Terry Jones was a writer, an actor, a director, and a member of the legendary comedy troupe Monty Python. Sadly, Terry passed away on January 22, 2020.
I had the profound (and deeply surreal) pleasure of speaking with him numerous times over the years, and always found him to be witty, insightful, and wonderfully engaging.
Below, you’ll find both of our conversations…
-Ken Plume
Conducted ~ 1/2004
Terry Jones was a member of Monty Python, as anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of comedy knows full well.
As a Python, he co-directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail with Terry Gilliam before assuming full directorial duties for The Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life.
As an ex-Python, he wrote Jim Henson’s Labyrinth and wrote and directed Erik the Viking and the recent adaptation of Wind in the Willows.
Just as fellow ex-Python Michael Palin has become associated with his frequent travel documentaries, so too Jones has also been connected with the documentary form in recent years ““ first with his miniseries about the Crusades, and more recently with a series of programs on ancient inventions and the hidden history of Rome and Egypt.
His current foray into the past, however, is Terry Jones’ Medieval Lives, an 8-part series examining the myths surrounding such historical archetypes as the knight, the damsel, the minstrel, and the monk. Similar to his previous ventures into this territory, the programs present a healthy does of history within an entertaining (and often humorous) vehicle. As they say, a spoonful of sugar…
A companion book to the series is currently available in the UK from BBC Publishing. He’s also authored a look at a particularly fascinating literary mystery with the book Who Murdered Chaucer?, currently available in the UK from Methuen Publishing and in the US from St. Martin’s Press later this year.
Medieval Lives is currently airing on the History Channel Saturdays at 7:00pm EST.
KEN PLUME: Going back to your youth, were you initially more interested in history or literature?
TERRY JONES: It was literature, really. I read English literature at university, and I kind of strayed into history really because I became fascinated by Chaucer ““ and particularly, I became fascinated by the boring bits of Chaucer. Because when you’re reading Chaucer, you see such a wonderful writer and a funny man and so full of good things, you can’t believe he’d write these boring bits! An attempt at saying why he should have written these 30 apparently boring lines about the Knight in the General Prologue is what sort of got me into looking at the history of the period and what was going on behind what he was saying.
PLUME: Why is that a question that was never analyzed by “scholars” prior to that, do you think? It seems like a logical question to ask since, as you say, why would such a good writer write boring bits like that…
JONES: You’d think that would be a reasonable question, wouldn’t you? Well, I think maybe people didn’t realize it was boring ““ that that particular bit was boring, really. I mean, they all liked the idea of this “perfect, gentle knight” – this perfect, aristocratic knight ““ and they thought that was a good thing… It chimed in with the kind of mental outlook of people in the 19th century, when people were very much in the age of imperial expansion, and it never occurred to them that anybody would have thought that somebody who’s lived by violence is not a figure of approval.
PLUME: And the 19th century is really when the mythology regarding the greatness of “chivalry” was built up, wasn’t it?
JONES: I think that’s true, yeah. We feel very much in Medieval Lives ““ one of the points we make in the first program about the knight is that the concept of the “knight in shining armor rescuing damsels in distress” is very much a Victorian concept. One of the things to bear in mind is that “chivalry” was a cult of violence. It was a cult of men killing other men, and that’s what “chivalry” was all about. If you took the killing away, there wouldn’t be “chivalry” there. So all this stuff about the ideals of “chivalry” is very much dressing the stuff up ““ it’s dressing up a cult of violence, for various reasons. The Church would sort of dress it up in godly robes because they were trying to a) utilize the men of violence to their own ends, and also trying to construct a moral code that would modify the behavior of these violent young men who were going around killing everybody.
JONES: Exactly. The violent young men themselves were quite glad to have these sort of “robes of piety” because it sort of justified what they were doing. They were quite glad to have this “code of chivalry” as well. But the whole thing is an impossible construct.
PLUME: But when you look at that 19th century way of reimagining the middle ages, they did that with more than just “chivalry”, as a means of dressing up their history, didn’t they?
