Happy Halloween & Two New Tunes

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I wish you all a ghoulorius Pagan New Year / Halloween / El Día de Los Muertos! 🎃 🎃 🎃

Calm On is my most recent video. It features the beauty of Lake Okanagan, Penticton, BC and its current autumnal, avian denizens. The music is ambient electronica with accordion. Yes, accordions go with every kind of music!

Watch and enjoy a few moments of calm.

All the Rage is a spoken word YouTube “Short” — 60 seconds. Yes, there is some accordion.

I describe the piece like so:

“Something wonderful happens to a woman when she lives long enough, don’t ya think?”

Be sure and follow on BandCamp and subscribe to the Mad Ms YouTube channel.

New tune: “flow like so” – mesmerizing accordion & electronica

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We’re busy preparing for our shows in August so I gave the band a break from recording this month. I still wanted to publish a video so I put the finishing touches on a tune I composed in 2022. “flow like so” is a synth-soaked ambient piece with accordion. I built the mesmerizing, relaxing, chill video with footage from the Penticton, BC dam and channel.

Accordions belong anywhere in any genre, even flow. No musical borders. That’s my contention and I’m sticking with it. 🙂

For music nerds, the time signature is 7/4. The accordion is my musette tuned Weltmeister Achat. The synths sounds are all in GarageBand (the free Apple app) which just goes to show that possibilities are endless if you have a creative streak and like to play with sonic landscapes.

For a hi-fi audio file of “flow like so” visit our BandCamp: https://themadmaggies.bandcamp.com/track/flow-like-so

New Tune & Video for May: California Love – variation for Harp with guest Roxanne Oliva

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As I was writing California Love, I kept “hearing” a harp version. I asked fab multi-instrumentalist and longtime friend Roxanne Oliva if she’d like to do it and happily she said yes.

She recorded her tracks at her home studio, playing her Celtic harp, a 22 string Stoney End. She sent the tracks to me and I added parts. Next step was to Wally Sound for mixing and mastering mix. The result is a lovely instrumental, a movie soundtrack.

To listen and/or download a hi-fi version, go to our BandCamp.

I had oodles of fun playing with the theme of “hearts coming together” in the music video.


 

newspaper photo clipping of Rox and MagsRoxanne and I have known each other since the mid 1980s, having met at Sonoma State University. We performed together in Mixed Company, a mixed-media theater company I formed with choreographer/director Diana Keener. (I must say, the shows we produced were waaaay before their time.)

We have criss-crossed in the musical world ever since.

I particularly love that neither one of has stopped making music. Can’t keep a dedicated artist down!
Check out Roxanne’s BandCamp.

New Mad Maggies’ Video “Hold On, Let Go”

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I gathered up a few musician friends to record some of my tunes on February 14, 2004. What was a one album project turned into a crazy 20 year musical ride. Wow!

We’re celebrating with a new tune: Hold On, Let Go

Available for download on our BandCamp

Enjoy the very danceable rhythm — a line dance shuffle, perhaps.
And, the chorus is just asking for you to singalong. Go for it!

One of the most valuable skills in life is knowing when to take chances and stay in the fray and knowing when the smart move is to walk away.

That hint of free will feels good in this crazy game of life.

Meanwhile, it’s not time for me to “let go” just yet.
I have quite a few tunes in the hopper. 😉

View on YouTube.

We’re booking some nice shows in August. So stay tuned.
Sign up for our newsletter “Mad Alerts”
Subscribe to our YouTube channel

New Video: Out of Proportion

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Here’s my next “Mags’ Jazz” piece — storytelling and music inspired by Ken Nordine’s “Word Jazz” style.

In “Out of Proportion“, a shopping mishap leads a woman to discover that clothes don’t make the woman…or the man.

And naturally, there is accordion.

Enjoy the video on our YouTube channel.

Please hit the like button and subscribe to our channel. That’s a super easy way to support us.

