#ds106 Good Spellin’ on a Sunday Afternoon

I got a message request from Mariana Funes

Want to do new bumper for 106 spell starting Sept 6 can you record “Under the #106spell on a sunny Sunday on #ds106radio” for us when you have a moment?

with a link to the song by The Kinks.

She is referring to the DS106 Good Spell, a weekly podcast/live ds106 radio broadcast she and John Johnston have been doing since… since… for a long time. If I remember correctly, it started with a summary of 106 things about ds106 or, DS106 in 106 posts and 106 bullets published at 1:06 by Mariana. It was 106 bullet points, and I guess with the “Good Spell” they steered away from the ballistic connotations of bullets. John may have suggested running it as a series, and they’ve done 36 already, usually on Sunday night in the UK which is Sunday afternoon over here in the US.

My first response was “I do not take requests” and also “I think you have my talents way confused with those of David Kernohan.”

But a challenge is a challenge, and I aimed last night to give it a trie to add to a series of re-written Ed Tech cover songs I started this year. Just the thought that I would play and sing music, publish it for others on the internet, would be quite impossible to believe a few years ago (or as I say that part of my life that was “Pre-ds106”).

It’s my iteration of what Alec Couros and Dean Shareski have done with their students as a “Learning Project” — take something you say “I cannot do” or “I always wanted to do” and do it, in public, on your blog.

I was not sure I could do this Kinks song. I do not just improvise them on the pot as I have seen David Kernohan do often. The Kinks are one of those bands I knew as a teen mostly from their popular FM radio songs, Lola, the cover of You Really Got Me. But when I dive in deeper to their music, I find myself in awe of the song writing craft of Ray Davies.

My first approach is to seek out published guitar tabs/chords for a song. As usual, you find variations in chords, even keys, and amounts of detail. I generally do not look for one I can just mimic, but one that gives me a enough of a base of the song to play it my own way (meaning simplify the stuff I cannot play). usually just wanting to get the chords I can play.

But then I found a lesson in Youtube for this song by JustinGuitar. I’ve watched a fair bit of guitar lessons, and it’s a bit over the map how well they can do more than show you how they play it versus showing you how you can figure it out. I am really hooked in the way Justin explains the techniques and also shows tight closeups of the chords. I’ll be back to his channel often.

I could get most of what he played, a lot of 7th chords, on my acoustic. The whole Dm down chord riff is interesting, but I was not hitting it good enough, so I opted like many of the tabs show to play that falling bass line as notes.

And I decided to try my first recorded song with the new Telecaster Deluxe I got in June with the Vox amp sent to me by Adam Croom.

Again when I do these, I run through it maybe 5 times or so to make sure I can play most of it, then rewrite the lyrics, and nearly always do a recording in one take. I am not trying to make it perfect, but good enough. I surprise myself when I get that one take done, because when I turn on record, I am not that confident I got it.

Okay enough blabbing, here is the song cover I made for Mariana and John as a bumper for their show

And the lyrics

106 Spellin on a Sunday Afternoon

walking chord opening
Dm Dm/C Dm/B  Dm/Bb

A - A/G - A/F A/E

or bass riff it

		          A    A/G A/F A/E
|-----------------------------------------|
|-----------------------------------------|
|-----------------------------------------| 
|-----------------------------------------|
|-5-5--3-3--2-2--1-1--0-0-----------------|
|--------------------------3-3--1-1--0-0--|



   Dm             C7
The MOOC Man's taken all the hype,

    F             C7
but I got something that's 4 life,

A      A/G  A/F   A/E  Dm7
106 spellin on a Sunday afternoon.

   Dm                  C7
We've got a long list of topics,

     F          C7
And we're gonna talk all 106.

A        A/G        A/F   A/E  Dm
Each and every Sunday afternoon.

(walk up octaves A  B C# to the Dm played on 3rd fret)

Chorus:

Dm                                   G7
Cast me, cast cast, cast me on the net,

           C7                           F   A7
John and Mariana still futzing with the set.

      Dm              G7
And I love to tune in lazily,

Dm                G7   C7
Tweeting stuff so hastily,

F           A7         Dm        A    A/G A/F A/E
106 spellin on a Sunday afternoon,  on the radio...
 
Dm                  A    A/G A/F A/E                                          
On the radio...  On the radio.

|-----------------------------------------||
|----------------------------------------o||
|-----------------------------------------||
|-----------------------------------------||
|-5-5--3-3--2-2--1-1--0-0----------------o||
|--------------------------3-3--1-1--0-0--||

Stay tuned for the return of the #DS106 Good Spell on September 6 (look for tweets via #ds106radio). This bumper may be there too.

On a Sunday afternoon.

Top / featured image credit: My remix of a cover of the 45/7inch record for the Kinks Sunny Afternoon done as a parody. This is most likely a violation of copyright and I do so in protest of such things that prevent me from being creative with artifacts of pop culture w/o any intent to profit. As artists have done for centuries. Suck it, copyright lawyers.

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