JONES: Yeah. I mean, 19th century England was also very keen to find ways to justify the kind of violence that setting up an empire involved. So I guess you’ll be getting the same kind of thing going on in America over the next few decades as Prince Rumsfeld and Lord Wolfowitz start expanding their empire ever outwards, and justifying violence. You can see it happening already in Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay ““ suddenly, “Oh, it’s perfectly all right to suspend people’s rights and oppress people because we’ve got a justification for it!” Things don’t change, really, and I think people’s reasons for going to war don’t change at all, either. Wolfowitz, Pearl, Rumsfeld ““ they’re all making money out of war… That’s the whole point about it. They’ve all got their corporations or themselves. And that’s exactly why people went to war in the middle ages. The Duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Warwick hated Richard II’s peace policy with France because they couldn’t make any money out of peace ““ they wanted war. You see the warmongers, in any age it’s the same thing ““ they make money out of it.
PLUME: I think it was fascinating in watching the episode of Medieval Lives about the king, in particular the segment on Richard II and the spin campaign to discredit him and his rule after his enemies came to power…
JONES: Yeah, absolutely. I think Henry IV was very good at propaganda. He wheeled in this propaganda machine and it really got to work, and it wiped out a whole culture, in a away ““ the culture of Richard II’s court.
PLUME: Does it surprise you when you do these investigations and look at history with a critical eye, that previous generations haven’t asked these same questions?
JONES: Every age sort of has its own history. History is really the stories that we retell to ourselves to make them relevant to every age. So we put our own values and our own spin on it. And so I think it’s partly a difference in the age and in the outlook that I’ve grown up in, I suppose. It is surprising that people haven’t challenged the chronicle accounts more. You can partly understand it because there was such a sort of xenophobia in the 19th century. The chronicles that are pro-Richard are all French chronicles ““ they were mostly chronicles that were preserved in France, so they were written off, because they said, “Oh, they’re French… They’re anti-English!”
PLUME: Going back to the links between literature and history ““ how much of an influence was Shakespeare on defining how certain historical figures and events have been viewed?
JONES: I think he was a big influence. It was very odd, really, You look at some of the most recent biographies of Richard II, and people just can’t get away from the Shakespeare portrait ““ which has no sort of historical foundation. It has nothing to do with it, but it becomes the touchstone to explain what went wrong with Richard’s reign, you know? Because he’s a “tragic hero.” Well, you don’t do that with every other king ““ why do it with Richard? He reigned for 26 years, or something ““ quite a long time. He reigned under very, very difficult circumstances. He came to power as an 11 year-old boy, was constantly being opposed by barons, was probably deposed at one point halfway through his reign, and only managed to get complete control in 1397. So he did well, really.
PLUME: And the spin also took place with Richard III…
JONES: Richard III is no better than he should be, probably, but he’s certainly not a monster. One of those interesting things for me was when we went up to York… One of the great things about doing this series is actually going into the public record office and actually holding these documents from 600 years ago, and there you actually have the thing in your hand. We were up in York in the public record office there, and there we had these records from the town council, and when Richard III was killed at Bosworth Field the council records, in the official meeting it says, “Our Lord, the late King Richard, who was treacherously murdered and slain by the treason of the…” The people who murdered him were in power by then, and to actually write this in your minutes must have been an act of some bravery to say “We really think he was a good man.”
PLUME: Is that the kind of thing that would have brought swift retribution?
JONES: Well, I don’t know… Maybe the powers that be never saw the minutes of the York guild that was writing them.
PLUME: Looking at a series like Medieval Lives ““ even going back to your series on the Crusades ““ where doe the spark to do them come from?
JONES: It came very much out of my own heart, really. The actual format was proposed to me by BBC Oxford Film & TV, who I made it with. They proposed the format, but it was very much something I wanted to do because it’s a way to reexamine the middle ages, and to get away from the lies and misconceptions about the middle ages that have been mainly spread by people who regard the Renaissance as a jolly good thing. Whereas a lot of the things in the middle ages that we regard ““ as this age of ignorance and superstition ““ a lot of those things are actually things that happened in the Renaissance or after the Reformation… Not in the middle ages at all. To give you an example, witchcraft and the burning of witches ““ nothing at all to do with the middle ages. It is totally a figment of the post-Reformation and the Renaissance. Throughout the middle ages, witchcraft really didn’t figure very largely at all. The Church didn’t take witchcraft seriously. It was only in 1484, I think it was, that the Pope suddenly declared that witchcraft was real. They never took it seriously before then.
PLUME: Just because it could be another tool for the Church to use…
JONES: Well, it was probably a bit like the war on terror ““ like Bush declaring the war on terrorism…
PLUME: So we’re now on “Witch Alert: Orange”…
JONES: Exactly. “Witch Alert: Orange” was declared by the Pope in 1484. And from then on it was open season on attacking women. It was all part of the suppression of womanhood that went on after the Renaissance. Throughout the middle ages, we see the gradual empowerment of women, and in the late 14th century, women probably had more power than they had at any other time in the next 600 years. They had a certain amount of equality with men, they were in places in government, they were in trade and they did run businesses. They had quite a considerable amount of independence. It’s after the Renaissance and the Reformation that they get deprived of power and they get suppressed and pushed into the background. Part of the way that this is done by de-sexualizing them. We had a curious bit where Professor Samantha Riches, who does work on the iconography of St. George and the Dragon, she discovered that in the late 15th century and the early 16th century in depictions of St. George and the Dragon, the dragon begins to take on female genitalia.
PLUME: Which was quite a startling find…
JONES: Yeah. She thinks this has to do with the idea that St. George is rescuing the female from her sexuality. And so this is all part of this post-Renaissance, post-Reformation tradition of de-sexualizing women, which is part of dis-empowering them. So by the Victorian age, by the 19th century, women are totally de-sexualized and they’re not supposed to have any sexual interest at all. In fact, any woman with any interest in sex was regarded as being mad and usually put in the asylum. So, I mean, it’s a really extraordinary sort of turnaround and something that would have been incomprehensible to people in the middle ages.
PLUME: And it’s interesting to note how much of that spin happened, as you say, during the Renaissance and the Reformation. While watching Medieval Lives, I couldn’t help but think how much the series cried out for a follow-up explaining what happened during that period…
JONES: Yeah, I think you’re right, funnily enough. I think that’s a really good idea. A very interesting idea… The trouble with Medieval Lives is there’s so little time to do anything. In a way the story, for example, of why we think they thought the world was flat in the middle ages ““ that’s a fascinating story in itself. It actually comes from the American journalist Washington Irving in the early 19th century, writing his biography of Columbus, in which he makes up this thing about the Church fathers at Salamanca accusing Columbus of heresy for saying the world is round when the Church teaches that it’s flat. Which is totally made up! The Church never taught that the Earth was flat, and nobody thought that the Earth was flat in the middle ages. It was just Washington Irving, author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle – it was just him making something up. Obviously it sounded rather good.
PLUME: Well, anyone could be historian at that point in time…
JONES: Yes.
PLUME: Does the research process for the show start with you asking a question, or does it start with you stumbling across an interesting piece of information?
JONES: A bit of both, really. What happened with this series was that, as I said, the impulse came from Oxford TV & Film and the BBC, so they started researching and came up with a whole lot of the material. But I was always very conscious that in shows like this you’ve got to have some sort of story that you’re telling. For example in [The Episode] “The Damsel,” it’s not sufficient to just have a list of spunky women who we know lived in the middle ages ““ that doesn’t get you anywhere. You’ve got to have a story to tell. So partly it’s me trying to work out a story out of the raw material and my saying, “Look, I think the story we’re talking about is the story about the gender roles and the relationship between the genders through this period of 600 years and how did it change.” And once you ask the right questions like that, you see how it does change and you see the dynamic that’s going on, and that gives you a bit of a story then.
PLUME: It’s also interesting to note that, in reference to that episode on gender roles, we’ve seen the recent return of the idea of the “professional religious hysteric”…
JONES: Yes!
PLUME: In going back to even how you tackled your series on the Crusades, there was that through-line of trying to tell stories within the larger story…
JONES: With Crusades, what appealed to me when Alan Ereira, who was producing the series, he sort of said, “The idea is to tell the story of the Crusades, but tell it through Arab eyes and get the Arab point of view.” And I though, “Well that really sounds interesting.” And that’s what got me hooked onto that, because it was a new way of looking at the period ““ which I didn’t know anything about in the first place.
PLUME: How cursory were your explorations into the period when you were doing your research for Holy Grail in the 70’s?
JONES: Well, I suppose the research was fairly cursory. We sort of read some of the Arthurian legends and things, but at the same time we were doing The Holy Grail, I was actually involved in researching my book on Chaucer’s Knight at the time ““ so I was kind of moonlighting off in the British Museum. So I was kind of well into the 14th century when we were doing that, so I was kind of quite comfortable doing a film set in the medieval world.
I’m Ken Plume, and soon you’ll be listening to “A Bit Of A Chat” with me, Ken Plume.
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Gorbzilla is a musician/band teacher in Mid-Michigan. He has been in a few bands over the years, most notably as the bass player/vocalist for the band “Satin Jones” and the guitarist/vocalist for the band “Jimmy Likes Pie”. The proud father of two future rock maniacs, Gorbzilla has been writing music for the past twenty years, and is currently working on his first musical Beer ““ Finally a Musical for Men based on the Haiku by Patrick “Horkmeister” Sweet entitled, “I Think I Threw Up”. He has been happily married for eight years, and is looking forward to this competition.
Governing Dynamics is the name of Travis Norris’s eternal sideproject, where all the stuff written by him goes when his current band (whatever it may be) refuses to play it. The music has been favorably compared to such bands as Eels, Radiohead, The White Stripes, and other bands that cool people like. It has been unfavorably compared to the tactics used by the FBI against the Branch Dividians at Waco. If he has to describe his music by genre (and refer to himself in third person) Travis calls it “alternative/shoegazer with a liberal dose of Midwestern rock”.
Two brothers from the midwest return to Song Fu with their brand of eclectic musical ideas. They don’t like to stick to a genre, and sometimes they suffer from swarms of bees.
Johannes “Jutze” Schult (from Germany) likes to live in a dream world where there has been no Grunge and where he is a talented singer. Sometimes his little folky pop songs find their way into the real world. Here they suffer from his hoarse voice and the do-it-yourself home recording production, struggling to appeal off and on beaten musical paths.
Dave & William have been writing songs together for decades, yet have still managed to avoid finding a clever name for themselves. William writes the words; Dave the music… which is good because it doesn’t really work the other way ’round.
Common Lisp is the name for the music projects of yours truly, Paul R. Potts, and any collaborators I may be able to drag into participating. I am a middle-aged software engineer with four children, some home recording gear, and too many guitars. I have never written an original song. It’s about time, don’t you think?
Glen Raphael is a Manhattan-based software geek, circus performer, and guitarist/singer/songwriter who counts Jonathan Coulton and Paul & Storm as influences. He has recently written songs that featured killer robots, exploding pants, and the Statue of Liberty having a mid-life crisis. Though not all at once. Yet.
Inverse T. Clown is a jack of many entertainment trades, songwriting being one of his favorites. He has an album half-ready to be recorded, and is looking forward to garnering the patience to sit down and do it. Even more so, he’s looking forward to Song Fu 6. There is an ongoing series of internet covers of Inverse’s song “Today’s The Day” – and he loves them all – but it would nice to get some steam behind the endless REST of his genius, and Song Fu seems just the place to start it up. He’s funny, he’s clever, his music is synthetic, and he’s champing at the bit to throw everything he’s got to his clamoring fans. Stick around, and see why Salemites everywhere call this musical genius “The Future of Greatness”.
Coming in at twice Mike Lombardo’s age, Jeff MacDougall is back and ready to throw some Fu! When asked about the competition, he had this to say: “Yeah. That’s right. I’m back. *coughs* *mumbles*” This will be a Song Fu for the ages!
Taryn Miller is an 18-year-old, gluten-intolerant, crazy-hat-wearing guitarist (and other stuff too, but she’s played guitar longest). She hails from Winfield, Kansas – Home of Bluegrass.
I’m Joe Covenant. I’m Scottish. And never have enough time to do everything I wanna! Been singing and perfoming for over 40 years… (yes, I am 46.)… and I’ve nearly learned a 6th chord! Everything I do. I do for Song Fu. (If not for this ‘contest’ I would have never met and collaborated with so many talented people.)
Manitcess are Susanne Wolff (Lupa) on vocals and Johannes Schult (Jutze) on guitar. The duo plays melodic song somewhere between pop, folk and rock. Melodies are more important than trends. The band has already played various gigs in Germany and Switzerland and is eager to entertain – or better to enchant their audience with their musical tales.
In the far off land of Chandler, Arizona, where the rivers flow with sand and cacti, our leader and master, the Lord of Our Lady Gwynyth, guitar and microphone in hand, called for the greatest musicians in the land to assemble a rock and roll group like none other. Unfortunately, they were cut off on the road, and the Jalapeño Habañeros made it there first. With The Rogue Bohemian on saxophone and The Boxcar Bassist on bass and keyboards, the Lord was pleased. Now, they roam the streets of Chandler, playing epic songs and rocking faces, much like Bon Jovi. Unfortunately they are paid in change, and often get thrown into the street, also like Bon Jovi. Their lives have intertwined, and the era of the Jalapeño Habañeros has begun. Be prepared.
