vitamin blues, (not to be confused with blue vitamins)

please tell us more about the record.

it’s going to be an organic record.  we’ve found a way to make cds out of compressed dandilion leaves, and we’ll be exploiting this new technology; if it goes platinum there won’t be any more dandilions.

wow, you might get hungry.

my record will be edible.  That way if no one wants to listen to it I can sell dandilion crackers.  either way I’ll eat lots of records.

what songs will be on the record?

definitely carkissed carcass, and salad not sod, we’ve basically finished those.  Other than that, we are shooting for oil spill, (which might have a better name) cross pollenation blues, plantain, horsetails in the ditch, a new song called city hall and jungle toothpaste glue.

$ounds pretty edible.  what else can you tell us?

I can tell you anything.

….

the record will be amazing.  watch out.  call the police.

03/18/11 live @ the kinky canvas pasty party

Terrifying healings caught up with cam twyford, the musician, to get the low down on what the hell’s been going on and why he hasn’t contacted us. we got the dirt on his latest couple of shows

TH:  so, what’s your problem man?

I have no problems with terrifying headlines, just sometimes I get terrified, that’s all.  It’s a reflex.

of what?

uh, well, I don’t know, It’s kind of abstract.  It looks like other things, but it’s really something else.  I don’t know what yet.

we at TF HL think you need to let the goods out man.  You’ve been rocking out, playing wild shows, making a record, and we had to find all that out from the phone tap we have on your house.  We thought you were our friend.

fuck you guys.

well,  c’mon, how can we run this shit if you don’t cough it up dude.

ok.

tell us about the first show.

I feel wierd now.

whatever.  it was a wierd show by the sounds of it.  don’t be a wanker.

ok.  back off.  …  ummm…..  the show was cool……  It was awesome really.  I’ve been wanting to kick ass like that for a long time, but did’nt give myself the oppourtunity.  we rocked out proper.  I was wearing a tutu and bouncing like a cheerleader. they loved it.

I hear it was part of some orgy.

no no.  it’s called ‘expose yourself’ it’s an anual thing here in powell river bc.  kind of a mash up of the arts and eroticism.  lots of nudity but as far as I know just on the canvas…. and barbies.  there were naked barbies doing bad things.  and there was a massive felted vagina.

how big is massive?

the vagina has to be almost four feet from top to bottom.  someone could easily crawl in there if there was an inside.  I guess right now it’s just the outside.  That’s a cool idea for next year.  we could do the entire front door up like a vagina so that the party happened ‘inside.’

sounds like your somewhat “involved”  in this sexual party.  what’s the deal.   ?

everyone is invited to contribute and collaborate.  I think that’s what gives it such a good vibe. there is a huge roster of people involved doing all kids of different arty and musical things.  mosty with some sexual theme, but it’s very loose.  o dear.

good one.  …..     so besides the tutu, what was sexy about cam twyford’s set?

I also wore a tight black playboy bunny shirt and a carrot penis, which a brave punk rocker tied on for me during ‘salad not sod’.  And we closed the set with “feel like makin love” by bad company.  Everyone was dancing for that.  We played it slow and trashy.

nice.  did you unleash the new version of salad not sod?

yes most definitely.  It went great.   we rocked it.

who’s we?

Cory Matsumoto on drums, Tom dowding on bass.  myself guitar, vocals.  the cameron twyford experience, as chad the mc put it.

you keeping that name?

no.

you guy’s playing like that again?

who knows.  well, funwise and soundwise sure.  I really like playing loud and rowdy.  I don’t think anyone could hear the words, which is normally somewhat of a concern for me, but there was another kind of exchange going on for sure.  We got alot of great feedback.  “…grinning ear to ear for the whole set.”   we made them happy.
….to be continued

an interview!

the following is an interview conducted by cameron twyford with himself at nancy’s bakery in Lund BC, where cameron currently resides.

So cameron, what’s going on musically for you these days?

well sir, from what I can remember there is a few new songs in the works, I guess some of them are old unfinished things that are now coming to fruition. Can we talk about something else?

ummm, are you enjoying canada?

for sure man. I love it here. I am settling into this fine nation.

weren’t you born here?

yes.

ok.

