This is something that I put together for fun for my best friend to show him what I’ve been up to for the last ton of years, and it turned out so good that I decided to put it here since I needed to have a podcast for so long! The song is from the album “Swagger,” and please excuse the mystery hum that you may hear while the song is playing. A lot of the pics are already here on the site, but there are a few new ones, as well as some old flyers and setlists from shows that I’ve done over the years.
This is a string quartet that I have been working on for the last few months. I actually made a sketch of the first movement over a year ago, and started working on fleshing it out this last May. It was originally inspired by an art exhibit that I saw on a field trip with the “day job,” and started using the planets and other bodies in space as an inspiration. When I decided to put this on the web, I went looking for some images of some of the spheres and other objects that inspired this piece. Most of the pictures were found on NASA’s JPL lab website, and others were found while I was browsing the web over the course of a few days. I make no claim to the pictures, only the music by the way...
Musically, I experimented with the idea of pitch axis as a base for a piece, rather than as an improvisational tool, and for the most part I think the piece works out well in that regard. On the technical side, the piece was “written” into Finale, which also provided the digital playback. I then took the sound file and inserted the 4 movements into Garageband, where I added a few “spacey” effects to enhance the mood. The entire piece is around 13 minutes, so it’ll take a while to load, so please be patient, it’ll be worth the wait! The movie itself was done with iMovie. Man do I sound like a commercial! “Imagine you are a satellite, exploring the universe. You are traveling through space and periodically encountering these large, gas filled giant spheres...taken aback by the majesty of them, you can’t help but be moved (MVNT. 1). As you fly along, you next encounter stellar bodies going all around you, colliding with each other in a violent storm, and all you can hope for is to escape unharmed (MVNT. 2). You then encounter another gas giant, this one surrounded by rings and moons, a serene peaceful scene (MVNT. 3). As you go beyond the reaches, you encounter a lone planet, potmarked by craters and strangely alone (MVNT. 4). Fade into the black.” From December 23, 1987 to around November 1998 I had a band called Inkognito. Originally we used the "correct" spelling of the word, but it was changed at some point to distinguish the band from the other bands that were using that name! The band went through numerous lineup changes over the years (19 if I'm counting right!), and we did one independent album in 1993 called "Abuse Your Delusion 1 1/2." When I went to college, the band broke up, but I reformed it while I was there, and that is where we did almost all of our shows. We played numerous "kegger" parties, battle of the bands and also did a bunch of headline shows at a now-defunct club in Macomb Illinois. The lineup that wrote and recorded "Delusion" was Mike on guitar/vocals, Rich on drums and myself on bass/lead vocals. We had an amazing chemistry between the three of us! One of those rare circumstances where we all complimented each other musically perfectly. That particular lineup of the band played it's last full show on January 29-30, 1993, and outside of a brief appearance opening for another band later that year, we didn't play live again. RIch and I played a show with a different guitar player, and later I did a few shows with my friend Bob on drums and a guitar player named Larry in 1998. I finally put the band to rest for good in 1999 when I decided to move to Florida. All the lineups of the band were fun to play with, but I still consider the lineup of me, Mike and Rich to be the "classic" lineup. A couple of years ago, Mike, Rich and myself started working on new music for a new project via the internet. It's still in the writing phase, but we have found that the chemistry that we had over 20 years ago was still there! Hopefully we will be able to get these new songs recorded to share with you all at some point. Because of where we all live, I don't see any live "reunion" gigs anytime soon, but I've seen enough instances with bands and musicians managing to do things that they never said would happen, so I don't rule it out either! ;) Here is some video footage of Mike, Rich and I in action from 1991-1993.... In this section, you will find updates and information about my classical and Jazz music that I’ve written as well as works that are in progress. Hopefully, I’ll also be able to make mention of premieres of some works here as well! I have to say though, that my definition of classical and jazz may not be totally what some people would think, and that goes down to my personal writing style, as