They are not some traveling country hillbilly act. They are celebrating the year of Jubilee in the form of ukulele based indie pop. They are Akiva Misto and Eliana Bartimeus and they are prepared to rock your yarmulkes!
Peter is a person of sorts. Since his birth he has consistently occupied himself with a variety of time consuming and completely un-noteworthy activities. Despite this breadth of experience he remains untalented in the ways of writing all encompassing 600 word essays. He does, however, greatly enjoy the rare treat that is writing about oneself in the third person, especially when such a gift should be presented to him at the wonderful time of 4AM. Peter now supposes that since this a musical competition he is entering, he might want to include something about that in his bio. At the way too old age of 18, Peter first attempted to play music. His guitar teacher warned him that he was much to old to begin training, and that he would probably be an emotionally unstable musician that would eventually turn to the dark side. Peter took no heed to this warning, and indeed dropped out of guitar lessons fairly quickly, realizing that he enjoyed learning much more when done alone. In the year and a half since then, Peter has been on a steady rise and will no doubt be taking the musical world by storm in the coming year. Perhaps his greatest musical moment came in December of 2008, when his Christmas caroling band, The Sizzle, took his small hick town by storm with a door to door tour through the suburbs, melting the figurative face of listeners with a funk/rap cover of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. In 2009 Peter has become active in the youtube community, known not for his music but for his notorious use of stop-motion eating scenes and a DIY laugh track. Hoping to hone his barely existing musical skills through the pressure of competition, Peter joins Round 5 of Song Fu. He sincerely hopes that rewriting this bio at a later date will be an option. The Peter Is Competing.
Josh was born in Canada, which probably explains more about him than anything else he could put in a bio. He plays the accordion, is self-taught on the piano, and highly enjoys playing and writing for both – though he rarely finishes anything without a deadline. With this grueling contest, he hopes to push himself to unleash the best Fu he possibly can… and hell, maybe even some he impossibly can. YARRR!
I’m Joe Covenant. I’m Scottish. And never have enough time to do everything I wanna! Been singing and perfoming for over 40 years… (yes, I am 46.)… and I’ve nearly learned a 6th chord! Everything I do. I do for Song Fu. (If not for this ‘contest’ I would have never met and collaborated with so many talented people.)
Lex Vader was born to a single mother who worked as silicon tycoon’s personal assistant. When she died of poor hygiene, Lex was sent to an orphanage where he showed interest in organizing races and laser fencing. After being recruited into a religious order, he spent the next few years between several of their private schools. In his final year, Lex lost his hand in an argument with a professor over Kryptochlorians. Despite this, Lex was able to achieve a successful business career and even a knighthood. Tragedy struck, however, when a former classmate’s arctic home caught fire during a business lunch, scarring half of Lex’s face. At this point, Lex’s behavior became erratic. When he managed to buy SithCo, the cult that schooled him, he was shunned by the corporate world. No longer taken seriously, Lex started an evil empire and now moonlights with his evil emotronic alternapop band.
My current project is writing A Song a Day (Rock Cookie Bottom), and my former projects include The Last Nympho Leprechaun, a rock opera, The Mario Opera, a rock opera, GameJew, a web show, and The Mushroom Singdom, singing old school video game reviews. 
Sara Parsons is a twenty-year-old music composition student from northern California. She participated in Masters of Song Fu #4 and had a blast and met a ton of great people. She hopes she’s better at writing songs than she is at writing her own biography.
Chas Lilly is a man that needs introduction. He is geeky but hopefully without being boring. He has been known to write songs about Pluto, Tim Allen, funerals, and everything in between. People often describe his music as “music”.
I am a young musician who plays trombone, guitar, ukulele, piano, melodica, and a little bit of harmonica. I play everything from rock songs with distortion pedals on ukulele, to rap medleys on piano, to sappy love songs and songs about the internet crashing on guitar. This is my first time in Song Fu.
