I am somewhat slanted and self-promotional in talking about it, but I think it’s a project worthwhile, and entirely in need of sharing. Butter Vaughn Kingson is a musical group comprised entirely by my friend Lee.
Lee makes music in a way that is compulsive and honest and endearing. He has made nearly 30 albums of music since June 2006, and with a steady stream of between 10 to 30 new tracks every month, there’s not really much end in sight. All of which, by the way, are available on his website entirely free through torrents without rights management.
Every time I speak to him about why or how he is able to create and keep on creating, Lee maintains his (here paraphrased) mantra of: “I want to make the most popular song ever!” Regardless of whether he makes one single song we can all agree on, there is enough here already for each of us to enjoy at the very least something.
Butter Vaughn Kingson has been making music since he began learning music, and if anything these albums are a documentation of one person’s eclectic tastes in music translated in to the physical process of developing songwriting, guitar and vocal ability. It has been an absolute pleasure learning, listening and creating from/with/to/with him. I love Lee for more reasons than his songs, but songs are much easier to download through torrents.
You can find and download any and everything from Butter Vaughn Kingson at buttervaughnkingson.blueandbrownbooks.com (this song below is my current favourite, but please check out more from Butter Vaughn Kingson’s site, there’s a flash media player on the main page.)
Karaoke is a completely different experience in Japan than from what I know back home. In Canada at least, we’re used to a karaoke machine in the corner of a bar or pub or at a wedding, etc. singers at random then preform for whatever crowd happens to occupy the large space that the machine occupies. It is definitely fun, but all together different than my experiences in Japan.
[Half of the Osaka Training Group - from left to right: Frank, Jed, Renzo and Myself. This was our last night together as a group and we absolutely made the best of it! For more, see the ‘more photos of Aaron’ section on the facebook]
When one goes out karaoke’ing for the evening, it is typically with a group of 3 to 10+ persons. Like going out on the town back home, the group will typically first go to eat. In Japan, my favourite of the evening eating establishments is the Izakaya (of which deserves an entire post on its own, so more later) which is something like a Pub that we’d be used to back home. After the eating and a decent amount of ‘priming’, so to speak, the group will then advance to a Karaoke establishment. Karaoke bars are much like restaurants, some are large corprate chains, some are sketchy hole-in the wall spots. Both of which can be either good or bad. In my experience, the chain ‘Big Echo’ has always been an excellent time.
this is the last in the series of Butter Vaughn Kingson shorts, soon to come are the ‘letters to nana’ collections of stories, photos, etc. from japan so far. watch out for it! for now, please enjoy the Kingson.
check out his myspace please, and keep watching therearecakes.com for more musical project-ness.
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