![Robin Schade - I [HEART] NY... And I Sing About It!](http://static.flickr.com/38/81044426_cd827b8672_m.jpg)
I was born in Syracuse NY, and lived in the hickest hicklands and most wasted post-industrial wastelands Central NY has to offer. I remember being forced to sing ditties such as “The Erie Canal” and one that mentions “trip[ping] the light fantastic on the sidewalks of New York.” This inspired my 3rd-grade mind to wonder what the hell was tripping the light fantastic? What the hell kind of name is “Mamie O’Rourke?” And “Who names a mule Sal?”
Anyway, though I’ve sung about New York, I most certainly didn’t love it.
Conversely, sometimes when I jouney home from Boston into the hills and valleys of home, I see the lakes and fields and trailers with dogs tied to rusty trans Ams in the front yard, and think “I love NY.” After all, you can’t get a decent Cortland apple or a strawberry not grown in California here in Boston.
However, for all my singing about New York and loving New York, I was never inspired to love NY AND sing about it at the same time. Fortunately for me, Mr. Robin Schade (aka the New York Troubadour) does just that.
This album boasts that it has “Songs of NY State–the legends, lore, geography, history… people, places events.” OK, if this album is such a celebration of the great Empire State, then why the fuck are they leaving the guitar playing up to Ron “Wichita” Casler? The last time I checked, Wichita was not in NY (though Mexico, Greece, Egypt, Amsterdam, Poland, Philadelphia and Valhalla are).
Anyway, this album is a rollicking good time, celebrating the land of my birth with sagas such as “Ride on Loomis Gang,” (”the exploits of this notorious band of outlaws of the last century seems to be limited to Central NY State”) and hideously catchy songs like “Utica Oh Utica.” Aside from producing shitty beer and Annette Funicello, Utica has no point to existing on this planet. Even Kurt Vonnegut doesn’t have anything positive to say about the place. However, Robin Schade (”schade” means “bad” or “harm” in German, as in “that’s too bad”–coincidence?) asserts that Utica is actually “I Love NY’s heart.”
Don’t forget the insideously hook-filled title song (”I Love New York… And I Sing About It!”). If you are not singing along by the second chorus, you are probably either deaf, or are an evil NY-hating terrorist.