Two Faces of Music
I’ve been playing guitar for more than 45 years. I played in a coffeehouse band for eight years prior to starting solo shows. I primarily play acoustic fingerstyle guitar, and my primary influences are Dan Fogelberg and Willy Porter.
I have two distinct musical personalities. When I’m playing at a bar gig or open mic, most of my songs will be covers or “normal” originals. But if I’m playing at a science fiction convention in person or online, most of the songs I play will be original parody songs. (For that reason, I guess you could say that Weird Al is an influence, too.)
The musical appearances I’ve made over the years are too many to list, so suffice it to say that I’ve performed at numerous festivals and Denver-area science fiction conventions over the last ten years. I also perform occasionally at open mics or neighborhood bars in the south Denver metro area. For booking information, please see the Contact page.
Live Performances
Covers
Cover songs are the meat of my general repertoire. They usually compose about 2/3 of my gigs unless it’s a special gig for a convention.
Artists covered include select songs from Dan Fogelberg, The Beatles, John Denver, James Taylor, Rush, Peter Gabriel, Fleetwood Mac, Willy Porter, Neil Young, Kansas, Gordon Lightfoot, The Decemberists, Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, Paul Simon, and many more.
Check out a few covers, below.
Parodies
Who knew that all those years of listening to Dr. Demento would result in me becoming a filker and parody artist more than thirty years later?
Yet, here we are.
Life is strange, and so are some of my songs. In the filk space, I write original parody lyrics based on big franchises like Star Wars or Dune, set to existing well-known songs.
For example, one of my parodies, “Scoundrel,” is about Han Solo, who is a bit of an outlaw, so I wrote the parody to the tune of “Wanted: Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi. Another parody, “Spice Blue Eyes,” lampoons The Who’s classic “Behind Blue Eyes” with a Dune theme.
I tend to write more parodies than original filk songs, but that may change over time.
Originals
I don’t write a lot of originals, but the ones I do write tend to be either full of intricate fingerpicking (“Aiode,” “Brother Falls”) or contain heartfelt, positive lyrics (“Be Who You Are.”)
I’m currently working on a song about my favorite steam locomotive, which I hope will be a little of both.
“Aiode,” mentioned above, was a runner up in the Takamine Go Play Outside contest during COVID. Click here to see my contest submission and here to see the arguably better video featuring K8 the Moose, which Takamine also featured.
@lytspeed1 Thanks for the audio, @Tony Medina! #TheGarden #Rush #RushTheBand #RIPNeilPeart #ForYourPage #FYP #Takamine #LTD99 #LiveMusic #OneTake #SingersOfTikTok #GuitarTok #TikTokamine #ForTravis #LittletonAlley #OpenMic #DenverOpenMic ♬ original sound – Stace Johnson
@lytspeed1 #Scoundrel #StarWars #HanSolo #Parody #WantedDeadOrAlive #BonJovi #Filk #GuitarTok #Takamine #TikTokamine #Fingerstyle #FYP #ForYourPage #MileHiCon #Fandom ♬ original sound – Stace Johnson
@lytspeed1 #G7thCapo #Performance3Capo #AdaptiveRadiusTechnology #G7thCapoArtistOfTheWeek #G7thCapoArtistSupport #ValueWhatYouDo #MusiciansOfTikTok #GuitarTok #TikTakamine #LTD99 #FYP #ForYourPage #LiveMusic #Fingerstyle @g7thcapo ♬ original sound – Stace Johnson
@lytspeed1 #FireAndRain #JamesTaylor #FullSong #FYP #ForYourPage #Takamine #TikTokamine #LTD99 #G7thCapo #GuitarTok #LiveMusic #SingersOfTikTok #Fingerstyle ♬ original sound – Stace Johnson