New Song: Detritus

Detritus on Amazon

Cold Again Music Video:

Cold Again Music Video

White Christmas - New Recording:

This is the music video for my recording of White Christmas.
My family has always loved the Clyde McPhatter version of this song. I figured it’s about time to record a version of this classic.

Music Video for White Christmas

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Cold Again - a new song:

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This song is reworked from a song my high school band, Chicos’ Groove, did. You can watch a video of us performing the song, Available With Absence, on my YouTube channel.

I experimented a bit more with Vocoder on this one. It’s not as salient as the vocoder used in Lunar Twilight, but it really helped carry the melody as well as crescendo the diminished chord at the end of the chorus.

The glockenspiel is a favorite of mine. It was a gift from my mom. I picked this particular glockenspiel out because it cost $22, is clearly a kid toy, and plays like a charm! We used it on Silent Trio’s All In A Day’s Work.

The chords for Cold Again were inspired by Time, an Alan Parson’s Project song I first heard from a Mr. Bungle bootleg VHS. During this song on the VHS, Mike Patton is rubbing the head of a stage-diver he had previously hit with his mic. Crazy. The outro chords are similar to The Commodores’ Easy. The quarter-note piano during the outro was inspired by Jay Z a la Empire State of Mind or Hard-Knocked Life.

The bass distortion is thanks to Nathan Curry’s Tub Screamer, two distortion pedals in one with a screaming tub painted on the pedal.

New Song & Music Video - Trailhead

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It is embarrassing to admit how long this silly, less-than-two-minute song took me to rehearse. I wrote it on a flight across country in May, 2016 and finished recording in October, 2016. The first lead bass riff alone was a two-month hurdle. In fact, I wished I could have recorded the song at 105 BPM, but was only able to cleanly execute that riff at 100 BPM. 

I’m really not sure where the motivation for this song came from. For the last year, I’ve been trying to tackle the never-ending, always-growing musical sketch list. My goal has been to plow through as much song-worthy material as possible before playing out with anyone. Seemingly out of nowhere, I was driven to write a song within Logic on my laptop, then record using real instruments. The synth version very much resembles early Nintendo games, such as Super Mario Bros. Because of this, I experimented with a bitcrusher plug-in. It sounded cool on the drums and lead bass, but since the saxes didn’t sound good, the bitcrushing was out of context. 

As much as I’m willing to make fun of this song, I did enjoy duet’ing tenor saxophone and bass, my primary instruments. I hope to write more sax and bass duets.

Circle To Remember - new single:

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Silent Nest:

This song started as a riff just playing with some friends when I lived in Kodiak, Alaska. The jam-band-y chromatic descending turnaround in the verse was catchy enough to prop the smart phone up and record the riff for future use. The main verse riff has been a persistent ear worm since 2013, nagging me to make a song with it ever since.

Jake Jones recorded the drums in October, 2015. I love his groovy style and snare fills. Jake rehearsed one day, recorded the next, and moved out of the United States three weeks later. I hope to play with him again soon. 

I recorded the bass, backing horns, and a placeholder guitar part soon thereafter. Through the fall and winter, I plateaued with the lyrics, clav synth, and guitar. Meanwhile, I produced Lunar Twilight, the preceding single to this one, putting Silent Nest on the back-burner. 

Enter: Patrick Shaw and Mark Campanale.

Pat cranked out the lyrics, a scratch vocal take, and final vocals all within a week. It was incredible. (I could listen to his doubling harmonies all day.) He is a fantastic song-writer and guitarist. 

I’ve also contributed on his music and have had a blast in the process. At the time of this writing, his music is in the queue to be released and man, I can’t wait for people to hear it. Catchy stuff.

Mark can shred. Mark is a left-handed guitarist (like myself). Since we are both used to viewing other guitarists’ hands as mirror images, trying to figure out what he’s playing by following his hands is the only bad part about playing together. 

In Silent Nest, there was no original plan for a guitar solo. During the recording session, he noddled around over the chord changes while I was in the other room getting some water. What he played was so tasty that I ran back yelling, “We need to have you solo on this thing!” So, we laid down two solos. His pedalboard is quite impressive, to boot.

I really dig the funky clav in this song; thank you, Mike. Mike Feldman and I were in a jazz quintet together in high school. It’s a true pleasure collaborating with long-time friends, especially considering our geographical distance. My earliest recording experience was in Mike’s house two decades ago and now my latest is still in his studio, albeit remotely. 

Don’t let the simplicity of his part in this song fool you. If you want to be impressed, check out some of his music. He is so good. And is a pretty solid skier too.

I was a teenager in the ’90’s. My musical influence from that time is fully displayed in Silent Nest. Horns and heavy music are not for everyone, but Jake, Pat, Mark, and Mike delivered. Please enjoy Silent Nest.

Lunar Twilight - My New Song:

Music Video
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