The American Songbook: Redacted – RobPRocks.com

August 10, 2023August 10, 2023

Tickets are LIVE for the Edmonton Fringe!

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

I’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!

July 10, 2023July 10, 2023

New Song! “Were Those Really Days?”

Microphone with blue and light blue rays

“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!

June 21, 2023

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

American Songbook: Redacted sticker sheet

ASR Logo button In 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 a trucker hat (hat not included), expertly modeled by Rob P.

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

May 9, 2023May 9, 2023

Official AS:R Merch Coming Soon!

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!

April 19, 2023May 9, 2023

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!

April 5, 2023April 20, 2023

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

March 31, 2023April 1, 2023

Plug Your Ears and Sing!

old timey style photo of person plugging their ears Did you know the state song of Florida, “Old Folks at Home,” was written for a minstrel show? That’s not even an April Fool’s joke, that’s the dog’s honest truth!

So for this year’s April 1st festivities, I figured why not try to get Florida to replace their outdated song with the Stephen Foster-style song “Plug Your Ears and Sing!” from my latest show and album? Even better, my song is about being so uncomfortable with the history of racism in the U.S. that people don’t want it to be taught in schools in places like… Florida! (and Virginia, Texas, Arkansas, oh there are too many to mention)

So this year instead of swapping the salt and the sugar, or putting the Rice Krispies in the Cherrios box, let’s lobby the state of Florida to get rid of the song that had people “still longin’ for the old plantation” and replace it with Plug Your Ears and Sing! It perfectly sums up what their government wants teachers to do when the subject of racism comes up so it should be a slam dunk.

You can even use the handy poster at the bottom of this page for your socials!

Either way, enjoy the song and video, I bought a cheap wig and a set of 6 fake mustaches for it!

March 26, 2023March 27, 2023

The Ballad of Lou Pearlman–Lyric Video

The latest video from The American Songbook: Redacted is up!

The song is inspired by my fascination with fraudsters–from Ponzi to Theranos and everything in between. Our culture’s idolization of financial success mixed with our belief that you can always reinvent yourself and “fake it ‘til you make it” (a phrase that originated in a multi-level marketing scheme) makes the U.S. fertile ground for schemers, charlatans, and con artists.

But when it came time to choose which con-artist to sing about in my show, the deciding factor was that Lou Pearlman did something with the money that he stole that no one else did: he gave us boy bands.

Friends, I give you “The Ballad of Lou Pearlman!”

February 23, 2023

Corporations Are People Too!

Here’s my new lyric video for Corporations Are People Too! is out! It’s the peppiest, grooviest, upliftingest track from my latest album The American Songbook: Redacted, and the video is a collaboration with Dan Pavelich, a multi-talented artist and good friend.

What on Earth does Corporations Are People Too! even mean?

Remember when Mitt Romney said, “corporations are people, my friend”? He was referring to the concept of corporate personhood, which can make sense when needing an entity to sign a contract, but gets weird when the Supreme Court says their personhood entitles them to religious beliefs.

So I decided to make fun of this concept the best way I know how: a comedy song!

Inspired by the sunshine pop of the 60s and 70s, I’m really happy with the way this arrangement came together. And sticking with that era as inspiration, I asked Dan to create illustrations in the style of Hanna Barbara, Schoolhouse Rock, and a lot of the other stuff we Gen-Xers grew up with. He totally nailed the style and I couldn’t be happier with this video.

I hope you like it, and check out the other tunes on the album!

The Great Disappointment of 1844 Lyric Video

“The People Who Were Already Here” Lyric Video

Satanic Panic Lyric Video

Catching Rays (on the Fire Escape) Quarantine Music Video!

Driving With Grandpa—Live Album Lyric Video

Armenians in Media—Live Album Lyric Video

Live in Lausanne!

January 26, 2023

The Invisible Hand — Lyric Video!

The Invisible Hand! Lyric video released!

I don’t know if Scottish philosopher and economist Adam Smith meant for his metaphor of “The Invisible Hand” to sound as creepy as it does, but to me it sounds like a criminal organization in a James Bond movie. So when I wanted to satirize the concept of the invisible hand in my show and album The American Songbook: Redacted, I figured the best way to do it would be in the style of a James Bond title sequence!

