  That way the album is automatically added to your library as soon as it comes out, and since first day numbers really impress the algorithm bots, pre-saving is a huge help.

And if you’re curious what the new album sounds like, check out the advance single that came out this summer on the Shake It Down Tonight EP. In fact, I’ll embed it below so you can listen to it right here.

I’ve been working on this album in the background since late last year, taking my time to get it right, and it’s been a really fulfilling and satisfying process. It provided me a nice escape from all the work I was doing on The American Songbook: Redacted videos and festival run, and allowed me to stretch out and explore some musical ideas away from comedy. I’m really happy with the songwriting and the way it sounds and I can’t wait for you to hear it, so smash that link (as the kids say) and add it to your library toot sweet!

The 1-year Anny of The American Songbook: Redacted!

It’s been a full year since the release party/show for The American Songbook: Redacted studio album! In the year since the album’s release I’ve created 8 lyric videos  and refined the live show into an intelligently silly powerhouse that showcased at the 2023 Edmonton International Fringe Theater Festival. I also made buttons!

ASR-Oct12-22-SanwichBoard
October-Caps-Backstage-Sq
October-Caps-CAPT-point-Sq
October-Caps-side-eye

The release show took place at the lovely Caveat theater in NYC on October 12, 2022, which was the 530th anniversary of Columbus’ ships arriving in the Caribbean. What better day to launch a project that digs into the myths and beliefs of the culture that’s developed here on this continent? This October 12th is a perfect time to a look at the project as a whole and appreciate the creative journey it took me on.

The lyric videos were a lot of fun to put together and working on them helped me refine the monologues and intros in the live show. And the 7-show run in Edmonton not only gave me the opportunity to tighten and punch up the script, it featured a new opening song that really set up the tone and theme of the show. That song, “Were Those Really the Days?” has been added to the album exclusively on bandcamp, give it a listen, we’ll embed it below for your convenience!

And check out the lyric vides, they were a ton of fun to work on, especially the collaborations like The Invisible Hand, with the hilarious video-making team of Steven Rosenthal and Peggy O’Brien, and Corporations Are People Too!, featuring the wonderful artwork of Dan Pavelich!

And don’t forget the merch! You can still help support the project by picking up some merch! I really love the way the 4-button pack turned out, there’s a cool patch, a keychain, or a sticker sheet!

So what’s next for The American Songbook: Redacted? I hope to shoot the monologues and intros and create lyric videos for the remaining songs, putting them all together into a visual album/comedy special. But that will have to wait until after the release of my next project, a new album by The Green L.E.D.s.!! 

Yes, I’m doing something completely different again, but I’m very excited about it! I even have a new website for the project! Thanks for supporting and helping me pursue all of these ridiculous ideas!

It’s time to DISCO!

This month’s Odd Rock Comedy Hour at QED happens to land right on my birthday! And since my impending age will be the same number as in the name of a legendary disco club (Studio 39, obvi) we’re having a disco party!

There will be comedy! There will be disco songs! Sometimes simultaneously! Anyone wearing 70s or disco attire will get a prize! I am so leaning in to this whole thing!

And lest you think this is merely an ironic or kitschy tribute to disco, let me point out that my 2nd full length studio album American Cheese (released on my birthday in 1998) featured a disco song called Disco Nights, and my latest album The American Songbook Redacted features the disco track “Work That Bod.”

Not only that, one of our guests, Goodbye Charlemagne, just released an entire album of disco songs! And one of our other guests debuted a new disco song at the Odd Rock Comedy Hour earlier this year!

So get ready to boogie on up to Q.E.D. in Astoria for a feverish Saturday night of good fun, great music, and hilarious comedy!

Tickets are LIVE for the Edmonton Fringe!

Ticket links are now LIVE for the American Songbook: Redacted at The Edmonton International Fringe Theater Festival!

Edmonton Fringe Theater Festival LogoI’ll be doing 7 performances of the show at the lovely Chianti Yardbird Suite, a jazz club in the heart of the Old Strathcona Neighborhood, not far from the epicenter of the fest. Here are the dates and times:

Friday, Aug 18, 2:30 pm
Sunday, Aug 20, 4:30 pm
Monday, Aug 21, 9:45 pm
Tuesday, Aug 22, 12:30 pm
Wednesday, Aug 23, 11:15 pm
Friday, Aug 25, 7:15 pm
Sunday, Aug 27, 5:15 pm

Tickets for all shows are available here.

I’ve been honing the show for this festival and I’m really excited about it. There’s even a brand new song! And don’t forget the merch and swag! So much merch and swag!

I even have a button giveaway exclusively for this festival! The fest is a “no handbill zone,” meaning no flyers! So I’m giving away buttons with a QR code for the show’s website. Track me down at the fest and I’ll be happy to give you one. And if you ask nicely I may even be able to give you a comp ticket to the show, just let me know you read this post 🙂

See you in the wilds of western Canada!

Shake it Down Tonight EP released!

Shake it Down Tonight EP!

This past Friday the new single and EP from The Green L.E.D.s was released worldwide! The EP features 4 songs and is available on bandcamp, Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube music, and most other digital platforms! Here, have an embed of the whole thing:

I am really excited to have a new Green L.E.D.s single out and I’m really happy with the way the lead track turned out!

It is definitely influenced by my power-pop roots, especially in the chorus and the backing vocals, and I think it fits in well with the angsty-yet-hopeful vibe of the previous Green L.E.D.s album. “Shake it Down Tonight” will be on a full album by The Green L.E.D.s due out this October.

This EP also features a fun cover of “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough” by Michael Jackson (with some obvious other influences), a mellow bossa nova B-side that I had a lot of fun working on, and a live-in-studio version of “I Can Feel It (Can You?)” which was the first track I wrote under The Green L.E.D.s name and is still one of my favorites.

If you’d like to support the project you can buy the EP on bandcamp, or on Apple Music, and if you follow  and like The Green L.E.D.s on Spotify or Apple Music it’ll really help other people find it!

Enjoy the tunes and let me know what you think!

New Song! “Were Those Really Days?”

“Were Those Really The Days?”

“Were Those Really the Days?” the new opening number for the stage version of The American Songbook: Redacted, just went live on bandcamp!  It’s now part of the full studio album, available individually, OR you can get a free download code with any merch purchase between now and the start of the show’s run at the Edmonton International Fringe Theater Festival!

As the staged version of The American Songbook: Redacted evolved, through the development of the lyric videos and the refining of the stories and jokes between songs, I worked to come up with a new opening number that would capture the energy, intelligent silliness, and the vein of dark satire running through the show. I’m really happy with how “Were Those Really The Days?” hits all of those notes, with its nostalgic wall-of-sound production and its allusion to how people use false (or at best idealized) memories of the past to influence the present.

The sharp-eyed among you may notice that the previous opening song, “Remember It Better,” which hits the nostalgia theme through the lens of Heartland Rock, now closes out the album. I still really love the song and I think it makes an excellent epilogue for the project. If and when I get the budget to do a proper video special of the show I imagine this song running over the closing credits (complete with a Cannonball Run-esque blooper reel).

If you’re free in mid-August, come on up to Edmonton, Alberta, and check out The American Songbook: Redacted at the Fringe. I’ll be performing at the lovely Chianti Yardbird Suite, which is a nice mid-sized jazz club and the perfect environment for this show. Until then, enjoy “Were Those Really The Days?” and “Remember it Better” as the nostalgic bookends to a satirical look at American history and culture!

Merch Drop!

Welcome to the virtual merch table!

We just added some cool new merch to our online store! We’ve got a spiffy embroidered patch, an awesome 4-button pack of 1.25″ buttons, a nifty keychain, and a fun sticker sheet, all inspired by The American Songbook: Redacted, my latest album and the solo show I’m taking to the Edmonton International Fringe Theater Festival in August!

4-Button Pack for American Songbook: Redacted
closeup of American Songbook: Redacted patch on black background
AS:R Keychain
American Songbook: Redacted sticker sheet

ASR Logo buttonIn fact, it’s the trip to Edmonton that inspired this epic merch drop. I was pondering putting together a kickstarter campaign to help support taking the project to the Great White North, but it felt weird to do a big drive for a live event where there was no ‘thing’ to send to supporters. And since my favorite part of kickstarter campaigns is coming up with the fun extras people can get with different levels of funding, I decided to just make the cool stuff and sell it directly without guilting anyone into supporting a campaign.

But wait, there’s more!

Between now and the festival, any merch purchase will come with a free download of the newest song from the show! The song will be released July 7, only on bandcamp, so it won’t be on any of the streaming services.

And if you want to support the show without a merch purchase, you can always pick up a digital copy of The American Songbook: Redacted, or any of my other digital albums, over at bandcamp, where they let you support the artists by adding to the asking price.

