Dipping once more into my music collection, I thought I’d bring you one of my favorite lesser-known musical comedy groups, Da Vinci’s Notebook. Four guys, singing a cappella, and generally ad-libbing and playing off each other and the crowd. Greg "Storm" DiCostanzo (baritonus versatilus maximus), Paul Sabourin (tenor secondo wisecrackus), Richard Hsu (tenori primi formosa), and Bernie Muller-Thym (mezzo basso excitus) are the members of the group, although these days they don’t tour together any more. Paul & Storm still tour together (and produce new music), and are no longer exclusively a cappella.
I saw Da Vinci’s Notebook live about 4 times, and the energy and crowd interaction make for a great show. Paul & Storm have certainly kept up with that, although I only saw them live once. Without further ado, let me bring you some of my favorite songs from them.
This one here is for The Marti (I lubs ya!) , “Another Irish Drinking Song”:
”Title of the Song” is described by the band during their live shows as “Every Boy Band Song out there”. My husband can’t stand it because to him it does too good a job replicating the boy band sound. I love it.
Title of the song / Naive expression of love
Reluctance to accept that you are gone
Request to turn back time / And rectify my wrongs
Repetition of the title of the song
“Kingdom in the Sky” is a lot of fun. It starts off sounding like it’s going to be a church hymn, and turns into … something else:
And so you get a sense of what their live shows are like, here’s a live version of the same song:
They also sometimes were more serious, and did covers of other songs. Here’s Bernie’s version of “What a Wonderful World”:
In closing, I’ll leave you with one of my favorite (which will tell you a lot about my sense of humor) Paul and Storm songs, “The Captain’s Wife’s Lament”. This is the album version, because the song is only about 2 ½ minutes long that way. The live performances, well. If you’re really curious, search YouTube for “Captain's Wife's Lament w00tstock”, where they typically perform with Adam Savage & Wil Wheaton, and performance times range upwards of 30 minutes. (30 funny minutes, mind you, but still).
I hope you enjoyed the music; as always, this is an OPEN THREAD and NOTHING is OFF TOPIC. Welcome!
PS- If I’m not here immediately, will the first person available please post the Community Lynx jar?