Paul and Storm

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DaVinci's Notebook

Origins	Arlington County, VA
Genre(s)	A cappella Comedy
Members	Bernie Muller-Thym Storm DiCostanzo Paul Sabourin Richard Hsu
Discography	Bendy's Law (1997) The Life and Times of Mike Fanning (2000) Brontosaurus (2002)
Producer	N/A

DaVinci's Notebook (DVN) was an a cappella singing group consisting of Bernie Muller-Thym, Greg "Storm" DiCostanzo, Paul Sabourin, and Richard Hsu. The group was formed in Virginia in 1994 and performed at stages and festivals across the United States. For personal reasons, DaVinci's Notebook stopped touring and disbanded in 2004. Sabourin and DiCostanzo continue to perform as the musical comedy duo Paul and Storm.

Paul and Storm performed Ballad of The Sneak, which was released on their album Shame and Cookie Dough. DaVinci's Notebook wrote a theme song for Stinkoman, which was shown at Georgia Tech in 2007 before being released on Homestar Runner Original Soundtrack Volume 2 in 2020 and being used for the Stinkoman 20X6 Intro Cinematic later that year. The Brothers Chaps also helped with animation, writing, and voice work for Paul and Storm's 2014 parody holiday special "The Paul and Storm Nondenominational Perennial Holiday Special". Matt Chapman also appeared onstage at their shows to perform such songs as Trogdor and the Strong Badia National Anthem.

The Making of "Ballad of The Sneak"

DaVinci's Notebook discovered homestarrunner.com through a link on Memepool.com (listed on July 4, 2001). Almost immediately, the band became Homestar Runner fans. The subject of which band member actually brought Homestar Runner to the band's attention first is a subject of debate amongst the group. According to Storm, this was well before The Brothers Chaps started making Strong Bad Emails.

Storm states that Paul more or less stalked The Brothers Chaps because DVN thought they were utterly hysterical, and because Paul had a talent for getting in touch with interesting people. Paul wrote that he "used his mad Interwebs stalking skills and a phone book... and it was early enough in their career that they were more flattered than creeped out when I tracked them down." Paul found Don Chapman's information through a WHOIS search and eventually convinced the brothers to come see one of DVN's gigs when they came to Atlanta, and a friendship was born.

At one point, The Brothers Chaps said they'd love DVN to contribute a song. Later, they specifically asked DVN to write an Old-Timey theme song for The Sneak. Aside from describing it as the Old-Timey version of The Skate Party's The Cheat Theme Song, The Brothers Chaps gave DVN free rein. The line "The Cheat, The Cheat" from the original song was used as a starting point, and the song structure roughly follows the original.

Storm drove the direction, structure, and writing process, and passed lyrics back and forth with Paul (mostly over email). Paul did much of the vocals and recording on a Gateway 2000 PC. A long Christmas wrapping paper tube was used to make it sound like it was being sung from a megaphone. The creators consider this to be inadvertently the first Paul and Storm song, as the other members of DVN had no involvement. Storm recalls that they finished fairly quickly; though they worked on it in between a lot of other projects and tours over a month, the actual work time was only a handful of hours.

Paul added that the many random sound effects were put in the song mainly to see what visuals would be accompany them. He also noted that the chronological inconsistencies (references to Tammany Hall, the Hully Gully, the Kaiser, prohibition, etc.) were, for the most part, intentional; partly to keep with the overall feel The Brothers Chaps had established with the toons, and partly to see if people would point them out. Some of the music had been written prior to the song's creation before being repurposed; the trumpet instrumental that plays at the one-minute mark came from a fictional world jokingly created out of boredom by Paul and Storm on a car ride, based on a truck which had "Newton's Mulch" printed on it in "sort of an old-timey font".

Storm recalls being very excited to see how the song would be interpreted by The Brothers Chaps, as the band gave no input on the animation. They wondered if Ballad of the Sneak would match what they had in their heads. About a month after DVN sent the completed song to The Brothers Chaps, the "Ballad of The Sneak" toon appeared on the Homestar Runner site.

Dragon Con 2008

Strong Bad introduced Paul and Storm at Dragon Con 2008. Paul and Storm were previously half of DaVinci's Notebook.

Transcript

STRONG BAD: Ladies and gentlemen! Klingons and Daleks! Bobas and {disappointed} Jangos. {normally} B-list celebrities and their entourages of hangers-on! I am called Strong Bad! I urge you to take a moment, put down that vinyl bust or that pewter figurine you're thinking of buying, and give a warm, sweaty welcome to Stormy Paul and the Forecasts! ...What? Paul and Storm? Well that's a huge waste of one cool name and one Paul name. I'm outta here. Anyways, give it up for Paul and Storm.

• Hear the introduction

External links

• DaVinci's Notebook (archived)
• Paul and Storm