well as my influences in these realms. People have often asked me who some of my favorite composers were, and for a while I would have a hard time giving them an answer. When I was in college studying composition, I rarely listened to other composers unless it was for an assignment. If I had to do an analysis on a particular piece, that is what I would listen to. For a long time I wouldn’t dig any deeper than that, even though I did it all the time with the rock and metal that I listened to. That started to change slightly in 1993 when I really began to get interested in the music of Frank Zappa, and I saw the range of music that he did. I was so enamored with it that when it came time for me to do my Master’s thesis, I dedicated it to him as well as my grandmother, who taught me how to play the saxophone. The composers that I listen to now on a fairly regular basis are Zappa still, Arnold Schoenberg (although I need to get more stuff on CD), and film composer Danny Elfman. I like Elfman’s stuff so much that I’ve actually seen movies that he’s done JUST because he did the music! On the Jazz side of things, since I’m also a saxophone player, that means that I have a great admiration for John Coltrane, not only as a player but as a writer as well. I’m also a huge fan of Miles Davis, Duke Ellingtion, and some off the beaten path people like Bela Fleck and Victor Wooten, to name a few. As far as recent projects, last spring at my school I wrote 2 pieces that the band performed at their spring concert: a full band score called “Concerto For Small Band 1,” and a percussion feature called “Everything But the Kitchen Sink.” I wasn’t able to get recordings of them, but with one of my notation programs, I can hopefully get MIDI versions that I can put on a podcast here. I just finished writing 2 more pieces for the same band for this year’s spring concert: another percussion piece called “Bang Boom Crash,” and a full band piece called “The Traveler.” I also have been working on a suite for small jazz combo that is called “The Second Set.” It’s just about done, and I am hoping that I can put a group together to take that out on the road to play live soon. First things first, though, I have to finish it! I’ll add things as I have them done, so make sure to check back! “Chairman Of The Horde” was written and recorded between December 17 and 27 of 2008. It started out as an experiment with a new piece of gear, and then as usual snoballed into something cool and different. I had finally gotten a portable digital recorder after the Thanksgiving holiday. I was planning on using it to do live recordings of myself and various bands for posting stuff here and on the other sites. I also wanted to use it to possibly record myself playing drums and then put the drum tracks into the computer at home and build songs up that way, so that I wasn’t totally reliant on drum machines and sequencers. For those keeping score, on the solo albums that I’ve done, the only one I played live drums on to this point was “Exile On Johnson St.,” and that was recorded in 1999 when I was still in Illinois. Needless to say, it had been a while since I had done drums on one of my recordings. Since I had this new toy, I figured I’d try it out with a couple songs... So then I got to thinking...Do I use older songs, or do I try to make things interesting? I actually figured that it would be quicker to come up with new songs rather than relearn and rearrange an older song, plus I’d have to go through the back catalog of material and PICK something... I decided 3 was a good number, and devised a challenge for myself: come up with lyrics first, record drums using the lyrics as the only guide, and then make everything else fit what you recorded. It was either going to work out awesome or be a king sized train wreck! FIRST THINGS FIRST: LYRICS! At the “day job,” we were going to be doing some testing for a couple days, so in between monitoring the rugrats, I started working fast and furious on 3 new sets of lyrics. The First day (12/17), I came up with full lyrics for one song and about half the lyrics for another one. Second day (12/18), I finished up lyrics for the song that was started the day before and wrote the lyrics for the third song. Later that afternoon, I set up the drumset, recorder, and a laptop computer to film the whole thing and recorded the drum parts for the 3 songs, now titled “Chairman Of The Horde,” “Fake,” and “Strange Days.” I started recording around 3:30 in the afternoon, and was done around 4:45. On December 20, I fed the songs into the computer. For the sake of quickness, I did the songs on Garageband. As you know, I do have a ProTools setup, but I’m still quicker on Garageband, and since I was sort of working on a tight schedule, I went that route. Once the songs were in the computer, I started messing around with rhythm guitar parts. Riffs and progressions came pretty quickly, and I was able to finish up rhythm guitars in just a couple hours. A FEW DAYS OFF FOR THE HOLIDAY... Recording resumed on December 26 with the bass guitars being done. This went faster, as most of the songs had the bass following the rhythm guitars with a few deviations. Probably took an hour or so to knock the bass parts out. December 27 saw the second guitars and vocals done. The second guitars were a usually a slight variation of the main rhythm part, with maybe some chords played differently to “open up” the sound, as well as lead guitars. Since the weakest part of my playing I think is my lead guitar playing, I took my time and probably had them done after a couple hours or so. Once I was happy with the leads, I turned my attention to the vocals. I did one practice run of the song to try out melodies and make sure the lyrics fit, then I’d record. “Chairman” and “Fake” went down without a hitch, but “Strange Days” took a little more time, as I had more lyrics than I had space. I had to make some edits to the lyrics to get them to fit, but everything worked out and the lyrics didn’t suffer from it. I then mixed the songs down and had them up on the myspace page before dinner! ABOUT THE SONGS... “Chairman Of The Horde” is about the feeling musicians get when they hit the stage. A little bit of imagination, but fun nontheless. I love the line “I’m Superman with a 6 string sword!” Don’t know where it came from, but it paints a picture! “Fake,” lyrically, has been floating in my head for a while, but I had never written anything down until this project. Not really directed at a particular person, but if you spend enough time looking around, you’ll see people (famous or otherwise) that this song could be about. “Strange Days” is strange. A little abstract, and I really can’t explain it any further than that. I like it though! As soon as I figure out what kind of podcast I want to do with these songs, I’ll have them up here! Since I had a entry about the first few solo albums, I figured that I should have another one about the 2 most recent ones...
“Swagger” This album, if you followed the news reports on here about it in the "Old News" section, was an ordeal to make. It was started back in 2005, and actually finished around the start of summer of 2006. I finished recording on a Sunday, and the following Monday I went to start mixing down, and the hard drive on the computer DIED. Totally. No possibility of recovering anything, including the album! Only one song, the instrumental song “A Sporting Chance,” which was recorded on my trusty old 4 track, survived. For added insult to injury, around that same time my 4 track had developed a bad habit of eating the tapes, so to get “A Sporting Chance” for the album I had to download it off my myspace page! Can you say WTF?? By the time the computer was fixed, Train Of Thought was up and running, so I was putting all my focus into working with that. When TOT suddenly imploded, I decided to get back to re-doing “Swagger.” I had upgraded to a ProTools rig, and had a few new guitar toys to play with as well. Once I started recording, it took from June to around August 2007 to get everything redone. Once everything was done, to my horror I found that most of the songs had this “hum” that was in the songs. I figured out later that an old EQ that I had from Illinois was adding the extra noise. I tried to get it out with some signal processing, but to no avail. I still like the songs, and I’ve entertained the idea of re-re-recording the songs...but probably not! Anyway, on to the songs... “I’m Gonna Play” - Sounds like a southern rock thing, and also reminds me a little of “The Train” from my “Broken Clock” album project. Straightforward song about being a musician. “Face Down (Another Day In Paridise)” - This song dates back to the Stone Monkey/Mr. Sinister days, in fact, Mr. Sinister used to play this one. Story about finding the hottest girl in the world, getting her number, only to find that she gave ya the wrong number! Was it an accident, or were you burned? “Swagger” - Another song like “I’m Gonna Play,” a chance to do some ‘chest-beating’ or something like that. This was probably the most fun to put together and record. “Believe” - A cool little semi-orchestrated song about some of the things that I hold true, or something like that! A fairly personal song from someone who doesn’t usually write personal songs... “A Sporting Chance” - An instrumental song that was written for my friend and old bandmate Wes for a radio show that he was producing. It was used on an AM station, but I never heard it! Either way, it was a fun song to do. “Hollywood Rose” - An old song dating back to the Inkognito days that I’ve always loved, but never did anything with. I came across it again while looking for another song, and decided to use it for this album. Probably the most ‘radio friendly’ song I’ve done. “Another Monday” - Kind of like new years resolutions: you say you’re going to make a change, and the next thing you know, another year (Monday) is here and you’re saying the same thing all over again...Another song from the Stone Monkey/Mr. Sinister days that got a new lease on life... “My Bad Ride” - Cars and guitars! Mr. Sinister used to also do this song back in the day. “My Way” - An Inkognito song that really was written, rehearsed a few times, and then was forgotten. I found this song around the same time I rediscovered “Hollywood Rose,” and decided that I wanted to add this one to this album. The lyrics fit with some of the other songs, and I found myself really liking the song. I can understand why Inkognito didn’t do anything with it, but a good song is a good song, knowwhatImean? “Revive Recharge” and “Recharge” - 2 songs for the price of one, eh? The “Revive” riff from “Exile” and the other solo albums rides again! This time, there was a new progression that worked it’s way into the song, and as I was working on “Recharge” I found myself stuck trying to find a bridge section for the song. As I was working it out on an acoustic, I started playing the new part from this “Revive” and it fit! So, I worked out a fade out on the “Revive” and a fade in on “Recharge” to like the songs together. “Drift” - Probably one of the strangest songs I’ve done in a while. the lyrics tell the story of a satellite (UFO?) that is watching something (us?) from space, and then leaves to find what lies beyond. It was so different from the other songs that it had to be last on the album. =========================================================================================== “The Mystery Hum: Movie For Your Ears Volume 2” As I finished up the “Swagger” album, I found that I had a lot of instrumental ideas floating around, so I decided that a second “Movie For Your Ears” project was needed. I had been experimenting with the synth program Reason for my “day job” and had several little ideas that were cool sounding floating around, so I decided to flesh them out a bit, and then I started with some other cool little riffs and melodies that I had and starting putting things together. The name of the album obviously came from the unexpected noise in the finished “Swagger” songs, and on a few of the 24 songs that were done I tried to put some intentional “mystery hums” into the songs. Several of the songs have these synth drones going on just under the surface. I tried to make this album feel like a movie score soundtrack, and also tried to make it feel like the songs were telling a story of an imaginary movie. Hopefully it works to people other than me! As of the beginning of 2008, these are the most recent albums...Stay tuned for podcasts, and more new music! Conspiracy Incorporated is a 'studio band' consisting of me and my best friend Tom. It has roots in a goof thing we did while we were in high school. In 1994, Tom and I were talking about doing another music project similar to what we did while we were in high school. We thought it would be cool do another, seeing that we had imporoved greatly as songwriters and musicians. But, when Tom and I do something, it HAS to be somewhat twisted...After we decided to call this thing Conspiracy Incorporated, we came up with the title of the album "ON THE SIDE." Then, we came up with titles for a bunch of songs, with no music written at this point. With the songs, when it came to the lyrics, these titles had to be incorporated into the songs. The next day, I sat with a tape recorder and played riffs on an acoustic guitar for each title, just going off whatever the title suggested. So, now all of these riffs have to be used in some form in the song it was written for. It didn't have to be a main component of the song, but they had to be used. This process took about 4 days, and then we started recording. Then life stepped in... I was still playing in Inkognito as well as being in grad school, and Tom got married and moved to California in 1995. By the time he moved, we had about 9 songs mostly completed, and we decided to work on it whenever we got the chance. It's been hard for him to keep up with things, but I was able to complete more songs, and as of 1999, when I moved to Florida, we had 18 songs done for this. Why didn't we release anything yet? Did I mention that "On The Side" is going to have about 46 songs?? All the songs that were done at this point didn't really 'fit' into a cohesive album at the time, so we decided that we had to finish the entire thing. After doing some writing over the last couple years, we've decided that this year (hopefully) is the year that we get this thing done. I start producing and recording songs on June 1, 2003. And through the "WONDERS OF THE ELECTRONIC AGE" Tom is hopefully going to be putting more of his unique vocal stylings on some songs. This is our summer project. I have been keeping a journal of the entire process of us working on this, and I'll be posting periodic updates on the album's progress here as well. You're probably