Musically I’m really proud of the arrangement on the album, I did my best to capture the campy swagger of classic 60s/70s James Bond movies and those iconic John Barry soundtracks. My good friends Peggy O’Brien & Steven Rosenthal, both funny and talented filmmakers, offered to put together a title sequence style video for my live show, and when I saw how amazing the video turned out I knew I had to make it into a lyric video.

It’s the 4th lyric video from The American Songbook: Redacted, after Satanic Panic, The People Who Were Already Here, and The Great Disappointment of 1844. I have more coming, including some other collaborations that I’m really excited about.

Until then, enjoy The Invisible Hand!

January 16, 2023January 26, 2023

The Invisible Hand! Lyric Video debuts Jan 26!

The Invisible Hand: New Lyric Video debuts Jan 26!

One of my favorite tracks on The American Songbook: Redacted studio album is The Invisible Hand, a 60s-era James Bond style theme song about Adam Smith’s famous metaphor for laissez faire capitalism. The joke being that “invisible hand” sounds like some kind of underworld organization that you’d find in a James Bond movie (fwiw I wrote and performed the song before a secretive organization named The Invisible Hand appeared on the animated spy comedy Archer).

When it came time to record a studio version of the song I wanted an arrangement that sounded as much like a classic James Bond theme as possible and I’m really proud of the orchestration and performance I put together.

When I did the song live in the debut performance of the The American Songbook: Redacted, I had a very simple slideshow animation projected on the screen behind me. My good friends Peggy O’Brien and Steven Rosenthal, amazingly talented filmmakers, asked if I had thought about doing a video montage in the style of a James Bond title sequence. I said I had but added that my video and after effects skills probably weren’t good enough to do something worthy of the arrangement I hoped to put together.

Lo and behold, they offered to put together something, and what they delivered was so unbelievably cool that I wanted to do more with it than project it behind me in the live show. With their permission I put lyrics over their great visuals to create a lyric video for the song. It’s the 4th lyric video from AS:R after Satanic Panic, The Great Disappointment, and The People Who Were Already Here, and it will be released on Thursday, January 26 at 9pm NYC time, 0100 Friday, 27 of January GMT.

There may be a live stream on premiere night, I’m still figuring out what to do (and I need to reconfigure the laptop I used to stream all those Cover Tuesday shows after an operating system upgrade) so stay tuned, I’ll update here and post on the various social medias that I still can tolerate (post, mastodon and instagram).

Update! (Jan 26, 2023, 2pm EST)
The premiere is tonight at 9pm NYC time and I’ll be doing a 30-minute pre-premiere live stream to talk about the video, James Bond Themes, and maybe even laissez faire capitalism if people are into it! Here’s the lyric video will be here, and will go live at 9PM, and the pre-premiere live stream will be on YouTube and Twitch! Come through if you can!

It such a cool video, I can’t wait for you to see it! Until then, check out the cool arrangement in one of the embedded players below 🙂

October 17, 2022

Great Disappointment Lyric Video!

Watch The Great Disappointment Lyric Video

The Great Disappointment is a thing that actually happened, when a Bible scholar convinced thousands of people that the 2nd Coming was going to happen in 1843 or 1844. Dates came and went, and the final, for sure, no-doubt-about-it date of October 22, 1844 passed with nothing happening.

Some people lost faith, some people redoubled their faith, and some people said that something did happen that day but no one saw it. Either way, “The Great Disappointment” makes a good title for an emo rock song, so that’s what I set out to make. Another band uses the name for a song that’s not ostensibly about the historical event so I added “of 1844” to be specific and differentiate.

From The American Songbook: Redacted! Available on bandcamp, spotify, Apple Music, and limited CDs available here at our online store!

October 7, 2022October 7, 2022

It’s heeeeere! New album out today!!

The American Songbook: Redacted is out!

It’s a little after midnight here on the East Coast of the U.S. and the new album is now officially available through just about every streaming service! There’s Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and the most artist-friendly of them all: Bandcamp!