It was a lot of fun putting these items together. As soon as I got the patches I put one on my Dickies jacket, and then a navy trucker hat, and both look super cool. The 4-button pack turned out even better than I hoped and will definitely stand out on the merch table, the keychains have my favorite show logo, and the 5-sticker sheet was great to put together because I could put a bunch of sticker ideas in one place!

Look them over and let me know what you think! And if you order between now and the festival I might just sneak in an extra Songbook or Green L.E.D.s sticker as a surprise!

Patch-on-Hat-Modeled

patch on a trucker hat (hat not included), expertly modeled by Rob P.

Jacket with patch, modeled

patch on a dickies jacket (jacket not included), also expertly modeled by Rob P.

Life is a Drag!

I’m not a drag act but I’m really annoyed with all of the anger, vitriol, and threats that have been hurled at them lately so I wrote this song.

On the upside, a Federal judge struck down a Tennessee law banning drag shows, and hopefully the moral panickers will come to their senses soon and worry about things that are actually dangerous in the real world, not just their fevered imaginations.

Anyhoo, I hope you enjoy the tune. Music, lyrics, and arrangement by me; hair & makeup by snapchat and TikTok filters.

Official AS:R Merch Coming Soon!

Merch-Tease-w-copy

It’s becoming more real every day! The planning and organizing are ramping up for The American Songbook: Redacted’s trip to the Edmonton International Fringe Theater Festival! And to help raise money for the tour I’m selling Band Candy!

No, wait, that’s not it. It’s merch!

Official show merchandise will go on sale sometime in June, but here’s a sneak peek at a few of the cool items that have already come into the RobPRocks warehouse (my hallway bookcase).

There are official tour jackets and hats! Jackets and hats not included because It’s a patch! A very cool, 3-color embroidered patch, 3.5″x2″

Sticker sheets! A sheet of 5 stickers related to the show: the show’s logo, Plug Your Ears and Sing!, “Trust The Invisible Hand!” Now That’s What I Call Fraud, and Corporations Are People Too!

Bigger “Corporations Are People Too” sticker! 3″ trapezoid shape

Custom guitar picks! Color show logo on .80mm white Derlin guitar picks. I was pleasantly surprised when I gave a few to fellow guitar players and they said “sweet, this is the gauge I use.” Functional AND promotional!

I have some more items in the design and production pipeline so get ready to hit that virtual merch table in June! All proceeds will go to me getting to and from Canada in one piece!

Beep! Beep! Outta the Way! Lyric Video!

In the year of our Ford…

Car maker, industrialist, and noted anti-semite Henry Ford hated the jazz music that was popular in the late teens and twenties. And like most things he hated he figured jazz’s popularity was due to a Jewish conspiracy. Ford’s paper, The Dearborn Independent, printed weekly anti-Jewish essays for 91 straight weeks. Those essays were popular in Germany in the 1930s which is not a ringing endorsement of one’s values.

Two of those essays centered on jazz music and how it was immoral, corrupting “moron music” that was being forced on American by Jewish song trusts out to make money and ruin the country from within.

So to make fun of Ford for this insane belief—and to remind everyone what a jerk he was about it—I wrote him a 1920s-style jazz song. Enjoy!

Videos from The American Songbook: Redacted!

All the vids in one place!

Since the release of The American Songbook: Redacted studio album back in October I’ve been working on videos for the songs, with the goal of eventually putting them together with introductions and wraparound material from the live show for a complete visual album. In the meantime I thought, ”wouldn’t it be great if there were a place where all the released videos were nicely organized so people could easily enjoy them?”

So I did that! It’s right here! I’ll add to this post as new videos come out. Enjoy!

Beep! Beep! Outta the Way!

Henry Ford, the car guy, was so revered that he offered his opinions on subjects outside of the auto industry. To that end, he bought the Dearborn Independent to disseminate his views, including his hatred of the new popular music “jazz” that the kids were listening and dancing to. And like everything Henry Ford hated, he blamed it on Jewish people.

So, to make fun of him for his dislike of jazz, and to remind everyone what a dick he was about it, I wrote him this jazz song. Enjoy!

Plug Your Ears and Sing!

Stephen Foster was one of America’s first songwriting superstars, and a lot of his songs were written for the minstrel shows of the 1850s, since they were the predominant form of popular entertainment in the 19th Century. We don’t learn much about that history, or the history of racism in the U.S., and with several states enacting laws banning the teaching of divisive concepts, we’re ensuring that the next generation will learn even less.

