matthewgruman.com

Photo Credit: Radio Milwaukee

Playing Notes

I use the following positions for chords:

C: 332010
G: 320033
Bb: 113331
F: 133211

Power chords will sounds just fine, though.

The Chords

TV on the Radio
Golden Age

Verse riff:

A|--3-1-3-1--3-1-3--1-1-1--|

Chorus riff:

D|-----5--------3--|
A|--3--------1-----|

Heart beat sounding
Ricocheting in their cage
Thought I'd lose my balance
With the grounds bounce and sway
And all this violence
And all this goes away
And the vibes that rise like
Fireflies illuminate our play

Some light being
Pulled you up from night's party
Said clap your hands
If you think your soul is free
And the silence was astounding
'cept some "Oh Lord!! Mercy Me's"
And oh you can't stop what's comin' up
You're never gonna stop gonna live it up
And oh it's gonna drop gonna fill your cup
And oh it's gonna drop gonna fill your cup

           C        G        Bb       F
The age of miracles
           C        G        Bb       F
The age of sound
               C        G        Bb       F
Well there's a Golden Age
       C        G        Bb       F
Comin' round, comin' round, comin' round

Give it up
'stead of grabbing for decay
What we viewed as gold
I believe pollutes this space
And its grace ascending
Like a snake up your tree
Up your happy ending understanding
All your s'pposed to be

Let it move right in
Let it kiss your face
Let it sow your skin
In perpetual embrace
Like I said "Love's Light is Laughter"
Like the sun spitting happiness into the hereafter
Oh here it comes like a natural disaster
Ah blowing up like a ghetto blaster
Ah here it comes, bring it faster
Ah here it comes, bring it faster

           C        G        Bb       F
The age of miracles
           C        G        Bb       F
The age of sound
               C        G        Bb       F
Well there's a Golden Age
       C        G        Bb       F
Comin' round, comin' round, comin' round

C               F
Love, don't you falter
        C
Burning hearts
Dragged behind
             F
The horses dancing on the altar
                C
Hooves breaking Gods
           F
To diamond dust and stars
And there you are...

Now we're all allowed to breathe
Walls dissolve
With the hunger and the greed
Move your body
You've got all you need
And your arms in the air stir a sea of stars
And oh here it comes and it's not so far

All light beings
Come on now make haste
Clap your hands
If you think you're in the right place
Thunder all surrounding
Aw feel it quake with the joy resounding
Palm to the palm you can feel it pounding
Never give it up you can feel it mounting
Oh its gonna drop gonna fill your cup and
Oh its gonna drop gonna fill your cup

           C        G        Bb       F
The age of miracles
           C        G        Bb       F
The age of sound
               C        G        Bb       F
Well there's a Golden Age
       C        G        Bb       F
Comin' round, comin' round, comin' round

           C        G        Bb       F
The age of miracles
           C        G        Bb       F
The age of sound
               C        G        Bb       F
Well there's a Golden Age
       C        G        Bb       F
Comin' round, comin' round, comin' round

C        G        Bb       F

Tabbed by Matthew Gruman, matthewgruman.com

The Video

See the video here.

$when = date('F j, Y', strtotime($datetime));

The above code, where the ‘$datetime’ variable is a MySQL datetime stamp, will output a humanized date use PHP’s date(); function.

I found myself needing some excuses and was amazed that this site didn’t exist.
So I made it.
Please visit/participate.

The first album I ever owned was touch by The Eurythmics. I was 6 or 7 and had never heard them before, but I was obsessed with the cover and against my Mom’s advice, I insisted.

For years, I absolutely hated it but I wouldn’t let anyone know to save face. When my friends and I would do lip synchs in the backyard, I’d always do this one or “Sweet Dreams” and pretended that I liked it. It is undoubtably the most disliked album I’ve ever been completely familiar with.

When I moved out of Lower Sackville at age 13, I hid it in the basement floor so I wouldn’t ever have to listen to it again. “I don’t know where it is!” I’d feign every time my Mom or brother asked about it.

As I got older, I began to like the band and just last week decided to learn this song. I spent a couple hours this afternoon recording—hope you like it!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download mp3.

Photo Credit: Clothes Horse Records.

The Chords

soso – the first of a thousand goodbyes

Em Bm Am

I guess I thought his clothes and personal possessions
would somehow make me feel his presence.
But his mittens with mismatching thumbs are
dumb without his hands to animate them.

I guess in the same way i thought that if i lay myself down in this field something would be revealed
if i listen hard, i listen hard

Things are rarely as i expect
Echoing Hallmark card sentiments like
“Please accept our deepest sympathies”
and quotings with great regret

A lifetime of generating assets can be a real pain in the ass
Shifting through old boxes of shit in the garage
And when old people die there are no casserole and pies at the end of the rainbow
Just a lot of grown ups with wet eyes

Red faces and neck ties from ten years ago
On the last happy or sad occasion
And don' forget to get the good shirt laundered

I've squandered all my thoughtful words in the first third of my life
And i said i wasn't going to write anymore songs like this
I don't want to write anymore songs like this

I, I know
I know this the first of a thousand goodbyes
I, I know
I know this is the first of ten thousand goodbyes

The Song

Download an mp3 from Clothes Horse Records.

Photo Credit: Rugged Elegance.

The Intro

The intro part should be involve some sort of pick pattern to sound like the record. The notes in parenthesis (G# and Bb) are just individual notes to be played on the bass strings.

The Chords

Rent
You'll See (from the movie soundtrack)

C C/b Am (G#) (Bb)

ROGER
What Happened to Benny?
What Happened to his Heart
And the Ideals he Once Pursued?

