A Spell For Winter - An Original Musical for Basic Wizards

Merry Christmas from Shadeaux Public Radio and the Shadeaux Bros!
A SPELL FOR WINTER is our 10th Christmas Album, but our first full original musical (!). 

Cast

WINTER, a struggling wizard focused on the difficult study of magic : AMY COENEN
KILOMETER FOX, her familiar : JONATHAN SPARKS
MARWICK, a classmate - DUSTIN AH KUOI
SUMTER, a classmate : REBEKAH LEE
VENN, a classmate : MATT HARDY
HELONA, a classmate : JORDAN RICHEY
A GHOST : JOSH DARNELL

Location

The ARCANE CITY of LORE

Time

FIFTH TURN

Deep abiding thanks to our cast who mobilized for us with almost zero notice and delivered such great performances. This could not have happened without them. They are simply amazing.

Music: Jonathan Sparks
Book & Lyrics: G. Derek Adams
Sound Design & Production: Jonathan Sparks

PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/shadeaux

SUPPORT:https://www.shadeauxpublicradio.com/support/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShadeauxRadio

The Ninth Power

This is the first album we completed after starting the podcast! Looking back now, it's really obvious we were going to make a full musical next as this album is the most heavily scripted and has the most original songs. 

A quiet 'shout out' to Patrick Najjar for his performance of Oddbody which still make my flesh creep and crawl.

If there's any meaning or message that all of the albums have been leading to True Power is that message.

I forever disavow the 'Zelda' tracks. We should not have done that.

The Ninth Power (2017)

TRACK LIST

 1. At the cusp of victory

2. That Christmassy Feelin (Josh Darnell and Andrew Rabanal and Sam Hopkins)

3. Holly Jolly Christmas 

4. Zelda, Christmas, and other thoughts #1

5. The Cost of Shadeaux

6. Marshmallow World (Josh Darnell and Sam Hopkins)

7. Merry Christmas, Jorts Bashir

8. Bro vs. Bro

9. Zelda, Christmas, and other thoughts #2:

10. Here Comes Santa Claus 

11. The Marigold to Bloom

12. Zelda, Christmas, and other thoughts #3:

13. Santa Baby ( Dustin Ah Kuoi)

14. Cries of the Cosmos Beasts

15. Zelda, Christmas, and other things #4: 

16. I heard the Bells on Christmas Day (ft. Margot Hitchcock)

17. True Power

Electoral Christmas

2016 was a hell of a year.

We were more than a little emotionally raw, recovering from the Presidential election. Those weeks in December we were desperately trying to put together something that would make our friends smile, while we just wanted to crawl in a hole and die.

Listening now, I can remember how it felt, how we just scrambled to put it all together - how everything we tried to actually write fell apart and we wound up just turning on the mic and riffing like the old days and then just sort of shrugging and putting it on the album if it made us laugh.

This is the album of us trying to make something like we were still the same people we were in 2009 - and we weren't. 

Electoral Christmas (2016)

TRACK LIST

 1. Hymn to the Dark

2. Come on Down

3. The poorly informed Narrator #1 - Open ye hearts (Jeremy Miller)

4. Merry Christmas, Darling (Rebekah Lee)

5. Coffee at Christmas 

6. Temporary Transitional Placeholder Track #1

7. Hard Candy Christmas (Amy Coenen)

8. The poorly informed Narrator #2 - Dukes of Shadeaux (Jeremy Miller)

9. Song that has No Effect on Jeff Chen’s Emotional State

10. Where are you Christmas? (Jordan Richey)

11. Electoral Christmas

12. Temporary Transitional Placeholder Track #2

13. The poorly informed Narrator #3 - Who are these people? (Jeremy Miller)

14. River (Amy Coenen)

15. Christmas Before Night The Twas

16. It’s a Lot of Money for a Bunny

17.The Christmas Song (Dustin Ah Kuoi)

18. The poorly informed Narrator #4 - Quicksand of the Mind (Jeremy Miller)

19. The Legend of the Shadeaux Archivist

20. The Circle

Episode 7: The Shadeaux Awakens

This one is the weird one. I kind of love how strange and experimental it is. Listening to all of the albums in a row, it's clear we're chasing a certain type of experience all the way through album six - but on this one we throw most of it out and just do SPOKEN WORD POETRY about being lost in some sort of complex?

You can hear it from the very first track - a strange, unsettling vibe...

Dang, this thing even has a Hamilton cover on it!

This also has our first collaboration with Amy Coenen - who would one day go on to appear as the lead in our 10th album/original musical A Spell for Winter.

