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Watch for Shuffled! every Thursday. Check out the Shuffled! archive for past shufflers.

Today’s Shuffler: Goh Nakamura

Goh Nakamura is a San Francisco Bay Area based musician who likes to write ditties about parking tickets, impossible crushes and faraway dreamlands (amongst other things). Accompanying himself with digital samplers and an acoustic guitar, his live solo shows are always unique and often unpredictable.

Goh has a strong Boston connection though. He grew up in Lexington, MA, a suburb of Boston, and attended the Berklee College of Music. Goh Nakamura’s debut album, “Daylight Savings”, was named one of the Top Ten Local Albums of 2004 by the San Jose Metro. He plans to release his second album entitled “Ulysses” in the summer of 2008.

Goh has contributed his guitar and vocal work to the Ridley Scott films “A Good Year” and most recently “American Gangster”. His song “Daylight Savings” was chosen to be included on the soundtrack to the Robert Benton film “Feast of Love” starring Morgan Freeman and Greg Kinnear.

You can find out more about Goh at his website gohnakamura.com or on his myspace: http://www.myspace.com/gohnakamura. Or if you like videos, check out his page on YouTube: www.youtube.com/gohnakamura.

Let us see what he shuffled up…

Texas Girl At The Funeral Of Her Father
Randy Newman from Little Criminals

The first time I heard this song, I was driving home from a long studio session on a rainy morning. It’s a miracle that I didn’t get into an accident because the visibility on the road was so bad, in addition to me weeping behind the wheel. Randy Newman is a genius. When he’s not making me laugh, he’s making me cry with songs like this and “Memo to My Son”. I love how he mixes classical type harmonies with his soulful voice, it’s almost like he’s channeling Ray Charles playing Schubert. Also, he has a wonderful way of titling his songs like Norman Rockwell paintings.

She’s Leaving Home
The Beatles from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Good God, my iPod is trying to make me look like a big sissy. This is another tune that made my eyes well up the first time I heard it. Similar in texture to the Newman song with the string arrangement and heart wrenching lyrics. I recently heard the raw individual tracks to this arrangement and was blown away by how 4 tracks could sound like this- basically the orchestral instruments on tracks 1-2 and vocals on 3-4. I actually heard either John or Paul burp near the end on the raw take!

House of Pain
Van Halen from 1984

Ok, finally some testosterone to redeem me. Van Halen is the reason I started guitar, and this song is definitely one that ignited the fuse. I remember going to Japanese school on Saturdays in Medford listening to this on my Walkman, cranking up the fadeout at the end where all the craziest guitar licks were.

The Tractor
Bill Frisell from Blues Dream

Bill Frisell is my favorite musician as well as one of the most important guitarists of the last century. He’s like a mixture of Thelonious Monk mixed with Hendrix and Stockhausen. One thing that I admire about him is that he constantly pushes the envelope by exploring and fusing different styles of music in innovative ways. This song is a perfect example of that—it starts off sounding like a country hoedown until the last minute or so, when some big band horns that sound like they were voiced by Miles Davis come out of the woodwork. So random, but hilarious and perfect somehow! I am finding it hard to dilute him down to a few sentences, but I have to include that I had the privilege of actually meeting him once and all I could say to him was “You destroyed me!”. His reply was “That’s good, I think.”

What If We Do?
Mia Doi Todd from Manzanita

There are countless songs about falling in love, but not many of them capture those butterfly moments as eloquently and gently as Mia does. I could listen to her voice forever—the voice of wisdom and kindness.

I feel like I am falling in love with her every time I hear this song, I hope she doesn’t mind.

Last 5 posts by shuffled

• Shuffled! Giles Li - August 7th, 2008
• Shuffled! Alexander Chee - July 31st, 2008
• Shuffled! Terry Park - July 24th, 2008
• Shuffled! Theresa Vu of Magnetic North - July 17th, 2008
• Shuffled! Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha - July 10th, 2008

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