So that’s what I wrote my Foster-style song about: people being so uncomfortable with history they’d rather it not be taught at all. Some people would prefer you just Plug Your Ears and Sing!

The Ballad of Lou Pearlman

Fraudsters and con artists are as ingrained in U.S. history as robber barons, pioneers, inventors, and innovators. In a country that celebrates outside-the-box thinkers, sometimes people think outside the box of what’s legal. They’re the flipside of baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet (more about Henry Ford soon).

So when it came time to pick an American fraudster to profile in The American Songbook: Redacted (let’s do AS:R from here on out) I had plenty to choose from. Madoff? Boring. Ponzi? Fascinating! But there was one guy who did something with the money he conned that no one else did. He gave us boybands!

Behold, The Ballad of Lou Pearlman!

Corporations Are People Too!

I wanted to make sure there was at least one really peppy, uplifting number in AS:R so I took inspiration from some of the sunshine pop of the 60s and 70s, songs like Age of Aquarius, Up With People, Kids are People Too! Subject-wise I wanted to tackle a concept that has long fascinated and aggravated me: corporate personhood.

With the help of my good friend Dan Pavelich, who did the amazing illustrations and character design, I came up with this bubbly, overly-optimistic tune Corporations Are People Too!

The Invisible Hand

In addition to history I wanted to examine some fundamental myths we have as a culture, and one of the big ones for us is that the free market will create the best of all possible worlds. From Reagan to tech-bro libertarians there is an unquestioned (and unprovable) belief that letting everyone pursue their own self interest will result in an efficient and just distribution of resources.

This concept is summed up in Scottish philosopher Adam Smith’s metaphor of “the invisible hand.” As in: the market will be guided as if by an invisible hand to the best possible outcomes.

To me “the invisible hand” sounds less like a metaphor for capitalism and more like a villainous organization in a James Bond movie, so I decided to write a James Bond-style movie theme on the subject. I’m incredibly proud of the arrangement I did for the song on the album and absolutely blown away by the visuals my friends Peggy & Steve put together for the video.

Cue voiceover by Don LaFontaine: “In a world where events are controlled by an unseeable force, one man… must fight… to make fun of it all…”

The Invisible Hand

The Great Disappointment of 1844

The end of the world, specifically people interpreting the Book of Revelation to try to predict it, is an idea deeply embedded in the American psyche, and I don’t think we truly appreciate how much it informs a lot of people’s worldview. Growing up my dad watched a lot of evangelical Christian shows and read a lot of books like The Late Great Planet Earth, that tied current events to various Bible prophesies.

Everyone who’s ever predicted the end of the world has one thing in common: they’ve all been wrong. Including the time in 1844 when so many people were convinced the world was going to end within the year that when it didn’t it was called The Great Disappointment.

And since “Great Disappointment” makes a great title for an emo song, not to mention that waiting for a Second Coming has the angsty teen vibes of waiting for your parents to pick you up a the movies, I wrote an emo song about it.

The Great Disappointment of 1844

The People That Were Already Here

Another concept that looms large in the American personality is the Frontier Myth, the idea that America is an open land of opportunity where rugged individuals will succeed if they are strong and have the grit. While that’s a lovely idea it completely overlooks the fact that there were tons of people already living in the American west so it wasn’t exactly wide open, available land.

Stories and songs about cowboys and western adventurers were hugely popular in America, from the river towns of the Midwest to the cities back east. So to examine this myth, and to bump it up against the reality of western expansion, I wrote a western song. I even played a lap steel!

The video came out on a bank holiday in mid-October, now known as Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and the background picture is one I actually took down in Marfa, Texas!

Please enjoy The People That Were Already Here

Satanic Panic

In the 80s & 90s there was a moral panic in which accusations of ritual satanic abuse got so out of hand people were convicted of crimes on no evidence and entire communities turned against each other. It got thrown into overdrive by a debunked memoir called Michelle Remembers, and fueled by sensationalist coverage everywhere from Geraldo to 60 minutes.

Soon people were looking for the devil everywhere, including in heavy metal music, which makes heavy metal the perfect genre with which to satirize this ridiculousness.

It’s a subject that needs to be ridiculed because people are still throwing accusations of devils and demons today (I’m looking at you Lauren Boebert,) so I implore you no to forget the  Satanic Panic

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