wondering what this monstrosity sounds like at this point. It's hard to say, because on top of the other guidelines we set with the songs (lyrics having the title, using the guitar riffs) we also decided what style each song was going to be. So, there's a couple rock songs, a few funky songs, some really heavy songs, some mellow songs, and some that I really don't know how to describe. In other words it's all over the place! Once it's totally recorded, it will be really intresting to sequence all these songs into an order that makes sense. We don't even have half of the album done, and I'm already losing sleep over this! Plus, figure in that some of the songs were recorded anywhere from this summer to 9 years ago! Should be a fun adventure! And yes it was! The recording was finished in Febuary of 2004 and the 52(!) song monstrosity is done! I will have some audio samples soon, so keep checking back. Hopefully, I'll also be able to make the set availiable sale or something soon as well! Stay tuned for that info! UPDATED APRIL 18, 2010: A video for the namesake song was made by myself! I’m going to tell you about my solo albums that I’ve done in the last few years here. There will soon be some dedicated podcasts here soon for these albums, and info on getting copies of them as well. Enjoy!
“Exile On Johnson St.” This album was recorded over a couple weeks in July 1999, literally a few weeks before I moved to Miami. It was recorded in the original Squrkett Sound in Macomb, Illinois. It was a real fun challenge as well as a great learning experience to try to do a project almost totally on my own. By this time in my life Inkognito had broken up, and I had a bunch of songs that didn’t fit what Inkognito was doing, so I decided to finish up a few more of the songs, and put a few more that I had laying around that I never did anything with. I went in with 18 song ideas, recorded 17 of them, 13 that were new recordings. When I mixed everything down to CD in 2002 I cut 2 songs off, and had a really concise 15 song set. Other than a couple songs that had a drum machine, and one song that had a couple solos by Inkognito guitarist Mike Koontz, I played every instrument on the album. Sonically, the album doesn’t sound as crisp as the later ones, but the general vibe and energy is really good. When I do my acoustic shows, songs from “Exile” are fixtures in the setlists, especially “How Does It Feel” and “Elvis Lives in Big Neck.” And if you’re wondering, there really is a town in Illinois called Big Neck, I’ve been there, and it figures greatly in the “mythology” with me and my friends! Let me give you a track by track tour of “Exile On Johnson St.:” “Revive” and “Revive Reprise” - A general feeling I was having at this time, like waking up from a dream and seeing you’re better for it all. There are 2 versions of this instrumental on here for nothing more than to bookmark the beginning and the end of the album. “Turnaround” - It feels like a ‘starting over’ song, and since that was what I was going through in my personal life at that point, it seemed to fit, and it makes a good opening song on the album. “New Horizons” - Written in 1988 on the eve (literally) of my freshman year at Western Illinois University. It originally appeared on a demo I made in 1989 for friends called “Trick Bag.” Before you ask, that demo is no longer availiable and there are no plans to change that. I always loved the song, and when I decided to do this album, this was the first song selected for it. What is on this album is a new version with a full band. I also recorded a new acoustic version at this time too, but kept it off this album for time concerns. The acoustic version is a bonus track on “Broken Clock.” “Vent” - Have you ever been so mad that all you could do is rant about everything that bugged you for days on end? That’s where this song is coming from. Writing this stuff down is actually very therapudic I think. “Those Restless Nights” - A nice little love from afar type of tune. I guess I’m a bit of a romantic at heart or something? Good feel though... “You’ve Got Me Running” - The music is new, but the lyrics were much older than that. The original lyrics were given to me by a guy whose name I can’t remember, but I ended up rewriting them once I had the music. One of my favorite songs on here... “How Does It Feel” - An attitude/pissed off song directed at a person that I once cared a lot for. I sometimes try not to write songs that are directly about me or things that happen to me, but as in the case of a few other songs over the years, including “New Horizons” they still pop up and bring a personal touch to things... “Wrestling For Sunlight” - Sometimes in life you feel like there’s never going to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Most of the time, there is, but you have to look for it. This is my journal of that journey, and how I got there. I saw the phrase ‘wrestling for sunlight’ on a billboard