BENNY
And the Owner of that lot Next Door
Has the Right to do with it as he Pleases

ROGER
Happy Birthday, Jesus

G

BENNY (spoken)
The Rent

MARK
You're wasting your time

ROGER (spoken)
We're broke

F

MARK
And you Broke your Word-This is Absurd

G

BENNY
There is One Way you Won't Have to Pay

F

ROGER
I Knew It

G

BENNY
Next Door
The Home of CyberArts
You see

F
And now that the Block is Rezoned
G
Our Dream can Become
F
A Reality

C                F
You'll See Boys
C                F
You'll See Boys

VERSE

(spoken)
A State of the Art
Digital
Virtual
Interactive Studio
I'll Forego your Rent

And on Paper Guarantee
That you can Stay here for Free

If You'll Do Me One Small Favor

MARK (spoken)
What?

BENNY (spoken)
Convince Maureen
To Cancel her Protest

MARK (spoken)
Why not get an Injunction
Or Call the Cops?

BENNY
(spoken)
I did, and They're on Stand By

G

But my Investors Would Rather
F
I Handle this Quietly

ROGER (spoken)
You can't Quietly Wipe Out
An Entire Tent City
Then Watch "It's Wonderful Life"
On T.V.

BENNY
You Wanna Produce Films
And Write Songs

You Need Somewhere to Do It
It's What we Used to Dream About
Think Twice Before You Poo Poo It

C         F
You'll See Boys
You'll See Boys

Eb                        C
You'll See the Beauty of a Studio
Eb
That Let's Us Do Our Work
         C
And Get Paid
Eb
With Condos on the Top
C
Who's Rent Keeps Open our Shop
Eb
Just Stop the Protest
                   D
And You'll Have It Made
        C
You'll See

Or You'll Pack

The Song

I was looking for a way to keep the About section up to date and came across this one from Dzone that works really well:

function birthday ($birthday)
{
list($year,$month,$day) = explode("-",$birthday);
$year_diff = date("Y") - $year;
$month_diff = date("m") - $month;
$day_diff = date("d") - $day;
if ($month_diff < 0) $year_diff--;
elseif (($month_diff==0) && ($day_diff < 0)) $year_diff--;
return $year_diff;
}

You can activate it with:

echo birthday("YYYY-MM-DD");

Awesome Vancouver Buskers from Matthew Gruman on Vimeo.

Steps towards recognizing great street performers:

1. Remove headphones
2. Stay and listen
3. Record a video
4. Empty pocket change

From the back cover:

One night in April, after a Sunday soccer game, Alan Twigg, a writer, couldn’t remember the names of his two sons or his wife—and he couldn’t hold a pen. After a scan at the Emergency, he learned he had a large brain tumour squeezed against the motor cortex. Intensive Care tells the story of why this was a good thing.

This is a really touching collection of poems. Twigg found himself losing the tools that make him who he is (i.e. his ability to write and think); this book follows his journey to once again reach normalcy.

Many of the poems are accompanied by his child-like handwriting; written as he was still relearning that skill. You get to see what he was thinking, pre-edit, and how a few words scrawled on paper can become a truly beautiful piece of art. You get to witness his change in priorities from when he thinks he’s about to die, to a period of extreme self-reflection, and finally dealing with everything that happened and coming out the other side.

Shortstop

I knew for certain
things were going to be okay
when this brown clipboard
slipped from the hospital bed
and I caught it reflexively
before it hit the floor
like the shortstop I used to be.

You can buy Intensive Care directly through Anvil Press.

Photo Credit: LA Times

The Chords

Tim Fite
Big Mistake

Capo VI

C: x32010 -or- x32013
Em: 022000 -or- 022003
Am: x02210 -or- x02x15
F: 133211

The alternate chords, while a bit tricky to play, sound more like the record.

The entire song, save the "hold Am" parts, is:
C Em Am F

Show me the best that you got, and I'll show you one better
Show me your reddest rose, and I'll show you one redder
Tell me a dirty joke, and I'll laugh it off lightly
If I tell you a dirty joke, you might not like me 

Everyone gets to make one big mistake
And if you're waitin' on me
Well, I guess you're gonna have to wait (hold Am)

Ti-time-timing is everything if you've got nothin' but time
(I got nothin' but time)
And a lie don't mean nothin' if nobody knows when you're lying
(lie when you lie)
So lie when you do, lie when you don't
Lie when you didn't, lie till you lie, lie, lie, lie
They're wonderin' if anybody else is lying 

(end Am)

Everyone gets to make one big mistake
And if you're waitin' on me
Well, I guess you're gonna have to wait (hold Am)
'Cause I'm savin' mine up for a very, very special day
When I can fuck it all up in the most spectacular way  (hold Am)

Everyone gets to make one big mistake
And if you're waitin' on me
Well, I guess you're gonna have to wait
And wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait 

Everyone gets to make one big mistake
(mistake, mistake, mistake, mistake, mistake, mistake, mistake, mistake)
And if you're waitin' on me
Well, I guess you're gonna have to wait (you're gonna have to wait)
'Cause I'm savin' mine up for a very, very special day
(it doesn't even matter if it don't even matter)
When I can fuck it all up in the most spectacular way (hold Am)

Show me the best that you got, and I'll show you one better
Show me your reddest rose, and I'll show you one redder (hold Am)
Tell me a dirty joke, and I'll laugh it off lightly
If I tell you a dirty joke, you might not like me (hold Am)

Tabbed by Matthew Gruman, matthewgruman.com
Lyrics from http://www.onlylyrics.com/hits.php?grid=5&id=1024209

The Video