One Hand Clapping RecordsTin Pan Pegasus
Not a band — a songwriting firm, fourth floor, up a staircase that creaks in three-four time, above the old vaudeville house. They take commissions: a song for any occasion, built to spec, delivered by deadline, with verbal pyrotechnics included at no extra charge.
Theatrical comedy songbook — Sondheim wit, Yip Harburg craft and Carl Stalling cartoon-orchestration; verbal pyrotechnics and a tune built to order for any occasion.
The Commissions
Songs built to order, filed by the firm.
Four Partners and a Pegasus
Quill, Bess, Sforzando and Reggie argue the songs into being; the Pegasus, the muse on retainer, supplies the lift no amount of craft can fake.
Prof. Ambrose Quill
the patter; rhymes that feel inevitable after the fact
Bess Calliope
the straight man; the piano that sets it up
Maestro Osvaldo Sforzando
the orchestrator; the firm’s full sound
Reggie Bellows
every role; the costume drifts mid-song
The Firm
Tin Pan Pegasus is not, strictly speaking, a band, and any attempt to make it behave like one will end the way such attempts always end — in tears and a sternly worded memorandum. It is a firm. A songwriting firm, fourth floor, up a staircase that creaks in three-four time, above the old vaudeville house, established sometime between Gilbert and Sullivan by a person who knew both gentlemen socially and was owed money by one of them.
The name is the entire philosophy in two words. Tin Pan Alley was the workhorse of song — the place where music was made to order, fast and well, by people who treated craft as a day job and meant it as a calling. Add the Pegasus, and the workhorse flies. The firm takes the commission, argues it into being, and delivers a song that does the job and then, on the best days, does something nobody ordered.
The Extras
The small stubborn objects and the lyric books — some free, some sold out, some lost. Scarcity is part of the record.
The Commission Ledger
Every song the firm was ever asked to write, and the occasion it was for. Some occasions are alarming. The firm does not judge the occasion. The firm delivers.
The Songbook Statutes
The firm's rules of craft — meter, rhyme, the deadline as sacred, the muse as a billable line item. Bound in buckram, smells of cigars. Out of print since the lift went out of fashion.
Pull a Thread
Every band on the label is one room of the same house. A few doors out of this one:
The firm is taking commissions. Step into the office.