Music & Lyrics by M. Martin
Musicians:
Maggie “Mags” Martin: composer, vocals, accordion, & synths
Gary “GDub” Wium: bass

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the Mad Ms project: However Improbable

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“However Improbable” is a confection of ska, border polka, country, dance and brass band. The tune, written by yours madly, is a perfect example of the Mad Maggies “Hard to Describe, Easy to Love” style.

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

-– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, stated by Sherlock Holmes

Watch the video However Improbable on our YouTube channel.

The video features fantastic, detailed illustrations by Montreal artist Daniel Fiorito.

For a high quality audio file, go to our BandCamp.

the Mad Ms project: Surely, Shirley

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Will Shirley ever notice Sam?

Will they fall in love?

To find out, watch the video now.

The video features whimsical sketches by artist Mason Fernandez.

If you’re like me and have some word nerd in you, you will enjoy the homonyms, internal rhymes and expressions.

And with the handy onscreen lyrics, you can sing along.

For a high quality audio file, listen on the Mad Maggies BandCamp.

Mixed and Mastered by Wally Sound at the Wally Sound, Oakland, California

the Mad Ms project: Groove d’Hiver

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After so much warm, humid here in Montréal, it is hard to believe that the streets were covered in snow just a few months ago.

Enjoy a very snowy, wintry trip through the streets of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Montreal, Quebec while listening to The Mad Maggies’ release Groove d’Hiver* (Winter Groove), a dub-infused instrumental.

Watch and like on YouTube.

Listen to a high quality audio file on our BandCamp. 

 

The Streets of Montreal. I had big fun filming the hood during snow storms. Each shot had to have snow falling.

The streets I wandered looking for video shots for Groove d’Hiver are specifically the streets of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve (Ho-Ma) and Viauville, two neighbourhoods on the eastern side of the island of Montréal which border the St. Lawrence River.

Before the Europeans came, Iroquois inhabited the area. By the early 1800s, it was a rural village, then a working class slum, then a busy manufacturing district. By the 1980s, the manufacturing sector had shrank and the economic decline hit the area hard. There is some rebound now because of the affordability of the real estate.

All this history makes the area’s urban landscape a hodgepodge of blight and gentrification. There’s Beaux Arts architecture from its glory days, remnants of factories, blocks of condos, empty storefronts and plenty of graffiti. Alleyways thread through the backs of most streets, some rough and ignored, some family friendly and “greened”. Copper-clad church steeples are everywhere.

the Mad Ms project: Within the Wyrd

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I haven’t been letting a pesky pandemic stop me from writing and producing music. 🙂

We — the Mad Maggies — have been recording tracks remotely and sending them to Wally Sound in Oakland, CA for mixing.

In December ’21, we released “Within the Wyrd“, a cool groove with shades of first wave ska.

Enjoy the danceable, retro feel. Kick off your shoes, turn up the volume and shake what you got.

Mixed and Mastered by Wally Sound at the Wally Sound, Oakland, California
 
Johny Blood: tuba
Ray Fernandez: saxophone
Ian Luke: drums
Maggie “Mags” Martin: accordionist, composer/arranger
Mark Nemoyten: trumpet
Tim Sarter: bass
Ned Stone: trombone
Gary “GDub” Wium: guitar

Why Wyrd?
In Norse mythology, under the huge tree of life, Yggdrasil, there is a well. This well is called the Well of Wyrd (Well of Urðr). Three Norns tend to Yggdrasil every day by bringing water from the well to the tree to keep it green and healthy.

These beings of time, Urðr (what was), Verðandi (what is) and Skuld (what will be) are said to spin our destinies.

I think of the “Wyrd” as the twists and turns of our lives, a weaving of experiences — some ordinary, some extraordinary. We’re all in this tapestry of life together.

Music from everywhere flows around and through us. It flows from the past to the future. In Within the Wyrd, the sounds flow from the Caribbean to the Northern realms to the west coast of California.

🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶

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