John Kloberdanz - Singer/Songwriter/Musician

Hi!  If you're visiting here for the first time, thanks for coming by.  If you've come back, thanks for checking up on me.  Just because I haven't been in touch doesn't mean that I haven't been busy, far from it.

Musically, the highlight of my May was a trip up to Hamilton, Ontario to see the master, Leonard Cohen, for the third time in his 2-year World Tour.  It was the worst venue of the three shows (being a hockey arena), but the best of the three performances.  My admiration for Mr. Cohen continues to grow, which is saying quite a bit since he's been one of my musical heros for nearly 30 years.  Mr. Cohen continues to inspire me to reach for the stars creatively, to not accept "good enough", and to continually push myself to make each musical idea as fully formed and vital as it can possibly be.

I've been getting ready for my performace with my friend, Paul Schmid, at the Tonawanda Folk Festival on Saturday, June 6th.  We are performing in tribute to our friend, Bill Neubauer, who was tragically taken from us last November.  Bill was a wonderful man who had encouraged me over the last few years; I miss him, and I will never forget him.  Paul and I will be doing about seven of my original songs, and Paul will do two of his own as well.

My participation in the Nur Ein competition unfortunately came to a close in Round Three.  I say unfortunately only because I was enjoying it so much, and two of my four songs (see Sleep Tight and Schadenfreude) are among my favorites from this year, so far.  Since I had only hoped to make it past Round One I consider this a huge success!

Later this summer, I'll be performing in Buffalo's Infringement Festival, and the Just Plain Folks will be doing a second-annual show at Uncle G's Ice Cream in Pendleton.  I'll be out and about at as many open mikes and other shows as I can, so if you're in the neighborhood be sure to drop me a line.

Oh yeah, more songs to come, soon, I promise!

Best wishes, and thanks for caring.

John K.

Hi - If you've been visiting my site and hoping for new songs, I'm sorry it's taken me so long.  Hopefully today's updates will make it up to you a bit.  With this I'm now up to 12 songs, and you really can't know how much I appreciate your visit.

I'm participating in the fourth "Nur Ein" (German for "only one") competition over at songfight.org.  Unlike most songfights, this one is an elimination contest with a panel of judges.  I'm enjoying it and so far I've written three songs.  While you can listen to them over there, I've posted them for you here as well:

Sleep Tight: This was my entry for "Round Zero" of Nur Ein, which was a qualifying round.  Thankfully there were only 25 entries for the 25 slots, because I came in second to last!  I was kind of surprised, because I like Sleep Tight, but the competition was stiff.  At any rate, here it is.

Schadenfreude: German again, I've seen several English translations, a common one is "delighting in the misery of another".  I love the title, c'mon, let's be honest, we've all done it regardless of the guilty feelings.  I had fun with this one, from the writing to the recording, and I rarely enjoy the recording process.  This is my Round Two entry which as of this writing is in the judges hands.

I'm not so thrilled with my Round One entry, but perhaps at some point I'll work on it a bit more and it will be posted.  More importantly, I hope to live on to participate in Round Three.

NUR EIN!

On Saturday, April 25, 2009 I performed a one-hour set at the Barnes & Noble on Transit Road in Clarence, New York, as part of a musical tribute to the victims of Flight 3407, which crashed in Clarence not far from the store.  The show was appropriately called "One Love, One Community", which is exactly how I feel about the terrible accident.  In a tight-knit area like Western New York, it seems that there isn't one person that wasn't affected in some way by this tragedy, and it was an honor to be able to perform.

I performed a 16-song set list which was:

(1) You Are You
(2) Heels, With No Backs
(3) Church Street
(4) Rock & Roll Doesn't Want Me
(5) Around
(6) It Dawns
(7) I Will Dare (Paul Westerberg)
(8) In Your House
(9) What Makes You Think About Me
(10) Sunday Morning
(11) The Words That I Held Inside
(12) Good For The Soul
(13) Teach Me The Rules (Jack Logan)
(14) Silent Carousel
(15) Song For Jonas
(16) Has-Been

I am very thankful to everyone who came by and sacrificed some of their sunny day to sit inside and listen to my performance.  It meant more than you can know.