Episode 7: The Shadeaux Awakens (2015)

TRACK  LIST

 1. Hark the Harold 

2. It Must’ve Been Old Santa Claus 

3. I Wish I Could Be Santa Claus (Matt Hardy)

4. Transmission #1 : Calliope 

5. It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas (Josh Darnell)

6. We Three Kings (Narke Norton )

7. Transmission #2 : 19 Ways to Die 

8. Snoopy’s Christmas (Neal Canup)

9. Christmas Has Its Eyes On You (Jonathan)

10. Transmission #3 : Cyborg Lullaby 

11. NO L  

12. Transmission #4: Scimitar of Reason 

13. In the Bleak Midwinter (Amy Coenen)

14. Transmission #5 : An Unexpected Reunion (ft. Jeremy Miller)

15. The Francis Xavier Cross Maneuver

16. Silent Night 

Shadeaux Bros. vs. The King of Forever

I think this is our best overall album - or at least the best version of the form we were chasing since 2009. I also personally think this album marks the end of the Cows of the Roman Empire Saga (Jonathan may disagree, we usually do about our dumb bullshit).

One of the goals of this album was to end our time shenanigans and be able to move forward into the future with our next albums, timeline wise. Because of this we contended with a literal devil of time, and oddly edged into some strange and compelling musings on the purpose of Christmas, the ache of mortality, and general 'getting older' type shit.

The performance of the King of Forever by Jeremy Miller is one for the ages. His passages chill me to the bone to this very day. And every time I hear them, I think about the King waiting for us at the Eventual End, a curse we wrought upon ourselves.

Also, if we did nothing else on earth, we wrote Broccoli for Christmas - which still cracks me up, but is also probably the best glimpse into the actual creative partnership between Jonathan and me, caught live in one take.

ALSO - the first appearance of the phrase ' Shadeaux Public Radio' !

Shadeaux Bros vs. The King of Forever (2014)

TRACK LIST

 1. Last Time on the Shadeaux Bros. Z

2. King of Forever #1 (A Gauntlet Thrown)

3. Christmas is Waiting 

4. King of Forever #2  (A Dubious Respect)

5. The Christmas Waltz - (Sam Hopkins)

6. Christmas Under Pressure (Broccoli for Christmas)

7. King of Forever #3 (The Game Changer)

8. Silver Bells - a tribute to Josh Darnell (Matt Hardy)

9. Shadeaux Public Radio (Avery Leswell)

10. Brothers in Our World (ft. Rebekah Lee, Matt Hardy, Sam Hopkins)

11. King of Forever #4 - The Darkest Darkness

12. One More Sleep til Christmas (Matt Hardy)

13. Jeffs Save The Day

14. The Shadeaux Transformation

15. The Shadeaux Convergence (Falling through Forever)(Opening Montage)

16. Hark! the Herald Angels Sing 

ShadeauxFall

All the way real, this may be our strongest album - especially if you consider it a double album with the next year's follow up. (WHICH I DO - D.)

Over half the reason this album OWNS is because of the amazing work of Briton Dean as the Newscaster. He riffed all of those sections off the top of his head and they crack my shit UP to this very day. Maybe it also has something to do with the Shadeaux Bros. being offstage for most of this album???

I also cashed in a favor/debt from Dustin Ah Kuoi to force him to sing that song from Tangled - a personal bucket list accomplishment.

No Snow at the Alamo is our first recorded attempt to write a legit Christmas song - and I had completely forgotten about it!

This album plus the sixth are our attempt to finally resolve the dumbass timeline knot we'd riffed several years previously, though upon listening now I think our 2004 selves are still sealed in some sort of time chamber? Whatever, it's all dumb, don't think too hard about that one!

ShadeauxFall (2013)

TRACK LIST

 1. Strange Things are Afoot at the Eastside Barberitos

2. Breaking News #1 (Damn You, Shadeaux Bros.)

3. Frosty the Snowman 

4. Unreleased Tracks From the Shadeaux Archive : Rudolph (Christmas in Outer Space) Alternate Take - Robot Reindeer [2009]

5. Breaking News #2 (Punched a Bear)

6. Winter Song (ft. Dustin Ah Kuoi)

7. No Snow at the Alamo

8. Breaking News #3 (Egg Smaug)

9. UTFTSA: Rudolph (Christmas in Outer Space) Alternate Take - Alien DNA [2009]

10. All I Need is Love (ft. Dustin Ah Kuoi)

11. The Final Broadcast (News Friend / Detective Overstreet Revealed!)

12. Healing Incantation (ft. Dustin Ah Kuoi)

13. The Heroes Return (Shadeaux Lore)

14. The King of Forever (Jeremy Miller)

First Christmas

The purported first album chronologically, this is our take on that classic of holiday literature, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. (We figured it was inevitable.)

This album includes our first attempt to actually explain something about who or what the Shadeaux Bros. are (Become the Darkness). Also our first real experimentation with writing actual scripts for some of the skits. This was also the album that Jonathan really worked overtime on the assembly as I had approximately 2 hours to record that week so the bulk of my lines were recorded alone, then slapped into the scenes later after the other actors recorded. A skill that would stand him in good stead in our later podcastery.

