Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? Misfit Toys innova 864 Dan Moore - Paul Elwood - Matt Wilson - Robert Paredes Produced by Dan Moore for Cricket City Music & Media Engineered and recorded by Dar? Moon in 24-bit digital audio Mixed by Dan Moore with assistance from Joel Boyer and Jeffrey Piper All arrangements by Misfit Toys: Dan Moore, Paul Elwood, Matt Wilson, Robert Paredes Additional musical contributions by Matt Grundstad and Mark Weiger (1959-2008) Design by Philip Blackburn (c) Dan Moore 2013 Dedicated to Robert Paredes (1948-2005) 1 Geronimo's Cadillac Michael Martin Murphey BMI Bro N Sis Music Inc. Paul Elwood - lead vocals, harmony vocals, banjo, bowed banjo Dan Moore - vibes, marimba, keyboards, loops Matt Wilson - drums, percussion 2 Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? Robert William Lamm ASCAP J. W. Guercio Aurelia Music Robert Paredes - clarinet Paul Elwood - lead vocals, harmony vocals, banjo Dan Moore - lead vocals, harmony vocals, MIDI marimba, programming Matt Wilson - drums Matt Grundstad - harmony vocals 3 Alone Again (Naturally) Raymond O'Sullivan BMI Sony/ATV Songs LLC Robert Paredes - clarinet Dan Moore - vibes, marimba, MIDI marimba, malletKAT, Brazilian percussion Paul Elwood - banjo Matt Wilson - drums 4 Living For The City Stevie Wonder ASCAP Black Bull Music Inc. Paul Elwood - lead vocals, harmony vocals, banjo Robert Paredes - clarinet Dan Moore - vibes, keyboards, programming, loops Matt Wilson - drums 5 Boston Marathon Gary Burton BMI Grayfriar Music Dan Moore - vibes, marimba, MIDI marimba, malletKAT Robert Paredes - clarinet Paul Elwood - banjo Matt Wilson - drums 6 Ironman Iommi/Osbourne/Butler/Ward ASCAP TRO-Andover Music Inc. Matt Wilson - drums Dan Moore - marimba, MIDI marimba, malletKAT Robert Paredes - clarinet Paul Elwood - banjo 7 Drugs Introduction Robert Paredes / Dan Moore Robert Paredes - clarinet 8 Drugs David Byrne / Brian Eno ASCAP Bleu Disque Music Co. Inc. Paul Elwood - lead vocals, harmony vocals, banjo Robert Paredes - clarinet Dan Moore - marimba, MIDI marimba, malletKAT Matt Wilson - drums 9 Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree Russell Brown / Irwin Levine BMI Irwin Levine Music Robert Paredes - lead vocals, clarinet Dan Moore - vibes, marimba, malletKAT, keyboards, loops Matt Wilson - speaking vocals, final piano chord 10 Hello It's Me Todd Harry Rundgren BMI Screen Gems-EMI Music Inc. Robert Paredes - clarinet Dan Moore - marimba, MIDI marimba, bells, percussion Paul Elwood - banjo Matt Wilson - drums 11 Mama Told Me Not To Come Randy Newman BMI Little A Music Paul Elwood - banjo, lead vocals, harmony vocals, chatty boy Matt Grundstad - lead vocals, harmony vocals Robert Paredes - clarinet Dan Moore - marimba, MIDI marimba, malletKAT, Theremin, loops Matt Wilson - "bad" drums, percussion, hippie maracas Liesa Parko - chatty girl 12 Green-Eyed Lady Jerry Corbetta / John C. Phillips Jr. / David Riordan ASCAP MPL Music Publishing Inc. Paul Elwood - banjo, lead vocals, harmony vocals Matt Grundstad - lead vocals, harmony vocals Robert Paredes - clarinet Dan Moore - vibes, MIDI marimba, keyboards, programming Matt Wilson - drums, percussion, loops 13 Grand Illusion Dennis De Young ASCAP Alamo Music Corporation Robert Paredes - clarinet Dan Moore - vibes, marimba, MIDI marimba Paul Elwood - banjo Matt Wilson - drums Mark Weiger - oboe, English horn 14 Bless The Beasts And Children Perry L. Botkin Jr. / Barry De Vorzon BMI Screen Gems-EMI Music Inc. Dan Moore - vibes, marimba, percussion, bells, programming Matt Wilson - drums About Misfit Toys: Having a circle of musician friends who will always say, "That sounds like fun - let's do it," is one of the greatest blessings a musician can have. It's also pretty neat when those musicians are of the highest caliber. That's the case with Misfit Toys. When I came up with the idea of doing hybrid-jazz covers of pop music from the 1970s, the two people best suited for this musical adventure, my friends Paul Elwood and Matt Wilson, jumped in with four feet and