There are some great pictures by Matt Brown of myself and some of the other performers, and you can find them at:

http://brownbuffalo.zenfolio.com/p563028246

On another note, I know that I'm behind in getting you some new music, but I do have some for you, and I'll try to get it up this weekend.  I've been writing alot lately, and while I've wanted to work on some quality recordings it's better to write when the inspiration is there.

Thanks for visiting!

I've gotten a bit behind in my goal of updating this site once a week, with two additional songs posted every other week.  I'm sure it won't be the last time.  Between a major family spring cleaning project, some very busy projects at work, getting ready for my upcoming shows, and the normal business of life, you'll have to just stick with me.  On top of it, this is Holy Week and the Amherst Community Church Choir, of which I am a member, has more and more challenging music to perform.  Of course, it's also tax time, and despite my yearly promises to myself to get it done early, I'm not yet done.

I've got about a dozen songs that are in various stages of completion, some of them might turn out pretty well.  I also want to post some of my very old "Pencil Songs", but I'm not in that kind of mood today.  So instead, here are a couple of 2009 efforts from my participation in the website songfight.org.

Be well, and thanks for visiting.

Elegy For Industry - This was the first song I wrote for songfight.  I only had a few minutes to write something, so I was fiddling around with chords and words and melodies.  I sang, "Hey stupid boss", the kids busted a gut, and the rest is history.  I intended to write it as a joke protest song, so you may take it in that context.

Thinkin' About The Old Days - On the other side of the spectrum, both chronologically and in spirit.  This was the fourth and so far last song I've written for songfight, and it has not a bit of intended humor.  The thought here was "I'm thinking about the old days that'll never be".  It started out as a sad love song, but that was too obvious and lightweight.  The final song is as far away from lightweight as I know how to write, and it may in fact be the most depressing song I've ever written.  I hope you like it anyway.

My website is now officially one month old, and already the original format needs revision.  I have three upcoming shows, and I realize that I have nowhere but this blog to post any information about them.  That would be a bit too hard to find, so over the next week I'll be working on solving that problem.  I also realize that the "tunes and vids" section is going to get cluttered, well, more cluttered.

I've recently bought a do-hickey that allows one to digitize analog recordings, so sometime soon I'm going to convert the "More Pencil Songs" material and put some of it up.

In the meantime, here are two songs for you, and I hope you like them.

Silent Carousel: This is another song I wrote last summer during the songwriting class I took with Alison Pipitone.  My assignment was to write a song that wasn't a "story song".  I spent five days working on different images, but had nothing I liked.  I went through the notes and threw out the words I didn't like, then wrote a song with what I had left.  Written in 2008.

What Makes You Think About Me: This is an old song that was originally recorded for "More Pencil Songs"; this newly recorded demo reflects the way I perform it now.  I've tweaked the melody and prosody (look it up) from the original recordings.  For many years I considered this my best song.  Recently I've been revisiting some of my old songs, and I've been enjoying What Makes You Think.  The backstory is that in the Christmas season of 1991 I was at the mall shopping, and I heard a song come out of one of the stores that made me think of someone from my past.  I thought to myself "That song makes me think about her, I wonder what makes her think about me".  I remember being surprised by myself, because it was the first time I had a legitimately good idea for a song.  It took me two months to write, which was a long time, at the time, since back then I usually wrote songs in 20 minutes.  Written in 1992.

It's a rare mid-week update for johnkloberdanz.com, but this is a special occasion.

My performance of The Replacements' "I Will Dare" has been included in the CD compilation "Dead Man Fake: Bring Your Own Lampshade Volume 2", a tribute to Paul Westerberg.  If you're reading this, you might be interested in hearing it:

http://paulwesterberg.com/dmf.html

My thanks to everyone who was involved in this project!

Hi - Things have been busy this week, and here it is another day for an update. Today Jack and I went to Jed Jackson's art show opening at Niagara University, and in addition to seeing Jed's artwork we spoke with him and with Robby Takac of the Goo Goo Dolls. It was fun for Jack to meet his first real rock star!  I thought I would share the stories that I wrote last year for the website "Absolute Goo", it tells a few of the fun stories I have from days that are so long ago they feel like another life.

I hope you're well, thank you for visiting.  And now, from Absolute Goo:

"I was introduced to their music in June 1991, when a friend of mine, Sue, lent me her copy of "Hold Me Up". We had shared our tastes in music, and she thought that I might enjoy it.