I’ve just arrived though really. on the ground. I’ve been lost in thought for many years. Things are magnificent. I might hang up my coat soon.

very good. You have a lot of songs about food. What’s your favourite food?

probably dandilions. I eat the leaves, and the flowers when they are around – which is surprisingly often if you are paying attention. I’m quite into the hollow stalks too. I find them very refreshing.

how often do you eat dandilions?

well, it was difficult in the snow to eat them of course, and i was downtown vancouver for a few days so my intake was down, but I try to eat them everyday. I think it’s kind of absurd that everyone doesn’t eat them. They are free, and they are everywhere, and they are super good for you. My kids eat them. Especially my one and a half year old.

do you worry about dog pee?

sometimes in the summer I get into the habit of smelling them first, but it rains enough usually that I’m not too worried. I should mention that the bitterness one experiences the first few times really doesn’t persist for long. I expect that what I heard about the taste of wheat grass also applies to dandilions – the more you need it, the worse it tastes. “Bitters” are tragically overlooked in the north american diet. I think that dandilion consumption is a revolution on a health level and an agricultural and political level as well.

political?

dandilions trancend land ownership, and our idea of value. sustaining one’s self – healing one’s self with something that costs no money and requires no maintenance is very empowering. no membership, no work, no planning…. It’s basically free energy. When I pick and eat a dandilion I am generaly doing so in passing; I see it along the pathway or the sidewalk and I consume it. It connects my thoughts and my body to the vitality of the earth in that moment. and All that aside – it’s incredibly natural and practical. Totally primal, totaly fresh. year round. I could talk for hours about this. By eating this “weed” I am recognizing and participating with what is already here, what is already comlpeted. Life is so much easier than we think it is. and that’s not what i think – that’s what i do.

it sounds both complex and yet very simple.

zen vegetable.

tell us about the song you posted today.

that’s jungle toothpaste glue. It’s been around for a fair while, especially the first verse. I haven’t had a decent recording of it till now. The first verse explores the concept of flour-as-glue, and also happens to mention dandilions. The second explores the idea of making toothpaste yourself out of simple things, and the third verse is a look at the deforestation of the amazon jungle for the purpose of creating grassland for the cattle. Thank god there are jungles to cut down so we can continue expanding our cattle consumption. It’s like the jungles were just reserving those places for us! They knew we’d be hungry.

that sounds like a lot to include in a song. How do you decide what subject matter any one song will include?

the rhymes tell me what to do. I’m just a listener.

any new music genres on the horizon?

local beef music

band names?

the terrifying headlines. and the zen vegetables.

good one. thanks for your time cam .

no problem cam. we’ll do this again.

lo fi hi tech-no

so i’ve been choping and squishing with computer glue, inventing my way into whatever those sounds are.  It sounds quite righteous with the headphones on as far as i’m concerned.  Vocals are coming.  This is just a little tasty taste of my foray into beats.  trashy beats.  yeah.

I’ve been writing alot of poems, and playing with computer glue.

word.

aint no shortage of pianos in my basement

aint no shortage 05.22.10.mp3 (right click to download)

On my piano, @ home.  a good clear vocal.  that’s nice.

So I’m on my way to new brunswick, where I will do my best to serve my songs well.  I’m looking for some collaborations with some fine and friendly east coasters, and as well putting out the feelers for a tour in September out there.

My friend Maggie, who has been adding beatiful flute and her voice to my songs as of late, got me onto this concept of working for my songs.  I think it was more like the other way around previously.   My new perspective is that the songs are now independent entities of me.  I birthed them, but now they exist external to me, and it is my responsibility to share them.  (as opposed to sharing MYSelf).  it is a rather profound difference I must say, and it has definitely allowed me to put more of myself into playing the songs.  I feel like a song employee rather than a naked man.

Nakedness is good, however.

I think we are talking about a new kind of nakedness.

before it was always ME on the line.  now it is the songs.

very relieving.

have a nice day.

thank you internet.

happy birthday

it’s my birthday.  today we’re listening to this.

matts01.20.10 aint no shortage.mp3

because i love it.  happy birthday me.

I am my own pet dj

so here is one of my favourite recordings of this song:  take on gravity.mp3  y it’s part of the sidewalk, east vancouver session, recorded outside in may 2008 on a sidewalk.   If you’re interested in the whole session on cd, just drop a donation into the box, and attach your snail mail adress to it in the comment box.   I’ll mail it to you.  enjoy

which came first?

