URhere:  Music
Original Tunes

A selection of ditties recently recorded. There will be lots more. A word of warning, however: While I play all the instruments on the songs (unless otherwise indicated), I also sing on most of them. I won't be winning any awards for the meatpipes, but I hope you enjoy the songs nonetheless. They range from cheesy funk to mainstream rock to satire.
  
 
All original tunes © Oliver Benjamin
Hosting X-Mas at the Irish Pub in Chiang Mai. Next time I won't play any dirty songs.
I didn't know children would be there. Now they think Santa is mean and scary.

Click on download and a new window will open to a folder at mediafire.com.

My old band: (click here for homepage)
Waiting for a Sign
A rocking, upbeat but lyrically melancholy song about having a bad case of the existential blues. Soul songstress Lauren graciously lent her pipes to the mix.
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Cat Show
My friend Matt and I went to a Cat Show once and I tried to film it for a documentary. This was going to be the theme song. My pal Dick helped write it. I still haven't made the documentary. It's a silly little rockabilly anthem for cat show lovers everywhere (I'm not really one of them).
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What Dreams are Made Of  
My friend Lauren sings on this one. She's great: she really helped funkify it considerably. This is a song about a couple numbed by modern living. Envisioning themselves as Adam and Eve, one tries to convice the other to try to recapture the joy of the original paradise by tossing away the fruits of their labor and maybe even getting naked.
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Out of the Light        
An evolutionary love story. Based on the premise that everything was fine when we lived in the sea as asexual organisms, after we split into male and female and chased each other up out on the ground, we lost our connection with that watery paradise, a paradise we can only revisit by melding back together again in the darkness. Like two amoebas amating.
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The Throes of my Frustration        
Another one featuring Lauren. Self-consciously funky. A little tongue-in-cheek funked-up silly song meant to promote good will among all people, regardless of race, religion, and whether or not they even like this tune.
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Fall to Pieces        
Is this a song about one man's sorrow after he's left alone in the world his lover built for him? Or is it a spiritual song about mankind's grief after being being abandoned by God in the decaying, imperfect world he supposedly created? (Note: I'm not at all religious. I just dig religious symbolism)
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Supreme Diagram of the Ultimate        
The Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate is the actual name for the yinyang symbol. This song is essentially about a writer who shouldn't care about success because in the grand scheme of things, it just doesn't matter that much. Similarities to anyone living or non-living are purely coincidental.
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Collaborations - Stuff I've done with friends.
Set Free
Andy Shades is an international busking superstar who visits Chiang Mai regularly. His website us-and-beyond.com showcases the myriad vagabond musos he's played with over the years. Recently I was lucky enough to play lead guitar on one of his more subdued songs. This song of Andy's also features the majestic Mark De La Fleur on saxophone.
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Goodbye Disco
I perpetrated this song with my friend Joe Spencer when we were about twelve years old. This was an anthem for all those who opposed the emergence of disco in the late 70s. I would consider them words to live by, except that I love disco now. Maybe in a few years when it's lame again...
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Jungle Jam
This was a Joe Spencer original rap tune that I played guitar on. Tim also rapped. It was horrible but fantastic at the same time. The lyrics are outstanding. Joe is now in a band called Part Time Pony. He no longer raps.
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Racy
A fabulously sexist rap song (or is that redundant?) written by Joe back in the days of yore. I play hard-rock-rap style (a briefly popular genre) guitar in the background. It is an unapologetic and thorough comparison of a sexy woman and a sports car. Joe was and still is a rare genius.
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Road Runner Girl
When I was at UCLA I lived in the coolest piece of crap apartment ever. Club Mellow was run by an 40-ish ex-hippie named Al Stuart who acted as my surrogate father on that first stretch living away from home. Albeit, he was a surrogate father who got me trashed on vodka and lox trimmings so I would play with his band "Babaloo Babylon" at various spots around town. He used to insult the audience for not applauding us. This is a rough cut of one of his songs (I play guitar). He was an amazing guy. I wonder whatever happened to him.
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Joel Rimmer
A classic, showcasing the extraordinary cruelty of schoolchildren. This is a low-fi copy of a great tune written and sung by Mike Olson, my old junior high buddy. I played guitar (my Eddie Van Halen striped strat) Essentially, we were two amazing geeks making fun of a fat guy that was probably cooler than we were. I saw Joel years later and he was really tall and not fat at all. It's to his inestimable credit that he did not beat me up then.
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Mike Fram
After college I lived with my friends Marc Cohen and Mike Fram. Fram was one of the most distinctive guys I'd ever met. I didn't get to know him well because we kept such different hours. Marc sings and I play guitar. I think we both wrote it. A day in the life of the happiest man in the world, at least if you're sympathetic to Nietzsche's principle of eternal recurrence.
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Mike and the Fluffy Kittenz at Spoken Word
Mr. Mike Atkins, poet and esteemed director of Spoken Word at the Irish Pub teamed with Lyndsey on guitar and myself on bass to beatnik the crap out of Chiang Mai. The result was seriously demented and deep, man.
Download "Writing on the Wall"
Download "Locked In"
Download "Sammy the Sikh"
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