"It's still one of my favorite albums, the energy and songwriting drew me in immediately. I then saw the Goos live for the first time the next month at a long-closed bar called "The New Pink Flamingo", there were about a hundred people there and I stood right in front of Johnny and sang along. I remember how cool it was to be able to be so close to them while they performed. The word I would use to describe their shows back then would be "fun", the Goos always seemed to be enjoying themselves, their music was lively, and the energy level was high.

"In downtown Buffalo during the summer, a local bank sponsors daily lunchtime music. The week after the Pink Flamingo show, Sue and I were walking by the event, and she pointed and said, "That's Robby Goo over there doing the sound" (back then they didn't use their real last names). I thought she was kidding, but she had grown up with Robby's sister and recognized him. I couldn't talk to him right then since he was working, but a couple of days later I went out early and introduced myself. Robby is extremely nice, and he seemed to genuinely appreciate my compliments. Over the next few years I occasionally saw Robby, Johnny and George around town, and all three were approachable and friendly.

"Although it's been a long time since I've been to a Goo Goo Dolls show, I must have been to at least twenty in those early years. One that stands out for me was what I think of as the "Five Golden Rings" Christmas show at the Buffalo bar "Nietzsche's", in December of 1991 or 1992. The show took longer than usual to start, so a roadie we all called "Elvis Goo" (he had big black hair and wide sideburns) got on stage and led the restless audience in Christmas carols. When we did "The Twelve Days of Christmas", the crowd refused to go past "five golden rings" when we sang about the presents. For example, we sang, "On the eighth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, five golden rings, four calling birds…" then "On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, five golden rings, four calling birds…" through to the end without adding new gifts. It was great fun and we were all laughing and cheering ourselves for being so clever.

"The band must have thought it was funny too, because once they moved through the crowd to the stage (throwing socks along they way, since Johnny and Robby would perform barefoot in those days), they continued to lead us in that song. Then periodically during the show, in the middle of songs, they would come to a dead stop and Robby would call out "ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR" and everyone would loudly sing "FIVE GOLDEN RINGS". Then they would continue the song. It was truly memorable!

"'Superstar Car Wash' was the Goos first major-label release. They did quite a bit of promotion around it, including an in-store appearance at New World Records in Buffalo. This wasn't just a meet and greet, it included a live performance. I think they played for about 45 minutes, and then it was time for the meet and greet. The band went into the back storeroom area for a short break, and when they came out Johnny was carrying a very large jar with rubber and plastic doll parts in it. There were all different parts of the body, mixed up. Johnny had a big smile and was laughing as he reached his hand in, pulled out doll parts, and handed them out, one to a person. I got a head. I have no idea why he did this, and in retrospect it may have just been a funny thing he thought to do for the occasion.

"Another favorite story was when I dressed as Robby at a Halloween party. This was in 1993 or 1994. The party was a fundraiser for a local charity and I thought it would be funny to dress as "Robby Goo". I bought a longhaired wig, wore my Goo Goo Dolls T-shirt, a pair of shorts, and sneakers with no socks (October in Buffalo is a bit too cold to go barefoot). My artist friend Tom made me a goofy oversized bass out of cardboard, and I wore a red baseball cap backwards just like Robby did on the back cover of "Superstar Car Wash".

"Inevitably, nobody knew who I was since the Goos were still not well known, not even locally. Most people thought I was Ted Nugent! That ended when a woman came up to me and said, "Oh My God! You're dressed as Robby, I can't believe it! I didn't know they were famous enough!" The woman was George's aunt, so of course she had followed the band since they started. She led me over to the table where her family and friends were sitting, and they posed with me for pictures.

"The event had live music, and although the Goos were not there (it wasn't their kind of gig), the incredible Lance Diamond was on the bill. He and his band played "Never Take The Place Of Your Man", which he had done with the Goos on "Hold Me Up" so I got right up front so he could see me, and I "played" along! He pointed at me and laughed and although I don't think the audience understood that I was dressed as Robby it was still cool."

And so, here I am, back in 2009.  I post these stories here with special thoughts to anyone who knew me during those days and who might still be reading this ... thanks for putting up with me!