This was also the album where we really assumed that our friends would remember album tracks from previous years as the Christmas Foods tracks make zero sense unless you realize they are a riff on previous album's Christmas Truths. We are hilarious.

Mega Happy Sound Song for Jeff definitely makes us cringe now as we're blatantly poking fun at bad anime dubs. It feels like its veering into some racially insensitive territory with 2020 eyes, but we decided to leave it in for  this reissue. Partially to avoid sweeping it under the rug and welcome THE DISCOURSE. But also because I think it's fairly clear that the characters of D. and J. Shadeaux are idiots. Plus our obsession with Jeff Chen cannot be hidden on the cutting room floor of history.

First Christmas (2012)

TRACK LIST

1. A Beginning ( Save a Major Holiday)

2. Become the Darkness (Shadeaux Lore)

3. Rejecting the Call (And We’re Running)

4. The Ghost of Christmas Past (Amy Miller)

5. What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve? (Amy Miller)

6. Christmas Foods #1 (Yams)

7. A Botched Attempt (We are awful.)

8. When the Meadow was Bloomin’ (Don Smith)

9. Christmas Foods #2 (Turkey)

10.The Ghost of Christmas Presents (Josh Darnell)

11. A questionably better attempt (We are awesome!)

12. 2000 Miles (Jonathan)

13. Christmas Foods #3 (Invisible Cupcakes)

14. Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come (Jeff Chen)

15. Mega Happy Sound Song for Jeff 

16. At Album’s End

The Second Album

Ah yes, the beginning of the needlessly convoluted timeline of the albums’ threadbare plot. Indeed, we thought it was beyond hilarious to name our third album 'The Second Album' and only kept doubling down on that until a couple of years after we literally had to break out a whiteboard to reconstruct the timeline.

This album also had a lot of 'firsts'. Our first collaboration with the irreplaceable Briton Dean as Detective Overstreet as well as the first appearance of Josh Darnell - who a millennia later would become forever entangled with us on the PvSTV podcast.

This also begins the Jeff Chen Saga with the jam for the ages 'Sad Song Make Jeff Cry'. There is no further context to be given for the amount of Jeff Chen content we have in our work except that he is our friend and we are clearly obsessed with him.

The Second Album (2011)

TRACK LIST

1. An Introduction

2. Christmas Lights

3. Detective Overstreet #1 (Infamous Duo)

4. Silverbells (Josh Darnell)

5. Detective Overstreet #2 (Purple Blanket)

6. Little Drummer Boy / Peace On Earth (Dustin Ah Kuoi and Josh Darnell)

7. Detective Overstreet #3 (Filth! Rancid!)

8. Sad Song Make Jeff Cry

9. This Christmas

10. Detective Overstreet #4 (Fanfiction of Reality)

11. Happy Xmas- War is Over (ft. Dustin Ah Kuoi)

12. Detective Overstreet #5 (MANTIS)

13. At the Close - A Christmas Forgotten

The Shadeaux Proclamation

Our second album! Every album is essentially a window into what we were fascinated with or media we were consuming at the time. It's abundantly clear we were very obsessed with Doctor Who in 2010.

This is also the first episode that introduced something approaching a narrative (?) - establishing some sort of great war that we were engrossed with, and introducing one of our more ominous and surreal opponents -- the Minotaur of Norway.

The Shadeaux Proclamation (2010)

TRACK LIST

 1. Intro and Christmas Time is Here

 2. To Norway

3. Christmas Truths #1 (Cookies)

4. Celebrate Me Home (Melissa Colbert)

5. Virginia

 6. Christmas Truths #2 (Weasel)

7. It Feels Like Christmas

8. Christmastime in Castlevania

 9. Christmas Truths #3 (Elf Hair)

 10. The Minotaur of Norway

 11. The Last Stand of the Christmas Defenders... Again. 

The Last Stand of the Christmas Defenders

The year was 2009 and two men struck with poverty turned to the only tools at their disposal for an impromptu Christmas gift for their friends --- a keyboard, ProTools, and one microphone.

Thus began a Christmas tradition -- and the birth of the Shadeaux Bros. For just over a decade we've put out a new album every  Christmas, leading up to this/last year's original musical A Spell for Winter.

This was the first run at what eventually morph into Shadeaux Public Radio and all of our other weird ventures. Please enjoy!

Last Stand of the Christmas Defenders (2009)

TRACK LIST

• Intro

• Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas 

• I’ll Be Home for Christmas 

• Blitzen

• White Christmas 

• Extreme Rock

• Baby It’s Cold Outside 

• Eggnog and Kittens (Christmas Time In Your Mind)

• Mommy Kissin’ Santa Claus 

• Rudolph (Christmas in Outer Space)

• Christmas (Please Come Home)

• The Last Stand of the Christmas Defenders