Simmbiosis – three part band. Defies the usual type or brand. A combo bred, in this strange head. The obscene voice the unseen hand. Terpsichore and muse imbued. Perverse perhaps a little rude. Music composed, a life exposed. Giving you all I can exude. Studio C where I compose. Club Bed where I take my repose. Iniquity, safe haven for me. The rest you’ll just have to suppose. To be among this crowd, auspicious. An honor bordering on delicious. Thanks to View Askew, I’ll whip out my Song Fu. And work not to be repetitious, repetitious, repetitious.
Denise Hudson is doing Song Fu again because last time the contest gave her a rush that she’d never had before. She is thinking this contest will help her further her career in the frightening world, the scary internet (ack!), and in Austin – a city in which there are many Live Music Capitalists of the World. She’s hoping to avoid mixdown mixups, to master her mastering, and hopefully… not become a twittasaurus rex. She’d like to thank her friends – local, national, international, intergalactic, and those from the beyond. Peace, Love, and Grapenuts.
Hi, my name is Steve Chatterton, the quintessential one-man-band singer/songwriter net-based recording project. Mom always said I marched to the sound of a different drummer, but she never mentioned which one. Dad had a fondness for bagpipes. Fortunately, neither of them have any direct influence on my music. Specializing in quirky little guitar-oriented pop songs about bugs, the Scooby gang, pirates, palindromes, superheroes, old movies, infectious diseases, imaginary friends and sideshow freaks, I guess you could say I pretty much write love songs. I’m a cheesy bastard at heart. I’m a stay-at-home dad who’s looking to find more time in the studio when my youngest starts school in September. I have an ever-expanding back catalog (at least 3 albums worth & counting) I’m dying to share with the world one download at a time.
At the ripe age of 19, this strapping young lad has been song writing for two years now. With his mates Meredith and Cornelius (guitar and ukulele, respectively), Craig Richie is prepared to join the ranks of the Song Fu warriors. Finding strong influences from former masters JoCo and Molly Lewis, as well as pinches of Kimya Dawson and Elvis Costello, this boy’s got a perspective on the world to share.
Ian Johnson was born atop Mount Everest, was attacked by a troop of ninjas on his way out of the womb, then rode a grizzly bear down the mountain and punched Hitler’s ghost on the way down. Then he ate some mashed peas. Seriously though. Ian played piano for about six years before taking a break in music. Then he decided to play guitar, because as we all know, piano don’t get chicks. He started playing guitar about a year and a half ago. His music has been described (by himself) as garage-punk ska-esque acoustic altern-rock with just a little ukulele thrown in for good measure.
I suppose I am what you could call a “Multi-Instrumentalist”. That is a nice way of saying “Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none”. I began playing drums as a teenager and spent a great deal of energy during my 20’s trying to “make it” in the music biz. As a drummer, I have had the opportunity to play with some pretty incredible musicians, garnering literally DOZENS of fans over the years. In 2004 I joined the band Celestial Static, and spent several years melting some face with good friends Jeremy and Julie Elzerman. Once that ran its course, I decided to spend more time locked away in my studio, writing my own songs and learning to play guitar, bass and sing. It doesn’t pay the bills, but I have a good time doing it.
Bram Tant is a Belgian coputer science student with a distinct love for music. Ever since going to music school as a kid, he’s enjoyed singing and playing the guitar, and has been writing songs for some years now. While he’s still learning to play the guitar, sing and write songs better, he improves with each attempt, and he makes up for it (and the lack of proper recording equipment) with his passion and enthusiasm. He would like to become a professional musician someday, but for now he’s satisfied with writing and performing for friends, family, and strangers on the internet.
Hi, my name is Timothy. I like me. I like my school, I like my friends. I like to play the music. I very much enjoy the peoples. Thank you.
Many folks say that Aaron Z is a pretty cool guy. He plays too many instruments, but mostly piano & guitar. He wastes too much of his free time writing and performing music, which has been known to make people laugh, tough men cry, and ladies melt in his arms. His current projects include Orange Box: The Musical! and A Tribute to the Letter E. He likes food cooked with mushrooms and his favorite ice-creams are vanilla-based, not chocolate-based. Check out his music, including his previously-weekly but now faux-weekly music project on his website, plus his other cool music.
I’m just a kid with a guitar. Sometimes I even play it.
Tyler Massey is an uncomplicated person. He likes to sip Cristal and polish his yacht collection. He enjoys the simple things in life, like stepping on snails barefoot and nude origami. He wishes that he had a proper Hobo Name, and is open to suggestions.
