Howdy Steemians,
Bob Schneider
Bob Schneider has been an icon in the Austin music industry for a couple decades now. Born in Michigan, Bob grew up in Germany. His father was an opera singer, so Bob was surrounded by music growing up and learned to play guitar and piano at a young age. However, his initial passion was actually in the visual arts, spending hours a day drawing and making art with his hands. At college, he studied art at The University of Texas El Paso but dropped out and moved to Austin to see if he could make it as a musician. 55 Austin Music Awards including 7 "Musician of the Year" awards later, I think it's safe to say Bob has indeed definitively "made it".
Bob puts on a fantastic live show. Whether he's playing with his full band or all by himself, you'd be hard pressed to find an audience member not dancing or tapping their feet. He will also keep you entertained and laughing with his interlude commentary. For this post, I want to cover all three of Bob's triple-threat artistic talents: music, visual art, and poetry.
1. Music
Bob is best known for his music and is incredibly prolific when it comes to songwriting. In 2014, Bob played a full 12-hour solo, no-repeat show! (And because Bob records all of his live shows and posts them on his website, coining the term "frunk", you can listen to the entire 12-hour set here.) That set still only scratching the surface of Bob's repertoire. In fact, he plays an hour and a half show every Monday (when he's not touring) filled to the brim with new or in-development songs. Again, check out the frunk section of his website if you want to listen to any show he's ever played.
His songs come in very disparate styles and can even change styles from show to show. For instance, at the Kerrville, Texas music festival, he will typically play one or two of his songs in a twangy, country style to better match the festival atmosphere. Here are four of my favorite Bob Schneider songs.
Tarantula
This is a very fun, salsa-style song from early in Bob's career. Because it's a song that gets everyone moving, he plays it nearly every show as a closer. Here's his ACL live performance of "Tarantula" from back in the day.
Cheaper
I'm not even sure what to say about this song. I like it. As an engineer, it makes me feel "cool" and "hip" listening to it. The lyrics are a good mix of ridiculous and reasonable. Warning: there are (only two) explicit lyrics in this song.
The Stars Over Your House
One of the things Bob really excels at is writing catchy love songs. I'm finishing the audio portion of this post with two of my favorites. The first is "The Stars Over Your House". It's a relatively new song but quickly jumped up to my top-5 list. It's simple and easy to listen to - the type of song I'd love to be able to write someday.
40 Dogs (Romeo and Juliet)
By far his most popular song, I love the fast-talking verses and the chorus that you can't help but get stuck in your head. Some of my favorite lyrics include:
you're the color of a burnin' brook
you're the color of a sideways look
from an undercover cop in a comic book
you're the color of a storm in June
you're the color of the Moon
you're the color of the night, that's right
the color of a fight - you move me
you're the color of the colored part of the Wizard of Oz movie
and
sometimes you remind of a moonbeam
on the ghost of a moonbeam
down on the beach down by the coast
just slippin' throw the net like the most
beautiful thing
I've ever seen
2. Visual Arts
Like I said before, Bob also enjoys making visual art. As the success of his music career became well-established, he was able to devote more time to making visual art. His style can be a bit bizarre, but I can't get enough it. He goes through phases and right now he's definitely in a "collage" phase. For instance,
(source)
I prefer his older works which get kind of creepy. I can't honestly say I would buy any of these and hang them up in my house, except for maybe "The Sprinter", but it's definitely art I enjoying browsing on my computer. I just think he executes whatever he's trying to do very well - if that makes sense.
Googley-eyes (source)
Pablo (source)
The Sprinter (source)
(source)
Also, Bob does all of the artwork for his website and really anything associated with his music including album covers. Here's a screenshot from his "frunk" page to give you a taste of the rest of his work.
3. Poetry
I also enjoy Bob's style of poetry. Again, Bob is super prolific, so if you like the one poem I decided to replicate here, please visit his blog for more poetry (as well as artwork). Bob's poetry tends to have a stream-of-consciousness cadence, which I've always enjoyed, so it was easy for me to like his poetry upon first reading it. The poem below Bob did eventually turn into a song with the same name that he released on his most recent "King Kong" album.
THE FOOLS
falling into a deep love
for no real good reason
outside of your car in the rain
familiar faces in the crowd
wherever you might be...
they areinside a cloud in a building
under the black earth in a train
on the ocean drinking and smiling
opening up a convenience store
putting on socks in the morning
like a ghostliving alone
in a garden
with the lord
asleep or working
on a trailer for a movie
hoping for a miraclereading books
someone else wrote
paraphrasing they're
favorite passages
writing poems
like this
Well, that's it. I hope you enjoyed learning a little about Bob Schneider and his incredible artistic talents. If you want to own any of his work I encourage you to purchase it through his website. (turn your volume down) http://www.bobschneider.com/home Thanks for reading!
P.S. I'm very new to Steemit, so if you're in the mood, I encourage you to check out my other two posts.
Introduction post
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