once, and that is how I got on this line of thought. “Pappilon” - A little instrumental that I’ve been toying around with for years, and finally decided to record it for something. “Town To Town” - A bluesy song that is just fun to listen to. The song was written in 1991 for Inkognito, but it didn’t fit with that band, then this version was recorded for the Conspiracy Inc. project (coming soon), and it somehow ended up here. “She’s Always Alone” - Written in 1991 for Inkognito, but we never used it. Mike Koontz played the main solo and the outro solo on this song. A nice laid back song about this beautiful girl that we all saw a lot, but as the title suggests, she was always alone. We found out later that she was a psycho... “No Regrets (It’s Over Now)” - Another break up song that dates back to about 1991. I’ve always liked the lyrics, but I had trouble getting music that I thought did them justice till I was working on this album. “Elvis Lives In Big Neck” - If you drive in Illinois from Macomb to Quincy, you pass through this town, although all it is is a couple buildings and an intersection! This “sprawling megalolplous” became an inside joke with me and some friends of mine. If you think about it though, if Elvis WAS alive, who’d look there...................? “Exiles” - A fun uplifting attempt at writing an anthem for the non-conformist in all of us. The title of this album seemed to change almost every week until this song came along; after this, there was no doubt =========================================================================================== “Broken Clock” After I moved to Miami, I started playing some acoustic shows here while I was trying to get a new band going. I really had a blast doing them, and I started writing some new songs to have in the set. Then Citizen Bane was formed and was starting to get going, so I devoted my time to getting that band off the ground. Then Citizen Bane broke up after the first gig! I started doing acoustic shows again, and then started about doing another album. “Broken Clock” was recorded over the summer of 2002, and other than drums I played all the instruments. The reason I didn’t play drums is that I don’t have room in Squrkett Sound South to do them! The bulk of the songs were songs that I had written for the acoustic show, with a few more thrown in for good measure...and now, the songs: “The Train” - Written in about 1 hour while trying to work out another song. All about trying to regain a positive attitude I guess, hop on! “Promised Land” - I’ve never really been a love song kind of guy, and this would have to be as close to one as you can get without really saying it. “South” - Inspired by my cross country move to Florida. I was looking headlong into a clean slate, and looking forward to all that awaited me, good or bad. “Waitin’ For The Storm” - The song started out by messing around with an out of tune guitar at a music store. I managed to get a tuning that sounded cool, and then the music and lyrics just came almost instantly. They were sort of inspired by all the news about a possible hurricane that was coming close to Miami a month or two after I got there, but you can get another interpretation from the lyrics too.......... “Close To Home” - About missing someone and not being able to wait till the next time you can see them. Not sure what inspired the lyrics. One of the last songs finished for the album. “Broken Clock” - A bit of wishful thinking. Ever notice that everything we do nowadays is measured by what time the clock says it is? I figure that if we have to live that way, I want a clock that doesn’t work. I don’t want to think about what time it will be, I want to think about right now! “Make A Stand” - When you get knocked down you basically have 2 choices: you can stay down, or you can get up and get to work. I always choose the latter... “Fires Of Babylon” - The events of September 2001 has impacted all of us, and this is my take on what I saw over in the aftermath. I wasn’t sure that this was going to be here, but everyone that heard it said that I had to put it on here. “Leap Of Faith” - One of the most upbeat songs that I’ve ever written. Which is really saying something as I usually don’t write songs like this. But, if you think about it, everyday that we decide to get out of bed, or wake up for that matter, is a leap of faith...there’s your Zen moment! “Keep Movin’” - If you stop you die, you’ve got to keep movin’ no matter what life throws at you... “Revive Reprieve” - A continuation of the instrumentals that bookend the “Exile On Johnson St.” album. It’s a simple little riff that I’ve been able to stretch out over 2 albums, and this is now a tradition! I also wanted to use this as a way to like this album to “Exile,” as I was trying to write from the same space that most of that album came from. Hope it worked! “New Horizons (acoustic)” - One of my favorite songs that I’ve ever done. There is an electric version