indefatigable creative energy. This was, after all, the music we grew up with. In 2003 we got together in Iowa City to make plans and cut some tracks. We had a stack of ideas and only a few days to record and lay the groundwork, but Misfit Toys was happening. After those initial sessions, Paul trekked back to Iowa City a few more times for additional overdubs and tweaking and I began adding my parts. When I started pulling together the hundreds of tracks we had recorded, there was still something missing. I asked my friend Robert Paredes to listen to a few of the songs to see if he could envision adding some clarinet here and there. Bob came in, clarinets blazing. He worked his own brand of magic on "Hello It's Me," and from that moment on he was a Misfit Toy. We worked on the project throughout the spring of 2005, with Bob adding something special to every track he touched. As spring turned to summer, Bob told me in his inimitable way that things were "tending toward not so good" in his long battle with cancer, but he was determined to complete our project. Bob's death that August took the wind out of my sails for a while, but Paul and Matt - good friends that they are - kept quietly encouraging me to finish the project. Bob's last phone message, which is still on my machine, served as a gentle reminder of unfinished business: "My hope is you'll find some use for some of the music that we made together." By 2008 I had completed editing and mixing most of the tracks, and had plans to finish the CD that summer. The Iowa River had other plans. June floods destroyed my studio, and without a place to work, Misfit Toys was in limbo again. But a new interim studio, compliments of The University of Iowa, allowed me to finally get back on track to complete this decade-long musical journey. Since this project began, each of the original Misfit Toys has experienced significant life-changing events, yet we've maintained what Matt describes as "an attitude for gratitude." I'm quite proud of this recording and now feel ready to share it. No other project I've undertaken has been quite as rewarding or quite as frustrating, but today, as I listen to the final mixes, I recall those halcyon days when great friends got together for some creative music making. I am in awe of the level of musicianship, creativity, and energy that Matt Wilson brings to - well, everything. Paul Elwood has been my co-conspirator and friend for most of our adult lives and I marvel at his ability to walk the tightrope between folk music and the avant-garde. I knew Robert Paredes only a few years, but we shared many great moments as friends and musicians. His clarinet artistry is on full display on this recording. I consider myself fortunate to have shared the studio with these guys. This music makes me smile. I hope it does the same for you. Think of leisure suits, yellow smiley faces, and pet rocks, then check your mood ring and just enjoy the music. Dan Moore March 2013 About the recording: The process for producing this recording was to track anything and everything imaginable, no matter how crazy or impractical it might seem. Once everything was recorded, the sometimes-painful task of taking things out began. It was like creating a sculpture in sound - chipping away bit by bit until all that remained was the finished work of art - to, as painter Hans Hofmann would say, "... eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak." Paul's choice, the socially-conscious Geronimo's Cadillac turns into a genre-bending exploration of music of the world. A swing tune from one of my favorite "horn" bands (Chicago), Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? becomes a country-tinged ska, of course. Though infused with some nice jazz harmonies, Alone Again (Naturally) is one of the most depressing songs ever written - so why not play it as a happy jazz-samba. In this funky-hoedown-jazz arrangement, Paul compassionately renders Stevie Wonder's musical essay on contemporary urban issues, Living For The City. A misfit in its own right as our