I’m heading out on vacation, so I’ll see ya the week of Feb. 5!
Until then, (1) you’re in good hands with Amanda flying solo, and (2) I leave you with “Poupi’s incredible adventures !” by Komiku, which I stumbled across today while searching for public domain music for videos. It’s 70 songs of glory, tagged on the Free Music Archive as folk/soundtrack/chiptune/instrumental, and I am all about it.
From the album description, which goes on for a very long time after this: “It’s the story of Poupi (they/them/their), a cute little non gendered doggo. They know that their is a prophecy that they have to work on, and they can only work on one week before the prophecy is achieved.” Along their adventures, Poupi works with Mister Paillettes (Mister Glitters), a “handsome glitter with a crooner voice,” competes in a dance contest with a gang of alley cats, “chills a bit” with Prince Cheese Burger, and more.
Their Bandcamp is also very good and fun. The only rule for using their music is to not be oppressive.
The Hartland song, The Pilgrims’ new video and now, Poupi. Don’t say I never did nothin’ for ya!
Vocalist Chris Rosenquest of The Pilgrims belts out a song during a rehearsal in Hanover, N.H. on Feb. 1, 2017. (Valley News – Jennifer Hauck) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com.
Thank you to Doug Linnell, who works in the listers’ office, and Dan Morancy, who works on the road crew, for letting us host their song on our Soundcloud! They originally shared the mp3 via the Hartland listserve, but it was getting downloaded so many times, people were having a hard time accessing it. I guess that’s what you’d call “Hartland viral.”
Here is the message that they wrote to accompany the song’s worldwide debut:
Fellow Hartlanders,
We, Doug Linnell and Dan Morancy, have been playing music together in one way or another for a few years now. As Town of Hartland employees we have traveled far and wide in the line of duty and gotten to know this place we call home. We recorded a song last Saturday that we would like to share with you to help offset the mid-winter weather blues.
The original was written by written by Australian country singer Geoff Mack in 1959 and has been covered by many artists (perhaps most notably Johnny Cash) since then.
Many thanks to David Baldwin for his miracles of modern audio technology.
When I asked Doug for a copy of the song, he gladly obliged. “We were just having a bit of fun,” he said.
(BTW, the image we chose for the Soundcloud is by Shawn Braley, as part of his 46 Upper Valley town posters from a couple years ago!)
Hartland poster by Valley News illustrator Shawn Braley. Click the image to purchase a reprint.