This odd little collection of songs comes directly from the COVID-19 situation in the US. I’m a filmmaker and musician based in Cincinnati, and when I realized how many of my music-slinging friends were suddenly shut down from playing out, I started a Facebook group – “Cincinnati Quarantunes“. The idea was for folks to write a song a day (or whatever they could) and post.
Of course, that required me to rather put up or shut up, so on March 21 I started writing. “Six Days In” was the result. Due to my own unique situation, I was able to focus on this more than expected, and for whatever reason my muse decided to smack me in the back of the head daily. I was able to string together a new song every day for 13 days before other priorities took, well, priority. Each is rooted in some aspect of me trying to cope with this weirdness, tho some are a bit more obvious than others.
So – I realized that I basically had an album on my hands. I didn’t want to spend time re-thinking each song, tweaking, trying to perfect (like I normally do), so I simply threw them all into a mastering session to match levels, and decided to release it as a document of a rather bizarre two weeks of my life. Stylistically it’s all over the place, rough around the edges, and imperfect – kind of like life has gotten for all of us while we muddle through this strange time.
Besides, how often do you get to write and release an album in two weeks?
Hope you enjoy it.
- Six Days In – March 21
- Wonder Where My Freedom Went – March 22
- Them Thar Stars – March 23
- Carpet Monster – March 24
- Man With a Megaphone – March 25
- i Drive – March 26
- Someday – March 27
- Wish You Were Here – March 28
- These Four Walls – March 29
- ‘Rona Muse – March 30
- Sky So Clear – March 31
- April Fool – April 1
- 13 Syllables – April 2
…aaaand, another album!
After releasing “Unintentional“, I continued working to see how many songs I could write in 24-hour periods during the quarantine. While I wasn’t able to work on a song every single day due to other responsibilities, I was able to get another 11 done. We’ll see if any more percolate, but for now, this is album #2 – “Addendum“. It’s a little more, um, eclectic, with everything from folk-pop to punk to synthpop to emulations of old Floyd and Styx (with massive apologies to both).
Just like before, these are presented exactly as they were recorded with only a little level-matching to keep things even while listening.
- Ships and Tide – April 7
- A Couple Days Off – April 8
- Vibration (All of These Days) – April 9
- Gas Money – April 12
- Cast it Away – April 14
- Alt Norm – April 15
- Below the Waves – April 16
- Rook – April 21
- Winding Up – April 23
- Opposable Thumbs – April 25
- All Good – April 27
Video fun – “Vibration (All of These Days)” – in the spirit of the ‘song-a-day’ adventure I decided to try to do a video in a day (April 10). This will all end in tears, you just know it will. 😉
“Some Distant Garage“
Ok – this damn pandemic has successfully driven me stir-crazy. While I’ve kind of run out of things to say about it in an original format, I’ve decided to look back on distant happier times, aka my power-pop formative years when disco was king and me and my buddies were rebelling against it in true teen rocker fashion… or at least as best as we could out in the middle of rural Illinois.
So I’m building a collection of covers that at the moment you can only hear here. They’re done with love, honoring some early heroes. Hope you like them and maybe discover something you’ve never heard before.
1) Tomorrow Night – Shoes – 1978
2) Yellow Pills – 20/20 – 1979
3) Zero Hour – Plimsouls – 1981
4) Teenarama – The Records – 1979
5) Walking Out on Love – The Nerves/Paul Collins Beat – 1976/1979
6) See No Evil – Television – 1977
7) Now You KNow – The Real Kids – 1977
8) Robber – Bram Tchaikovsky – 1979
(to be continued…)
A little press! Sept 22, 2020 – Citybeat
If you’ve made it this far and are curious – here are links to some other releases from the past year:
My debut solo album – “Inconceivable”
Debut album from our band Oh So Luminous – “You Have Always Been”
Remastered album from Kelp – “Dead Band Walking”
Five album instrumental synthesizer epic, 30 years in the making “The Story So Far”