video – Rain Station

Weird Tales Playlist

June 7, 2023

I recently set up a recording studio so I could get back into recording some of my songs. I started out with a crazy project called Groon Radio just to loosen up and get into the swing of things. Now that I’ve got that out of my system, I am now working on a new project.

I have been reading the old Weird Tales Magazines from the 1920s, and I thought it would be a fun experiment to use the common tropes found in weird literature. Haunted houses, ghosts, unknown creatures, space aliens, flying saucers, men from Mars, strange sea creatures, mysterious voyages, voodoo, magic, witchcraft, mental anguish of war, end of the world scenarios, hospitals, aging, the loss of love, the difficulty of marriages gone wrong.

I also wanted to create a character and an atmosphere for each song. Voices influenced by Boris Karloff, Mel Blanc, Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Sid & Marty Krofft, Dr. Seuss, Sponge Bob, and Bowie. Each song is a different place, with a different feel. The only thing binding them together is the weird trip it takes you on.

I totally geeked out making the Weird Tales videos, that I’d like to call, Tales Too Terrible To Tell. I used Cartoon Animator 4 to bone and animate the characters to make them move or sing. I used Toonly to make the flat 2D animated bits. Wondershare Filmora is my video editor that has all the shiny elements and bling. I generate A.I. images and then fix them up in Photoshop for many of the characters and backgrounds in these videos.

Nursey

May 27, 2023

Nursey is now on Spotify

I have found a new addiction, and it’s playing around with A.I. technology. I buy tokens, and I have to spend 30 tokens every time I generate an image. I have to write my description, and the A.I. makes the art. I get four different images each time, hoping at least one is what you are hoping for.

Every time I write a new description, and wait for my four pieces of artwork, I get a huge thrill from the ups and lows. It can take about a minute or so for the artificial intelligence to make the art, and then it downloads to your computer. It’s a short wait, but it builds so much anticipation waiting to see what you get. It’s a total dopamine rush. When I describe what I want really well, I get what I ask for, and the results are spectacular. When I am too vague, I have just spent money on a bum batch of art that I can’t use. The bad results make me want to have another go by refining my terms.

Writing the query is like searching on Google, but instead, you’re searching your imagination. If you have ever had to speak in such a literal fashion to get what you want from a stubborn 10 year old, you are ready to make A.I. art. You have to go into details and be very descriptive, so it’s a fun challenge to try and figure out how to communicate with the machine, and collaborate to make wonderfully disturbing images.

Since I love all things slightly unsettling, artificial intelligence tweaks my brain each time it wraps a third leg, or merges arms into the chair a character is sitting in, I like how it hurts my brain. I want to make sense of it all, but it doesn’t always make sense. It looks all normal at first, but then you notice that it’s not right. Something is wrong, and it’s not from this universe at all.

Snow Day

March 17, 2023

It snowed hard here in Maine. As I looked out into the backyard and the snow was accumulating fast, this song appeared in my head. I began to sing it. Then it got stuck in Miss Hazel’s head. So we grabbed the kid’s Mac and recorded our little Snow Day song so it can get stuck in your head too.

Snow Day is on Spotify

Put on your Gortex. Give me a shout. Hurricane’s a blowin’. It’s snowin’ out. Pack up your sled dog. Put ’em on the run. Leaping through the piles of snow, having lots of fun.

Hooray! Hooray! There’s no school today. It’s a snow day it’s a snow day! We can all stay home today. Hooray! Hooray! There’s no school today. It’s a snow day it’s a snow day! It’s all postponed until another day.

Jim Bob phoned and he wanted to say: Hooray! Hooray! There’s no school today. It’s a snow day it’s a snow day! We can all stay home today. Hooray! Hooray! There’s no school today. It’s a snow day it’s a snow day! It’s all postponed until another day. Put on your Gortex. Give me a shout. Hurricane’s a blowin’. It’s snowin’ out.

Far Away From Home

January 11, 2022

I have been a camp counselor in the arts and crafts room since 1984. That’s about 3 generations, so now I teach the kids of my kids from the 80’s. They all look like their moms! It’s a bit surreal.

Because I love all things summer camp, I write a lot of campfire songs while I am there. Go Gray! Sorry, I lose my head when I start to think about camp.

This song is about all the insecurities that flood my brain before each summer. Being a camp counselor is a really hard job, but you usually end up meeting the best friends of your entire life, so it’s worth it. The balance between extreme difficult conditions and amazing people to suffer along side, really creates a bond that is like none other. Spend 8 weeks without a break in the woods of Maine with a bunch of strangers, and you will see that at the end of the 8 weeks, you will be strangers no more. It gets ugly, and it gets beautiful. The mix can be overwhelming. I love it.

I would like to thank Wiggly Loaf and Camp Wiggly for the animation in this video. Check out the Wiggly Loaf mobile games at: WigglyLoaf.com

This is a song from my new album, I Am Alive, and I beg you to check it out while I still am. Thanks in advance. Jay~

That’s A Man

November 20, 2021

Music from, I Am Alive, by Jay E Moores and his horse Travis. Available on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube…