Pat Irwin has composed soundtracks for dance, theater, television and a number of feature films, including But I’m a Cheerleader, 24-Hour Woman, and My New Gun. He’s also produced recordings for Lydia Lunch, Love Tractor, and Deborah Lyall, and was a member of the bands The Raybeats and 8-Eyed Spy. He plays guitar and keyboards with the B-52s.
For our first invitational, we gave a group of musicians the following assignment: Create a song based—directly or in the most oblique way imaginable—on public domain material. Some of the participants chose to work from public-domain recorded music purchased for this project, while others contributed unique covers of older traditional tunes.