It’s even Bandcamp Friday today, which means bandcamp waives the artist’s transaction fees so pick it up today if you can. And, little insider information: I upload higher quality masters to bandcamp than I do to the other streaming services. All the major services ask for things to be 16-bit, 44.1 kHz digital audio but I upload 24-bit, 48 kHz masters to bandcamp and then they convert it to all the digital formats you can download, including some lossless formats like FLAC, ALAC, Ogg Vorbis, and more!

OK, that got nerdy and technical, but that’s sort of on brand for me, is it not?

The important thing is that the album is now out in the world! I’m super excited for you all to hear it, I’m really happy with what it says and the way it says it. Musically it was a blast to play with so many different genres, and it was a rewarding challenge to dig into some tougher topics in order to try to say something about the world today.

I even pressed 100 copies on CD, they’re hand numbered and available at the online shop. It’s a great addition to any record collection!

The big record release show is Wednesday, Oct. 12 here in NYC and it’s streaming live so you can watch from anywhere! Join me at Caveat, a beautiful nightclub on the Lower East Side, 9:30 pm. It’s gonna be fun.

OK, I’m gonna go to bed now. No wait, after I embed some music players below!

October 6, 2022October 7, 2022

The Satanic Panic Lyric Video!

The Satanic Panic lyric video from the brand new album The American Songbook: Redacted is here! Get ready for guitar riffs, explosions, and jokes!

Watch Satanic Panic Lyric Video!

October 4, 2022

Pre-orders live for The American Songbook: Redacted CD!

Order today, ships Friday!

My online store is now accepting pre-orders for the CD version of The American Songbook: Redacted! And it’s even on sale for only $12 for the rest of the month! Shipping is $5 flat rate for everything in your order so if you wanted to pick up The Green L.E.D.s debut album or maybe the Rob P. Digital Box Set, it’s still only $5 to ship it all!

The album officially comes out this Friday, October 7, and if you order by Thursday morning, Oct 6, I may just send it out a day early! There are only 100 pressed, hand numbered, so don’t wait too long! And I’ll also include a bandcamp download code so you can grab a digital copy of the album without having to dust off your old CD player 🙂

I’m really excited about this album, it’s very me, in that I like a lot of different styles of music, like weird stories from American history, and love making fun of the stupider parts of American culture. Be the first (and most likely only person ever) on your block to own it!

See the CD packaging in action! 👇

September 26, 2022

Pre-Sales for The American Songbook: Redacted are live!

It’s (almost) here!

The American Songbook: Redacted is now available for purchase! On Apple Music at least. Pre-sales have begun on the platform from Cupertino and if you buy in advance not only will the album download the instant it’s available on October 7, you’ll get to download the preview track “Corporations Are People Too!” right away!

I am really excited for you all to hear this new album. The songs are inspired by oddities of U.S. history and American culture and I got to play with a bunch of different styles of music. The preview track is Sunshine Pop, like Up With People or The Fifth Dimension’s “Up, Up and Away!” There’s heavy metal, disco, emo, 90s boyband pop, jazz, western music and more.

The album will be available on all platforms on October 7, and there will be a limited number of physical CDs for sale right here through my online store. In fact, the only way to get the original cover is on the physical CD. Check out the 2 versions below:

See what’s missing?

“Original Cast Recording” will only appear on the physical CD cover because the streaming services are really picky about what kind of text you put on the cover. The album is comprised of songs from my solo show, solo meaning the entire original cast is me! Get it?

They did not.

I even had a chat conversation with customer service where they asked and I explained, but they said the rules were that the artist name had to be more prominent than any other text on the cover aside form the title. So my cute little joke didn’t make it to the streaming services.

But the music did! And you can get a track before anyone else if you pre-order on Apple music! If you’re more of a Spotify person make sure you follow me there and you’ll be notified as soon as the album is available. And bandcamp is always a good place to get the album digitally, it’s one of the more artist-friendly sites out there so give it a look.

And check back here (or on socials) on October 7th, I have some lyric videos ready to debut on release day!