on “Exile,” and I also recorded this version during the sessions for that album, but I had to cut one off for the CD. This is actually the way that the song was concieved, and the other version was the experiment to see how well it worked as an electric song. I have to say that I still like this version better, which is why I put this version recorded in 1999 on this album. And it fits well here too! =========================================================================================== “Jacuzzi Blue: Movie For Your Ears Volume 1” My first all instrumental album. There are 21 songs on the album and the styles range from straight up rock/metal stuff to orchestral, avant-garde, and even some hillbillly thrown in for good measure! This CD was recorded in 2003, although I had been writing things for it for a while before I actually started recording. It was an experiment of sorts. It was the first time that I used loops on the computer to help flesh out some songs, and also the first time that I tried to do a totally instrumental album. I had so much success with the loops that it enabled me to finish up the Conspiracy Incorporated ‘box set’ that had been stalled for a number of years. The recording took about 2-3 months here at Squrkett Sound South. =========================================================================================== “Statements and Splinters” A mainly all acoustic album (electronic drums notwithstanding) that was recorded in the spring of 2004. This one was a combination of songs that had been floating around since I had finished “Broken Clock,” and songs that I was writing while I was doing the Conspiracy Incorporated project. Basically, when I would hit a point where I was having trouble coming up with stuff that I needed for C.I., I would start messing around with an acoustic guitar to get my mind off whatever was stalling me. It helped a little, but I ended up starting to stockpile a lot of acoustic songs. In March 2004, as I was putting the Conspiracy songs into the running order for the CDs, I realized that I had an album’s worth of really cool little acoustic songs, so, the day after I finished C.I., I started recording these songs: “Other Shoe” - This is the only song that wasn’t written with the story mentioned above. This song goes back to 1993-4, if I remember right. I usually open my acoustic shows with this one, and I was originally use the demo I have of if from that time, but I found that I’d changed the arrangement of the song over the years, so I decided to update it. “Roller Coaster” - A quick uptempo country barnburner...sit back, lock yourself in... “Old Ghosts” - Our pasts are never as far away as we’d like to think... “Kingdom Of Fear” - A ‘political’ type song inspired by Hunter S. Thompson. I had wanted to send it to him to see what he thought, but he’s not with us anymore. This one and “Old Ghosts” work really well live. “Another Crossroads” - Cool slide work by someone who isn’t that good with slide! “Murderer’s Row” - A story song, something I’d never tried before this. Came out really good I think... “Revive Reload” - Another in the ongoing “Revive” series. It’s starting to become a challenge to keep coming up with variations on that song! I’m hoping to eventually, over the course of my solo albums, to be able to do a compilation CD that is all the “Revive” songs! I have 5 as of now, with another solo CD in progress as of March ’06, so I’m getting there! “New Day” - Just a song about letting go of old grudges, built up anger and aggrivation that was probably really important to you when you’re 18-25 and now it doesn’t mean anything to you now...just let it go! “Right Now” - About a guy I knew that thought he was the coolest guy in the world when it came to chasing girls...in reality he had no nerve, and missed a whole lot of chances with some women who were really into him. He just would say “it’s not the right time” and stuff like that...last I heard he still hasn’t got a girlfriend... “In My Own Hands” - Take Charge, already! “Lessons In Real Time” - Beautiful song, a real challenge to play live, in fact, I’ve yet to get to the point where I can play it live right yet...But I plan on having it in the set for the next group of solo shows I do, so I have no choice but to get it down! “What Will Be Will Be” - I read a lot of books about Zen philosophy, and this song kind of comes from those readings...if you’re a musician, you MUST read “Zen Guitar” by Phillip Sudo! “I’m On My Way” - The first true-as-I-can-get-it blues songs I’ve ever done. Even played upright bass on it, and it’s one of my favorite songs on this album. Well, as of March 2006 these are all the solo albums that I have done. I’m going to be putting up podcasts of the albums in the next few weeks and months, as well as getting a new album out. I’ll talk about that one in a separate entry here on the site. Thanks for reading! |
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