This song proved to be a surprise turning point for me a few years ago.  I got hired by an agricultural commitee to create a seed saving demonstration garden for the local fall fair.  The garden never happened, so I opted to write some educational music instead,  and perform it @ the fair – hopefully generating a comparable experience to  a demonstration garden….  (the cross pollenation blues was also part of this offering, as well as a song called cucumber).   It went over very well, prompted a recording project called seed songs (coming soon).  What i wasn’t expecting was that the songs would become favourites in my set over the next couple years, reflected by my rising interest in farming and food justice.   this is not true of cucumber, which has nearly disapeared, but perhaps it is just resting.  Which came first has scince adopted a few more verses and expanded it’s question range from just the original plant or the seed,  to include  religion or the war, the heart or the mind, the food or the turd, and the bullet or the gun.  oh, yes and the garden or the weed.  which came first???

which came?.mp3 18/10/09this is one song that hasn’t seen too many drumkits.  we went with the shuffle,  it was cool.  that’s franklyn currie on the drums.  second song i played @ the first airfare show.

which_cam_first.mp3 07/08  so, as you may have gathered by now, I am not overly “studio – minded” , I’m more attracted to live recordings for sure.  Indeed, what a fun adventure for a song to go on – I just don’t support the culture that is generally atatched – the culture that takes a recording as “a done deal” as far as a song goes.  like, just cuz we spent a bunch of money and hours on this track it’s gotta be the track’s uniform.  I prefer to allow my songs breathing room.   They are very changeable, and they do change. all the time.  So this is which came first in a studio on the east coast.  fredericton to be exact.  Kyle Friedman on the dials. recorded july 08.  Kyle did a great job.  he’s entirely responsible for the bells.

aint no shortage of solutions

This song was prompted by a film I saw called ‘hemp for victory.’  Aimed at American farmers, it was put out  in the 1940’s  promoting and encouraging hemp farming.   World War 2 was using up a lot of the nations supplies, and hemp, the versatile beauty that it is, was and always has been the most efficient way of producing fiber and just about everything else, as the song goes on to explain.  Of course it was later chased back to the woods when the war was over and petroleum and cotton could again keep up with the nations “needs”.    and Yes, plastics can be made of hemp resin.  makes you want to write a song or something.

right click and select ‘save link as’ to scoop these mp3s.

*
live on texada 07/09. mp3, from the diversity festival – I’m currently quite in love with this version. That’s cory matsumoto on the drums again – the sound is, um, low quality I guess they call it – but that has never discouraged me. This was the last song of the set, and afterwords my voice was trashed enough that I could not really speak for the next two days. great show. great crowd. around 4pm I think

aint no shortage 05.22.10.mp3

https://camerontwyford.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/aint-no-shortage-of-earth-05-22-10.mp3a straight ahead piano version recorded @ home.  pretty fast compared to the guitar versions.

aint no shortage 01.10.mp3a nice, big, recording with the guitar run straight into the PA.  Cory Matsumoto is the drummer. This is probably the best version from all those wednesday night sessions without a guitar amp.   PAs are far less forgiving than guitar amps.  it was always an excercie in right hand sensetivity.

matts01.20.10 aint no shortagehttps://camerontwyford.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/matts01-20-10-aint-no-shortage.mandp3

a daring version.  explosive and trippy.  down in gibsons with my musical soulmate matt smith – he’s playing drums here, we play vice versa as well.

live @ the Airfare..10/18/09 this is a fairly loose and rocking live version,  played with franklyn currie on drums after one breif rehearsal.  This song started on guitar, moved to the piano and stayed there every night for about six months and has just recently returned to the guitar, as you here on this recording.  enjoy

home recording (4track).05/09.mp3 this version is done at home on tape.  pardon the “pops” every time a word starts with P.  I’ve scince been educated on home made pop filters….  Also note the “4 billion barrels a day”, I have scince changed to 10 billion.  I heard through the grapevine that was the number.  word up

lyrics:

in 1943, there was a forest around me.  was a marajuana forest,  an american marajuana forest – and the government paid me to put it in the ground – how’s that sound for ya?  a check for gettin things done – y’know there aint no shortage of solutions.

and there never has been, but there was some bad men, with nothin better to do than put up a few billboards, of naked chicks, to take your mind off the tasty tit of your sweet mother nature.  in case you’re wonderin – she never stopped carin for ya – you just learned so well to ignore her.  like a dog learnin to forsake his bone – in favour of a flavoured plastic clone – PETROLEUM, for everyone – it’s just like hemp plus it kills your mom, but who needs a mom anyway?  all we need is 10 billion barrels a day.

it’s 1943, the war’s ragin, we got a fuel shortage see – please grow marajuana for a couple years.  we need to harvest the fields for the turnin of gears.  we know how to get it all from this most powerful crop, but the profits in plastic are such that we’ll stop – gotta take care of #1 first.  apparently that aint the earth.