Although he has no formal training, Jarrett is an accomplished pianist who has been composing music for nearly twenty years. A relative newcomer to the world of online amateur competitive songwriting, he burst onto the scene earlier this year when he filled out an entry form just before the deadline. While earning his living as a graphic artist and website developer, Jarrett secretly dreams of leaving behind the glamor and prestige of internet publishing so he can focus on composing music for songwriting contests full-time.
Forged in the furnace of irony, molded with the hammer of satire, flattened on the anvil of righteousness, and cooled in the water of awesomeness, AudioMohel was thrust upon the world. Named from the lost audio transcripts of ’09, AudioMohel serves as a public-service backlash against the anti-circumcision trend sweeping the so-called “enlightened parents” crowd, AudioMohel urges their more devoted and impressionable fans to undergo the snip two or even three times. AudioMohel enjoys experimenting with new breakthrough genres like speed blues and death classical even though most of AudioMohel’s tunes reside firmly in the ethereal realm of vapor-ware.
Jeff began playing guitar in 2003. He wrote his first comedy song in early 2004, and later that year, he wrote a song that was actually funny and in key, unlike his earlier works. He began playing shows after accidentally opening for a local band while passing through a bar. He continues to play because nobody has told him to stop.
Bob Westfall (guitar, mandolin, vocals, songwriting) has studied and worked with some of the top acoustic players in the country – Darol Anger, Mike Marshall, John Hartford, and Alex DeGrassi. But, while these influences are certainly evident, Westfall’s songwriting and lyrics are uniquely his own. An award-winning mandolinist, Bob grew up in Texas and Minnesota, and his style incorporates the best elements of composing with a hybrid jazz/pop/worldbeat/bluegrass feel.
Did you ever wonder what it would be like to mix Ravishing Rick Rude and the Beatles together? Me too. Man that would be awesome. Justin Vega is a songwriter/sort of singer from Las Vegas, NV. Justin Vega thinks writing in third person is awesome.
Bryce Jensen has been writing songs off and on for well over twenty years, but he has rarely shared any of them beyond his friends and family. His styles range from a capella to heavy metal with a lot of wimpy finger picking stuff in between. Bryce took part in the recent Holiday Special edition of the Song Fu and found the constraints and deadline to be quite a rush. He also learned that sharing his work with the world can be very rewarding. Back for this competition because he is hooked and needs another fix, Bryce is looking forward to whatever crazy challenges lie ahead.
An independent rock/blues band from Ontario, Canada. Currently in studio recording a debut album to be released soon. They have been described as Hall and Oats meets Guns N Roses or John Mayer Vs Jeff Healey Vs Dave Matthews – Now that’s a triple threat match! The MLB looks forward to welcoming you to their world.
There’ve been many, many attempts over the years, but I think we’ve finally gotten a definitive, comprehensive documentary about those 5 loveable English lads (and one American) in 
Haven’t you always wanted a monkey? Even if you don’t have a million dollars, you can still snag yourself a nifty little beanie version of Thinkgeek’s loveable mascot, 
Previously available only in the megaset, you can now get the recent documentaries Before The Flying Circus & Monty Python Conquers America in 
A surprising and welcome arrival on DVD is the first volume collecting 
Certainly not a household name like Ford, Hitchcock, or Capra but deserving proper attention is the work of writer/director Samuel Fuller, which is celebrated in the new 
While not up to the audio-visual oomph of a modern series, there’s something about seeing the “best you’ve ver seen it” of 
Kids today have no idea what seemingly-endless cartoon fun Saturday mornings used to be before the rise of cable and home video. For just a taste of what it was like, Warners has put together both 
It’s an interesting storytelling device, to present the machinations of the Battlestar Galactica finale from the side of the Cylons – I only wish that I cared about the show enough to be interested in 
Did you know that Barbara Stanwyck once had a TV show? Neither did I. But you can view the star-studded anthology series in the first volume of 
I was hoping the teaming of Woody Allen with Larry David would provide some kind of transcendent comedy, but 
Creepy kid genre? A surprisingly robust number of films. Add 
As I dug into the suddenly teenaged animated escapades of Tony Stark in 
Yeah, I’m sorry – I still can’t fathom what the appeal of the adventures of Peter Pan’s formerly jealous, vixenish pixie is to young girls, but I’m sure they’ll snap up the bland, CG