only non-pop tune, Boston Marathon represents the influence of rock and pop on jazz in the 70s. Matt jumped at the chance to turn the heavy metal anthem Ironman into a full-blown jazz odyssey. The arrangement features some of his most inspired playing as he cleverly weaves the Ironman theme into an extended bebop drum solo. Listen closely at the end to hear the first (and likely only) drumstick Matt ever broke in a recording session. Paul's caffeine-infused bluegrass treatment of the cautionary tale Drugs from Talking Heads gets a klezmer spin from Matt and Bob, along with a psychedelic clarinet trio introduction. The pop bon-bon Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree is my duo collaboration with Bob. He was struggling physically at the time but did a beautiful job on the melody. Then he asked to sing a verse, and the bittersweet relevance of the lyric resonated in his voice. It was Matt's idea to play Hello It's Me as a Bolero. He liked the fact that Rundgren's main influence for the original was an eight-bar phrase played by jazz great Jimmy Smith. Mama Told Me Not To Come seemed like an appropriate companion piece to Drugs. When none of us could get the right sound for the vocal, I brought in a talented twenty-something former student who nailed it. Green-Eyed Lady is the tune that launched Misfit Toys. It can only be described as a slightly twisted, pop influenced, improvised music with hints of bluegrass in a world fusion jazz context. In other words, we don't really know what it is. Progressive-rock bands like Styx tried to break the boundaries of traditional rock music, and we like breaking the bounds of tradition. The double-reed specialist brought in for our version of Grand Illusion thought it odd that I asked for the weirdest sounds he could make on an oboe. Bless The Beasts And Children by the Carpenters is my duo collaboration with Matt - although he didn't know it. Matt's drum part was originally for another tune that was later scrapped. I kept the drum part and built a completely different tune on top of it. Misfit Toys thanks: Matt Grundstad, Liesa Moore, Felicia Wilson, Melody Scherubel, Regine Esposito, Jeff Piper, David Gier, Linda Maxson, Chaden Djalali, Joseph Kearney, J.C. and Karen Combs, FEMA, UI Facilities Management, Audrey, Henry, Max, Ethan, and Phillip Blackburn and our friends at innova recordings who believed in this recording from the beginning and waited patiently for it to hatch. This recording was made possible in part by an Arts and Humanities Initiative Grant, and with support from the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the School of Music. Dan Moore plays Yamaha percussion instruments and drums using Dan Moore Signature Series vibe/marimba mallets created by Innovative Percussion, Sabian cymbals, ethnic percussion from Latin Percussion LP, Grover Pro Percussion instruments, and malletKAT and drumKAT from Alternate Mode. ReR Megacorp calls him "a gifted improviser." He likes ice-cold watermelon with a little kosher salt. Matt Wilson plays Craviotto drums and Zildjian cymbals. He uses Zildjian drumsticks, DW hardware and pedals, Remo drumheads, Factory Metal percussion, and Protechtor cases. Matt appears courtesy of Palmetto Records. Downbeat Magazine says that Matt "offers humor, levity and stellar drum chops." He enjoys homemade tapioca pudding, warm or chilled. Paul Elwood's music incorporates his background as a folk musician and experimentalist on the five-string banjo with that of his voice as a composer who loves the processes and syntax of contemporary writing. According to PsychedelicFolk.com he is "capable of changing the world of the banjo." He prefers mint chocolate chip ice cream in a cup. Robert Paredes was a composer, multi-instrumentalist (clarinet, saxophone, flute), visual artist, and essayist. According to Open Space magazine, "Bob [was] always on the move, always changeable and capable of being transformed." He enjoyed a root beer float: pitched just right. Does anyone really know what time it is? Man knows not his time.