I heard it was do da da do da da do da dupont – if they didn’t write the bible then they must’ve chose the font, cuz they’ve got the salvation that everyone wants – ok, maybe not wants, but at least what they need, even if only YES only cuz the powerful seeds of your sweet, mother, nature, have been outlawed – like robin hood – hanging with gangsters, deep in the woods.  How could we forsake what our good planet gave?  -and then stab her in the deep black dinosaur grave?

you know everything we make out of crude oil, we can make just as well with a few seeds and some soil – yes plastic, yes fabric, yes fuel, and yes food, it’s time to TRADE IN ALL YOUR MARGARINE FOR HEMPSEED OIL DUDE!  cuz this robin hood is tellin the truth – and his pardon is long overdue…..

logging truck rolls, lund days performance, threefour fourfour…

so ‘the waltz of the log’ has reached mp3 status along with junky olde heart and that demo of ‘aint no shortage’.  Three holy mp3s.  they’ll be deposited ever so gently into the internet tomorrow. 

the internet tomorrow

anyways ‘log’ has really seen some action lately.  about three days ago I played it in G.  what a concept.  on the piano, the manuver birthed a righteous d chord with b and c in it.    AND i realize now the progression is alot more of a progression that I percieved previously.   at my gig in Lund I debriefed the bass player moments before the song; I told him :`it`s in c.  go ahead on your own.    perhaps I hoped he was musically phsykic. well, or something.  I`m learning about instructing flash mob backup bands.    You should have heard what I told him for `which came first. ` `

he was very brave.  

i thought`car kissed carcass` was neat, and cross pollination blues is always easy to jam out.  That one kicked some ass actually.  the drummer really wanted to rock, which I was not expecting, but I welcomed it.  It prompted some thoughts about my high school angst rap rock star grunge against the machine days, and gave Lund days some much needed rowdyness.

`salad not sod` is pretty effective. 

I was talking to ed today, he said he was over hearing some guys in the bar grumbling about lawnmowers and what`s this guy talking about lawnmowers….  He thought they liked it too.  I think it`s very likeable.  I think salad not sod is everyones friend. 

 I also played more songs which i can`t recall.   a success. 

Afterwards I met ««michael,  he said ««««««««that i`m  a genious like early dylan who can take it all on but laugh about it all too.    he also called me amigo.   I tried to give him a cd but he lives at the beach.

Back to logging truck….  it`s journey.  SO tried it out in G,  had quite a time there at the piano with my hips,  saw a new side of the song, a little punchier, rounder, perhaps more entertaining, standing up at the keys like one of those nine inch nails motherfuckers.                                                    I sang it a buch of times this weekend, on the road with my guitar`, continuing on with this new key deal.   by today I was trying it with a fast rocka billy beat, no more six eight, no more waltz. 

  It`s funny this pattern  i`ve found in my process – slow threes  seem to make great fast rock one TWO. one TWO. one TWO.    I love what happens to the vocal phrasing going back and forth between the two time signatures.  (not really in the same performance, although….) but yes,  missy model and the raindrop song both share not only the dual time signature coexistance, but also the multiple key functionality.

I think horsetails might need a neew key.  Son of a bitch.  Son of a bitch at the meditation campout this weekend.  a woman asked me if I could please sing the last verse of cross pollination blues like a love song.   “you I have such a beutiful voice…..

I didn`t tell her,  but all songs are love songs.  i love monsanto.    new age cronie.  no really.  I didn`t mind the challenge.  I sang it like a love song.  I think monsanto laughed at me. 

the new age cronie cross pollinated me and I didn`t even get the blues I didn`t even notice.    

ya so logging truck is brand news. same with raindrop.  hooked into that one.  I know what it`s aBOUt now.

okay peaceout.